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U.S. Faces a Startling New Political Reality After Donald Trump’s Victory

The American political establishment was reeling from shock on Wednesday as leaders in both parties began coming to grips with four years of President Donald J. Trump in the White House, a once-unimaginable scenario that has now plunged the United States and its allies and adversaries into a period of unprecedented uncertainty about the policies and impact of Mr. Trump.

President Obama, a longtime foe of Mr. Trump, and Hillary Clinton, the president-elect’s vanquished opponent, held separate news conferences to urge people to put aside whatever bruised feelings and disappointment they have and come together for the sake of the republic, and for the good of Mr. Trump’s presidency.

Mr. Obama, addressing the nation from the Rose Garden on Wednesday, said he had called Mr. Trump with congratulations and to invite him to meet at the White House on Thursday to discuss a smooth transition to the Trump administration.

“We are all now rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country,” Mr. Obama said. “The peaceful transfer of power is one of the hallmarks of our democracy. And over the next few months we are going to show that to the world.”

Mrs. Clinton, in her first remarks to supporters after the election, said that she hoped that Mr. Trump “will be a successful president for all Americans,” and said she was “sorry that we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country.”

“This is painful, and it will be for a long time,” Mrs. Clinton said, standing beside her husband, former President Bill Clinton, in a tableau that underscored the end of a nearly 25-year era when the Clintons dominated American politics.

Noting that the country was “more deeply divided than we thought,” Mrs. Clinton added: “We must accept this result and look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president — we owe him an open mind and a chance to lead.”

While her speech largely dealt with politics, Mrs. Clinton choked back tears at times, and turned personal at one point.

“To all the little girls who are watching this,” she said, “never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.”

For many millions of voters, a sense of excitement and even euphoria coursed from coast to coast as they celebrated the election of a true political outsider who had promised to reverse policies of the Obama administration and be a champion for “forgotten Americans.” But millions of others felt a sense of dread and even fear as they tried to fathom how Mr. Trump could win the presidency when so many polls suggested otherwise, and to prepare themselves for the consequences of a new leader who has no experience in government or world affairs.

Trump campaign advisers said on Wednesday that the president-elect was turning to assembling a cabinet and White House team and selecting a conservative nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy. The advisers said Mr. Trump was inclined to roll out a few cabinet nominations at a time, rather than kicking them off with one high-profile pick for a critical department like Treasury or State.

Among the candidates for cabinet secretaries and advisers are members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle, aides said, including Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a crucial adviser on policy issues; Steven Mnuchin, a businessman who was Mr. Trump’s national finance chairman; Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York; Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey; and Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House.

Mr. Trump also spent Wednesday morning receiving phone calls from world leaders, said the campaign advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the transition planning. The advisers declined to identify the leaders, though one said it would be unusual if the president-elect had not heard from allies like Britain and Germany.

Asked if President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had spoken with Mr. Trump, who surprised many Americans by saying that Mr. Putin had been a stronger leader than President Obama, the aide said the two men had not been in touch.
Anxiety was particularly deep among Hispanics, African-Americans, Muslims, immigrants, women and others who had felt disparaged or demonized by Mr. Trump, who at times used harsh and racially charged language in ways that upended mainstream politics. The very idea that Mr. Trump had been endorsed by a Ku Klux Klan newspaper — even if he rejected it — symbolized the sense of shock that he would now lead a vibrantly diverse democracy.

Asked how they would feel about a Trump presidency, more than a third of Americans said they would be frightened, exit polls found. Among those who voted for Hillary Clinton, the feeling was almost unanimous and reflected a deep divide: 92 percent said Mr. Trump scared them.

Politicians also joined business leaders — as well as the many Americans with retirement and savings accounts — in keeping a nervous eye on the world financial markets in fear of the sort of backlash that wounded Britain after its vote in June to leave the European Union. While some business leaders worried about the nation’s sliding into recession, others were more hopeful that Mr. Trump’s proposals of tax cuts, infrastructure spending and relaxing of regulations would be welcomed by the financial markets, which stabilized after sharp declines overnight.

Political activity and reactions in both parties were in a surreal state of suspended animation as Republicans and Democrats began anticipating Mr. Trump’s moves. Paul D. Ryan, the speaker of the House, said at a news conference Wednesday morning that Mr. Trump had a “mandate” for his vision of government, including trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, after his stunning upset victory over Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Ryan described a United States under Mr. Trump as a different place than it has been, saying that the president-elect would be a champion of the many Americans who do not like the direction of the country and “don’t feel heard and don’t feel represented by the people in office.”

Mr. Ryan, who chose in October to stop campaigning for Mr. Trump after revelations about his past offensive language about women, said that he had “spoken with Donald twice in the last 18 hours” and that the president-elect “will lead a unified Republican government.”

“We talked about the work ahead of us, and the importance of bringing the nation together,” Mr. Ryan said at a news conference in his hometown, Janesville, Wis. “This needs to be a time of redemption, not a time of recrimination.”

Mr. Ryan could have been hinting at his own fate. There are a more than a few restless conservatives in Mr. Ryan’s conference in the House who had been agitating for the speaker’s ouster before the election because of his failure to fully embrace Mr. Trump. And whether that discontent will now die down is far from clear.
Other Republicans who made their reservations about Mr. Trump proudly known before the election tried to be gracious, though some sounded more skeptical than optimistic.

Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who became a public face of the anti-Trump faction on Capitol Hill, said he and his family had asked God to steer Mr. Trump in the right direction. “We pray that he will lead wisely and faithfully keep his oath to a Constitution of limited government,” Mr. Sasse said in a statement. Then he promised to hold Mr. Trump to his word. “Starting today, I will do everything in my power to hold the president to his promises,” Mr. Sasse said.

Others conservatives seemed to welcome Mr. Trump as the means to an end that they could all agree on: the dismantling of the parts of the Obama legislative legacy that they found so egregious, particularly the Affordable Care Act and his executive actions on immigration.

“Americans voted for Republicans because of a promise to go to Washington to reverse our current course, and end the Washington cartel — a promise to drain the swamp,” said Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a former Trump rival for the Republican nomination, adopting the slogan that Mr. Trump used as his closing argument to voters. “Now is the time to follow through on those words with action.”

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, another of Mr. Trump’s former primary rivals, even speculated that the reversal of Mr. Obama’s achievements would begin within the first month of a Trump administration.

“This is something I’m excited to do,” Mr. Paul said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I think you’re going to find that we’re going to repeal a half dozen or so of regulations that are killing jobs and making us less competitive with the rest of the world.”

Democratic leaders were largely silent, refraining from making provocative statements on Twitter or elsewhere, as they waited to hear more from Mr. Trump. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who is expected to become the next Democratic minority leader in the Senate, and is one of the party’s toughest brawlers, issued a conciliatory statement noting that Mr. Trump had called him on Wednesday morning.

Elsewhere, the transition of power seemed to be unfolding in an orderly fashion. Word came from the Pentagon on Wednesday morning that Mr. Trump would be receiving the same classified intelligence briefings as the president. The defense secretary, Ashton B. Carter, issued a statement declaring that he was committed to an orderly passing of power to the next commander in chief.

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Protester who sparked Donald Trump assassination fear says he was battered for no reason

THE protester who sparked fears Donald Trump was about to be assassinated at a rally last night has revealed he was holding nothing but a sign.

Austyn Crites has claimed Trump fans kicked and chocked him while the presidential candidate was bundled off stage by his security guards.

There was a frenzy of chaos at the rally in Nevada last night after someone shouted “gun” – despite Crites carrying only a sign.

He told the Guardian: “People started going crazy.
“These people couldn’t grab the sign – they start tackling me, and then just piled on, and someone yelled something about a gun.

“I was yelling down there, ‘There is no gun! I only have a sign! I only have a sign!

“But there were people wrenching on my neck so hard they could have strangled me to death. Other people were grabbing at my balls. Other people were kicking me. It was absolutely nuts.”

Two suited secret service officers pulled the Presidential hopeful away from the microphone and rushing him backstage in Reno, Nevada.

Other secret service agents pinned the man, later identified as Reno-native and registered Republican Austyn Crites, to the floor. Crites, 33, was then manhandled out of the room as heavily-armed police officers flooded into the room. He has since been released.

A Secret Service spokesman later said that after a “thorough” search no gun was found in the venue or on the Crytes.

The 70-year-old was half an hour into a speech when an audience member shouted: “He’s got a gun” and indicated a shaven-headed man in the crowd.

Speaking to The Guardian, Crites said he had worked his way to the front of the crowd to hold up a sign reading “Republicans against Trump” which he had printed off the internet.

The crowd jeered after he raised the sign, Crites said, but then “all of a sudden people next to me are starting to get violent; they’re grabbing at my arm, trying to rip the sign out of my hand.”

At that point Crites claims the crowd “piled on” and he heard someone in the crowd shout “something about a gun” after he hit the floor.

Crites described the Republican nominee for the Presidency as “a textbook version of a dictator and a fascist”.
He also said he did not blame the crowd for their actions: “The people who attached me – I’m not blaming them. I’m blaming Donald Trump’s hate rhetoric.”

Austyn Crites was holding a sign saying ‘Republicans against Trump’ when he was manhandled by security staff
Crites has since written on Facebook: “Take what happened tonight as a classic example of dictator incitement of violence – against your own Republican brother with a stupid sign.”

Republican tycoon Trump reappeared at the Reno Convention Center several minutes after Crites had been removed to cheers from fans, declaring: “Nobody said it was going to be easy for us, but we will never ever be stopped.”
But, Trump’s campaign staff highlighted the incident to contrast Trump with his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton on Twitter.

Dan Scavino, social media director for Trump’s campaign retweeted a supporter who wrote: “Hillary (Clinton) ran away from rain today. Trump is back on stage minutes after assassination attempt.”

The GOP nominee began his day in Tampa, Florida, before racing to Wilmington in North Carolina and Reno.
He planned to end the night at a rally in Denver, Colorado.

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Trump, Clinton blitz across the country in final push amid tightening polls

Democrat Hillary Clinton will spend the final days of the election trying to protect her lead in key battlegrounds, reflecting a tightening, unusually volatile race against Republican Donald Trump.

Trump, whose electoral college prospects are narrower, is now banking on a late-hour attempt to win at least one blue-leaning state — and to dramatically drive up turnout in rural areas in a collection of battlegrounds where he must prevail on Tuesday.

With four days left on the campaign trail, both candidates and surrogates blitzed across the country Friday, making stops in states where polls have narrowed in recent days. The frenzied final days also include celebrity appearances — Jay Z headlined a get-out-the-vote show with Clinton in Cleveland, while Stevie Wonder played “Love Trumps Hate” show on her behalf in Philadelphia — and endless ads airing in battleground states.

Clinton stopped in Pennsylvania and Michigan on Friday, two states where she has consistently led Trump, as well as Ohio. She brought a new urgency to her message at a rally in Pittsburgh, focusing on the danger that a Trump presidency would present to the country and asking supporters to imagine Trump taking the oath of office in front of the Capitol and being in charge of the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

“Think about what it would mean to entrust the nuclear codes to someone with a very thin skin who lashes out at anyone who challenges him,” Clinton said. “Imagine how easy it would be that Donald Trump would feel insulted and start a real war, not just a Twitter war at 3 in the morning.”

While talking about gun violence at a rally in Detroit, Nov. 4, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton asked if supporters had seen the new fashion choice of her rival Donald Trump, “a camo hat.”

While talking about gun violence at a rally in Detroit, Nov. 4, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton asked if supporters had seen the new fashion choice of her rival Donald Trump, “a camo hat.” Hillary Clinton asks if supporters in Detroit have seen the new fashion choice of her rival Donald Trump, “a camo hat.” (The Washington Post)
Clinton urged supporters to stage “an intervention” with friends and family members who plan to vote for Trump by explaining to them that “anger is not a plan.”

“Sometimes the fate of the greatest nations comes down to a single moment,” Clinton said. “This is one of those make-or-break moments for the United States. This is in your hands.”

Trump continued a tour of small towns in rural counties on Friday, first stopping at a country club in Atkinson, N.H. He continued to Wilmington, Ohio, between Cincinnati and Columbus. He planned to end the day in Hershey, Pa.

Besides reminding supporters of Clinton’s scandals, Trump focused on promises to return lost manufacturing jobs, protect residents from what he described as dangerous undocumented immigrants and get rid of crime in faraway major cities.

“Don’t let the pundits, the politicians or the media tell you what kind of a country you have,” Trump said in Wilmington. “Don’t let them limit your dreams because they want to limit your dreams. You can have any future you want.”

The final-days travel schedules of Trump and his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, reflect a dire need to win vote-rich swing states including Florida and North Carolina, where Trump will campaign on Saturday.

The latest Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll shows Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in a dead heat nationally.

Lately, Trump has made many stops in out-of-the-way places, most of which are already guaranteed to break heavily for Republicans.

His advisers say they think he can win over rural whites by a much bigger margin than Republican nominee Mitt Romney did in 2012 — and come away with significantly more votes, which they gamble will offset his weakness among suburban Republicans in battleground states.

As part of a bid to steal a blue-leaning Midwestern state, Trump will also return to Wisconsin on Sunday, a state that a Republican nominee has not won since 1984. The many white, blue-collar voters in the state have raised hopes among Trump and his allies that he has a chance there.

Although Clinton, in contrast, needs only to hold on to leads in the states where she is ahead, she intends to fight for votes beyond those, her campaign manager, Robby Mook, said Friday.

“We built our operation for a wide map from the beginning of the campaign,” Mook said in a phone call with reporters.

And while Trump is trying to drive up turnout among white voters, Clinton is putting a premium on minority voters, who polls suggest are likely to break heavily in her favor.
Mook touted what he called “the Hillary coalition” — Latinos, Asians, African Americans, suburban women and millennials — that he said have on the whole been turning out in strong numbers in battleground states where there’s early voting.
Mook said the campaign is confident its early vote totals will amount to “a firewall” on Election Day, or as he described it, “a lead that Donald Trump is incapable of overcoming.”

He cited several states where Clinton stands to benefit from the strong early voting turnout, particularly among Latinos, including Florida, Nevada and North Carolina.
In Michigan on Friday, Clinton made a pitch aimed at boosting African American turnout in a state where her advisers have suggested Trump could be doing better, given its manufacturing losses and large population of working-class whites, Trump’s strongest constituency.

At a rally in Detroit, Clinton talked about issues including criminal justice reform, college affordability and systemic racism, all of which are of particular importance to black voters. She also criticized Trump for portraying the lives of black people as being “all about crime and poverty and despair.”

“We’re doing everything we can to make sure that we get the numbers that we need,” Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, told reporters earlier Friday. “Michigan is a state that we feel like we’ve got a lead, and we want to make sure that we hold that lead.
“We want to make sure that we get the vote out and make sure people are enthusiastic. We want to end with a crescendo of enthusiasm,” he said.

The Clinton campaign also starting airing television ads in Michigan for the first time in the general election this week.

Trump will make one last swing through two western battleground states: Colorado and Nevada. He also plans to campaign in Iowa, a state where he has performed consistently well in the polls in recent months.

And Trump is slated to hold his final event before Election Day on Monday night in New Hampshire, the state where he notched his first primary win.

Polls have shown Clinton leading in New Hampshire for a long time, but recent surveys signal a turn in Trump’s direction. New Hampshire’s many white, working-class voters — as well as its independent streak — make it a volatile place where Republicans hope voters will break late toward Trump.

Clinton’s schedule is being driven in part by a desire to make stops in states that have not had early voting, in hopes of providing a burst of momentum ahead of Tuesday.

The schedule of Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine of Virginia, illustrates the campaign’s dual focus of trying to protect leads as well as contest close states.

On Monday, Kaine will return to his home town of Richmond to rally voters in Virginia, a state where Clinton’s lead has dwindled in recent weeks.
The plans of the two tickets also highlight a Democratic advantage that will be on full display in coming days: a much stronger and deeper bench of surrogates that can fan out across the country.

Besides Clinton and her running mate, the Democrats are also dispatching a sitting president, a former president, a sitting vice president, a popular first lady and Clinton’s former primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

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Pakistan to deport National Geographic ‘Afghan Girl’

Peshawar, Nov 4: An Afghan woman who appeared on a National Geographic cover when she was 12 will be sent back to the war-stricken homeland she fled decades ago, after a Pakistani court ordered that she be deported.

Sharbat Gula, whose striking green eyes were captured in an image taken by photographer Steve McCurry in a refugee camp in Pakistan in 1985, was arrested last week.

She was accused of living in Pakistan on fraudulent identity papers after a two-year investigation, one of thousands of refugees using fake ID cards.

Gula pleaded guilty on Friday, her lawyer said, and the court sentenced her to 15 days’ imprisonment and a 110,000 Pakistani rupee (£1,319) fine.

“She has already spent 11 days in jail,” Mubashar Nazar said. “We had requested the court release her on humanitarian grounds.”

An Afghan consulate official said the fine imposed on Gula had been paid and she would be released on Monday. “We will take her to Afghanistan in an honourable way on Monday,” said Abdul Hameed Jalili, a counsellor for refugees at the Afghan consulate in Peshawar.

Her four children will also return to Afghanistan. Gula, who has hepatitis C, has said her husband died several years ago.

The National Geographic image of Gula became the most famous cover in the magazine’s history. After a 17-year search, McCurry tracked Gula down to a remote Afghan village in 2002, where at the time she was married to a baker and had three daughters.

Pakistani officials say she applied for the fraudulent ID card in Peshawar in 2014.

Gula’s plight highlights the desperate measures many Afghans take to avoid returning to their homeland, as Pakistan takes a tougher stance on undocumented foreigners.

Pakistan has for decades provided a haven for millions of Afghans after the Soviet invasion of 1979. But since July hundreds of thousands have returned to Afghanistan.

Last month the UN refugee agency said more than 350,000 documented and undocumented Afghan refugees had returned from Pakistan in 2016. It expects a further 450,000 to do so by the year’s end.

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FBI fear of leaks drove decision on emails linked to Clinton: sources

WASHINGTON: FBI Director James Comey was driven in part by a fear of leaks from within his agency when he decided to tell Congress the FBI was investigating newly discovered emails related to Hillary Clinton, law enforcement sources said on Thursday.

The examination of the email traffic is now being carried out under the tightest secrecy by a team at Federal Bureau of Investigations headquarters in Washington, the sources said, requesting anonymity because of the inquiry’s sensitivity.

Several sources said it was unclear whether the FBI would make any further public disclosures about its latest review before Tuesday’s presidential and congressional elections. Two sources said such disclosures were unlikely.
Another source, recently in contact with top investigators, said: “It depends on how it goes and what they find.” The source said that, as of Thursday, “nobody really knows” whether the FBI will have anything further to say before the election.

Dropping like a bombshell on the U.S. presidential campaign, Comey’s disclosure last Friday in a letter to senior lawmakers just days before the elections raised questions about his motives and drew criticism from some over his timing.

Comey disclosed that the FBI was looking at emails as part of a probe into Clinton’s use of a private email system while secretary of state, without describing the emails’ content or how long the inquiry might take. The FBI normally does not comment on ongoing inquiries.

The latest emails examination was moving forward “expeditiously,” said one source close to the review.
The new emails turned up as FBI investigators were examining electronic devices used by former Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner in connection with an alleged “sexting” scandal. Weiner’s estranged wife, Huma Abedin, is a Clinton confidante.

Two law enforcement sources familiar with the FBI’s New York Field Office, which initially discovered the emails, said a faction of investigators based in the office is known to be hostile to Hillary Clinton. A spokeswoman for the FBI’s New York office said she had no knowledge about this.

Democratic Party sources said such a faction was likely responsible for a recent surge in media leaks on alleged details of an ongoing FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

The FBI has made preliminary inquiries into Clinton Foundation activities and alleged contacts between Trump and associates with parties in Russia, according to law enforcement sources. But these inquiries were shifted into low gear weeks ago because the FBI wanted to avoid any impact on the election.

The FBI previously had spent about a year investigating Clinton’s use of the unauthorized server at her home in Chappaqua, New York, instead of the State Department system after classified government secrets were found in some of her emails.

Comey had said in July that while there was “evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”
(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Jonathan Oatis)

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Blast rips through ship in Gadani killing & injuring dozens

KARACHI / GADANI, Nov 2: At least 16 people were killed and dozens wounded on Tuesday when a huge blast ripped through an oil tanker being broken up for scrap in the Gadani shipbreaking yard, some 45 kilometres west of Karachi.

It was not immediately clear what triggered the deadly fire, though some reports suggested it was ignited by a gas cylinder blast inside the 22,000-ton oil tanker.

Officials said the ship was still ablaze as there was not enough equipment to extinguish it. And witnesses say more than 100 workers were on board the vessel when the blast occurred, triggering fears that the death toll might go up.

“The massive vessel was moored at Plot No 56 and workers were cleaning it when a massive explosion occurred around 9:40am,” Nasir Mansoor, the deputy general secretary of the National Trade Union Federation, told The Express Tribune.

The blast occurred in the fuel tank of the ship, he said. Firefighters from Karachi and from the air force and navy were attempting to put out the blaze, Mansoor said. He added that the firefighters would have to wait for the fire to die out “as they lack the foam required to douse it”. Television footage showed a thick plume of black smoke rising from the ship as rescuers rushed to the scene. Edhi Foundation volunteers confirmed 16 deaths, saying that they have ferried 45 injured workers to different hospitals of Karachi for treatment.

“The explosion shook the whole yard. Initially, we thought a bomb has been dropped in the area,” Bashir Mehmoodani, the president of the Shipbreaking Mazdoor Union, told The Express Tribune. “The explosion sent heavy pieces of metal flying up to 300 meters away.”

Mehmoodani said things were really bad. “An unclear number of workers are said to be trapped in the burning ship,” he added. The rescue operation started within half an hour of the blast as the first Edhi ambulance from Hub Chowki reached the site, said worker Saleem Baloch, who took part in the operation. “At least 100 ambulances were on the spot within an hour,” he added.

Cause unconfirmed
There were conflicting reports about what triggered the blaze. Balochistan Home Secretary Akbar Harifal said it was caused by a gas cylinder explosion, but police believe it was ignited when one of the workers on the ship lit up a fire oblivious of the fact that the oil tanker was full of combustible fumes.
Local police official Rehmatullah said it was too early to say what had ignited the fire. “We will register a case against the owners of the shipbreaking yard for alleged negligence,” he told The Express Tribune.

Labour inspection
Labourers in Gadani often work in poor conditions without basic protective gear. Two days back, they staged a protest outside the Karachi Press Club against alleged exploitation by employers in connivance with the labour department and police.

Fida Ahmed, the deputy director labour department in Hub, dismissed the allegation, saying that all workers were registered for social security and other facilities. “The labour department is also investigating the deadly blaze and a report will be available by Wednesday (today).”

The Gadani shipbreaking industry has fallen on hard times recently and employs about 9,000 workers, fewer than in its boom years at the end of the last decade.

Burn casualties
The casualties from Gadani were driven to the Civil Hospital Hub where medics referred those with life-threatening burn injuries to health facilities in Karachi. “We received 26 injured, but one of them, 26-year-old Asghar, succumbed to his injuries,” said Dr Abdul Qadir Siddiqui of the Civil Hospital Karachi. .

He added that six of the injured were treated for their minor injuries and discharged subsequently. “Five of the injured are in a critical condition because their prognosis is not satisfactory, though doctors are trying their best to save their lives,” he added.

Workers call strike
The Gadani shipbreaking yard workers called a three-day strike in protest against the deadly conflagration. In the afternoon, workers staged a rally, demanding that those responsible for the deaths of their fellows be punished. They alleged that owners of the shipbreaking yard were risking the lives of workers by making them work in hazardous conditions. The chairman of the Shipbreaking Association was not available to respond to the allegations.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed his ‘deep grief and sorrow’ over the incident, according to a statement by his office. Industrial accidents are common in Pakistan, with workplaces often forgoing basic safety measures and equipment in the absence of legislation to protect labourers.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2nd, 2016.

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Imran Khan abandons Islamabad protest after inquiry into PM granted

Imran Khan has abandoned plans to bring Islamabad to a standstill after Pakistan’s highest court agreed to his petition to launch an inquiry into corruption allegations against the prime minister.

Khan, the leader of the Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI), had vowed to “lock down” Pakistan’s capital on Wednesday as part of his campaign against Nawaz Sharif after the leaking of the Panama Papers.

He says the prime minister must explain how his children became owners or trustees of offshore companies that own expensive London property.

The cricket star turned politician hopes the tax leaks will be the downfall of Pakistan’s prime minister. As he battles elitism, what does he make of his former brother-in-law Zac Goldsmith’s campaign to be London mayor?

With thousands of Khan’s supporters bearing down on the capital on Tuesday, the supreme court offered a way out of the crisis, saying the PTI and the governing Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) had until Thursday to agree terms of reference for the judge-led inquiry or the court would decide them.

Sharif and his children deny any wrongdoing, but Khan has suggested that the family’s offshore companies may have been used to hide “ill-gotten wealth” or avoid tax.

The imposing supreme court building was surrounded by heavy security for a hearing that attracted leading politicians from the government and the opposition.

Islamabad had been braced for the arrival of thousands of Khan’s supporters, in a repeat of the PTI’s 2014 street protests that lasted four months.

Fearing violent confrontations in the heart of the capital, the government had taken extraordinary steps to head off the protests, including placing shipping containers across some of the access roads into Islamabad and using colonial-era legislation to ban gatherings of more than four people in Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province.

The precautions led Amnesty International to say the government was using “unnecessary and excessive force”.

The PTI initially said that two of its supporters had died because of “excessive use of expired teargas shells” by police, but later withdrew the claim.

Speaking from his hilltop mansion on the outskirts of Islamabad, which has been surrounded by police and PTI supporters in recent days, Khan said the court decision was a victory “for the downtrodden classes of Pakistan”.

“This is what we wanted in Pakistan, to hold the powerful accountable, which has never happened in the history of our country,” he said.

Instead of a protest, he said his party would stage a “thanksgiving rally” on an officially designated parade ground some way from the sensitive government quarter that was the focus of the 2014 protests.

In response, the government ordered the removal of barricades blocking roads into the capital and began releasing detained PTI workers.

The impending protest had created a sense of crisis in Islamabad, where Sharif is embroiled in a poisonous row with Pakistan’s military, a powerful institution he had hoped to curb when he came to power in 2013.

Some of the prime minister’s aides feared violent clashes between government-controlled police and PTI workers would have provided a pretext for the army to force Sharif from power.

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The right to protest: PTI challenges Section 144 in capital

ISLAMABAD, Nov 1: Prominent Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) legislator Asad Umar filed a petition before the Islamabad High Court, challenging the imposition of Section 144 and the ban on loudspeakers in the federal capital. Simultaneously, he requested the court to remove police stationed outside the residence of Imran Khan.

He has made the federation a respondent through the Ministry of Interior, Islamabad Police inspector general, chief commissioner and deputy commissioner.

Umar said the respondents are forcing people to yield to government force and give up rights guaranteed by the Constitution. He said this was not only “illegal, but deprives citizens of the right to a free democracy and independent judiciary”.

He alleged notifications, just a few days prior to the protest, provided clear evidence of the politicisation of the respondents. Umar said that after government orders, the IGP passed verbal orders for the illegal arrest and detention of PTI workers, voters and supporters.

On October 27, the district magistrate issued two notifications, while exercising his powers under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, thereby imposing a prohibition on the gathering of five people or more. Also banned within the federal capital for two months was the use of loudspeakers within the federal capital.

Umer stated in the petition that under the guise of the impugned notifications and orders of respondents, the capital’s police started harassing and illegally arresting and detaining workers, members, affiliates and leadership of the PTI.

Umar stated hundreds of workers, members and affiliates of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf are currently in police custody following the notifications. He claimed fake FIRs were registered against them under Section 188 of the Pakistan Penal Code and other provisions of the law.

The PTI leader, through his counsel, maintained that a huge contingent of police and Frontier Constabulary were deployed at the residence of PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s residence in Bani Gala. He claimed Imran had been put under an unannounced and illegal ‘house arrest’, which was a violation of fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

He said the respondents are not dealing with the petitioner, party members and PTI leadership according to Article 4 (right of individuals to be dealt with in accordance with law) of the Constitution.

“Respondents are acting in excess of their lawful authority and causing unjustified, unreasonable agony to petitioner, workers, members, affiliates and leadership of the petitioner’s party,” he stated. He added these notifications were issued for politically-motivated purposes and the discretion afforded to the deputy commissioner was exercised wrongfully. He added workers, voters and supporters of PTI were being deliberately targeted and arrested from their homes, restaurants, hotels or while travelling to and from the PTI protest.

“In the present case, the attempt to arrest, harass and restrain [party] workers from attending the PTI protest amounts to the violation of the Constitution,” the petition read.

He asked the court to declare the notifications illegal and pass an order to quash all FIRs registered against the workers and others. Further, he requested the court to issue directions to remove the contingent of law enforcers from outside Imran’s residence.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1st, 2016.

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This Remote Pakistani Village Is Nothing Like You’d Expect

PASSU, Pakistan — Sajid Alvi is excited. He just got a grant to study in Sweden. “My Ph.D. is about friction in turbo jet engines,” Alvi says. “I will work on developing new aerospace materials—real geeky stuff!”

Alvi’s relatives have come to bid him farewell as he prepares to leave his mountain village and study in a new country, some 3,000 miles away.

“We will see you again,” one of them says as they hang out in the potato field in front of Alvi’s house. “You know you won’t get far with a long beard like that. You look like Taliban!”

Alvi, dressed in low-hanging shorts and a Yankees cap, is far from a fundamentalist: He’s Wakhi, part of an ethnic group with Persian origins. And like everyone else here, he is Ismaili—a follower of a moderate branch of Islam whose imam is the Aga Khan, currently residing in France. There are 15 million Ismailis around the world, and 20,000 live here in the Gojal region of northern Pakistan.

I’ve been visiting Gojal for 17 years, and I’ve watched as lives like Alvi’s have become more common here. Surrounded by the mighty Karakoram Range, the Ismailis here have long been relatively isolated, seeing tourists but little else of global events. But now, an improved highway and the arrival of mobile phones have let the outside world in, bringing new lifestyles and opportunities: Children grow up and head off to university, fashions change, and technology reshapes tradition. Gojal has adjusted to all of this, surprising me every time I return by showing me just how adaptable traditions can be.

With these photos, I hope to add nuance to our understanding of Pakistan, a country many Westerners associate with terrorism or violence. People have suffered from this reputation, and many feel helpless in trying to change it. The Pakistan I’ve seen is different from that popular perception. I returned there this summer with my family and focused my attention on a young and forward-thinking community in Gojal, a place I know well.

I first came here in the summer of 1999. I was 25 and my girlfriend and I bought one-way tickets to Pakistan. We were looking for inspiring treks (the Karakoram Range has the highest concentration of peaks taller than 8,000 meters). Back then, we were among the roughly 100,000 foreign tourists to visit northern Pakistan each year.

We stayed for months, opening new passes, learning the language, and exploring the Karakoram, Hindu Kush, and Pamir. I kept returning, but over the years, I saw the number of fellow hikers plunge. The tourism department now records only a few thousand foreign visitors each year.

“Following the terrible September 11th attacks, anyone involved in tourism had to sell their jeeps or hotels; no tourists dared to come here anymore,” says Karim Jan, a local tour guide.

With each return visit, I noticed other changes. While outsiders were rare, the improved Karakoram Highway, now able to host vehicles other than Jeeps and 4x4s, brought in local tourists from south Pakistan, and southern cities became more accessible to the Wakhi.

“In these remote parts, our relationship to our honored guests has never changed,” Jan says. “You know, our kids go away to the cities, but deep down we are just mountain farmers living off the land. Sometimes we feel sadness for the way the Western world thinks of us, but we would rather joke about it than be bothered by it.”

The day after Alvi’s going-away party, we climb a nearby hill where young people are gathering. In the distance, we see the peak of Tupopdan—which means “sun-drenched mountain” in Wakhi—as it towers above a green oasis and the Passu village. A road winds through a barren valley—a branch of the old Silk Road. Beyond these peaks are the deserts and plains of Central Asia, China, and Afghanistan.

Some of the young men on the hill sport designer t-shirts, jeans, styled beards, and ponytails (hipsters know no boundary). Others wear the traditional white pants and long shirt. Four young men bring up a huge speaker and blast a mix of dancehall and traditional music.

As we dance, a group of girls watches us, laughing. Others ignore us, focusing instead on a game of volleyball. Alvi points to them.

“They are all going to school and most of them speak at least four languages,” he says, as our conversation switches between English, Wakhi, and Urdu. “We have a famous saying: If you have two children, a boy and a girl, but you can afford to educate only one, you must give the education to the girl.”

A few days later, Esar Ali, dressed in a suit and ready for a family wedding, climbs a boulder, away from the crowd. “The recent changes,” he says, discussing village life, “they come a lot from our education. Nowadays we go to universities outside of our villages, in the cities or abroad.”

“But they also come from this,” he adds, pointing to his phone. Smartphones and mobile data networks have changed how the people here relate to the outside world, and to their neighbors.

“I first saw Shayna in a town near my village,” Ali says. “There is a decent 2G reception there.”

“We started messaging, agreeing on a time to talk when no one is at home,” he says. “In our tradition, to be with someone is something sacred. So while we slowly establish our relationship, we never want to offend our elders. Phone or no phone, we have to keep our customs alive.”

Ali is now married to Shayna. This courtship would’ve been much different 10 years ago, but not because he wouldn’t have had a mobile phone. Back then, “our parents would pick the bride or groom,” he says. “But now it’s practically all love marriages, or rather arranged love marriages. We simply suggest to our parents the boy or girl we want to marry.”

There are two long lines in front of the wedding house; men on one side, women on the other. An elderly lady, her white veil flowing on top of an embroidered skullcap, welcomes me. She takes my right hand and kisses the top of it. I kiss hers in return; it’s the Wakhi way of greeting each other. I walk down the line, asking the traditional “How is your health, my sweet mother?” to each of the ladies.

It’s a typical mud house, and inside, young men are standing next to a gigantic pot of food; Ali steps up and says he hopes I’m hungry. “They are making bat for over 200 people,” he says, referring to the porridge-like food in the pot. “We will eat that with boiled sheep meat and lots of chai.”

My wife and two young sons are outside somewhere playing cricket. When I look for them, I see my wife being pulled into a group selfie with the young bride and her friends. They ask me to join in.

Here, there is no such a thing as an uninvited guest. We’re joined by our friends Emmanuelle and Julien from Paris, and they’ve brought their two daughters. “With the current world situation, people thought we were joking when we were telling them that we were going on holiday to Pakistan,” Emmanuelle says. “We got worried too and almost called off the trip.”

But Emmanuelle says she’s glad she didn’t cancel. The scene is nothing like what she assumed.

“I mean, if you ask someone back home to imagine life in a remote mountain region in Pakistan, do you think they will picture this? This place is really doing something to me; it’s making my soul grow.”

Coming here again and again, this tight community always humbles me. Now, as external changes increasingly permeate daily life and relationships, Gojal has planted a foot in the modern world while retaining its traditions and ability to inspire. Traveling in places that we only know little about—or hold wrong ideas about—puts life into perspective. I hope the grace of this place will touch many more people.

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Pakistani cadets ran, jumped from windows to flee militants

QUETTA, Pakistan — Survivors of a Monday night attack that killed 61 people at a Pakistani police academy described chaotic scenes of gunfire and explosions, with militants shooting anyone they saw and cadets running for their lives and jumping from windows and rooftops.

A Taliban splinter group and an affiliate of the Islamic State group made competing claims of responsibility for the four-hour siege late Monday at the Police Training College on the outskirts of the southwestern city of Quetta.

Most of the dead and the 123 wounded were recruits and cadets, said Wasay Khan, a spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps. Of the three militants who carried out the attack, two blew themselves up with explosive vests and the third was killed by army gunfire, he added.

As the nation reeled and sought to understand how militants were able to carry out such violence, many Pakistanis were reminded of a bloody 2014 attack by the Taliban on an army-run school in Peshawar in which more than 150 people, mostly children, were killed.

Broadcasters on Tuesday showed the aftermath of the attack on the Quetta academy: scorched windows and floors littered with the shoes of the dead and wounded.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif rushed to the scene to meet with survivors, who spoke of the horrors of the surprise attack on about 700 cadets, trainees, instructors and other staff that began about 11:30 p.m.

Cadet Asif Hussain said he had been asleep when gunshots broke out.

“We hid ourselves beneath cots. We had in our mind that if we didn’t lock ourselves inside the hall, they will kill us,” he said.

The attackers kicked at their door but failed to open it, Hussain said. The gunmen instead fired on them from a window, wounding two cadets before moving to a nearby dorm.

Shortly after entering, one of the attackers detonated his vest inside a hall after firing at cadets.

In the chaos, cadets and trainers ran for their lives, jumping through windows and off rooftops to try to escape.
Troops arrived and “it gave us confidence that we are safe now,” Hussain said.

Another recruit, his face covered in blood, told a TV station that the gunmen shot at anyone they saw.
“I ran away, just praying God might save me,” he said.

Another witness, Faisal Khan, said he had been chatting with friends when the shooting began.
“We closed the main door and switched off lights,” he said.

While most of the casualties were from the academy, some of the soldiers who responded to the assault also were killed, said Shahzada Farhat, a police spokesman in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.

The Islamic State group posted a claim of responsibility on the group’s media arm, the Arabic-language Aamaq news agency. The claim was not confirmed by Pakistani officials and IS did not offer any previously unknown details about the attack.

A little-known breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, called the Hakimullah group, also claimed responsibility.

In addition, Maj. Gen. Sher Afgan, head of the Pakistani paramilitary force that is primarily responsible for Baluchistan province, said the attackers had received instructions from commanders in neighboring Afghanistan and were most likely from the banned militant group Lashker-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi, which is affiliated with al-Qaida and the Taliban. The Sunni militant group has mainly targeted minority Shiite Muslims whom its members consider to be infidels.

Pakistani officials said they had received intelligence reports that militants had entered Baluchistan province, but there was no indication of possible targets.

Earlier, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, without naming Afghanistan, said enemies of Pakistan were planning attacks in Pakistan from a neighboring country.

Kabul condemned the attack and dismissed the allegations that the assault was planned from bases inside Afghanistan.

“Afghanistan is the biggest victim of terrorism and denounces all terrorist attacks,” said Mohammad Haroon Chakhansuri, spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Pakistan maintains that militants fleeing army operations in its tribal regions regularly flee over the border and find safe haven in Afghanistan. For his part, Ghani has criticized Pakistan, saying it has provided shelter to the Taliban, and in particular, the violent Haqqani network.

For over a decade, Baluchistan has been the scene of a low-intensity insurgency by nationalist and separatist groups demanding a bigger share in the regional resources.

Pakistan has carried out several military operations against militants in its lawless tribal regions near Afghanistan, including a major push that began in mid-2014 in North Waziristan, a militant base. The militants have killed tens of thousands of people, seeking to install their own harsh brand of Islamic law.

Later Tuesday, the flag-draped coffins of the slain cadets and troops began being moved from Quetta to their families for burial.

One of the dead, army Capt. Rooh Ullah, was given Pakistan’s fourth-highest military award for killing one of the militants before he was slain. Sharif, the army chief, attended a service for him in Quetta before the body was flown to his hometown in the northwest.

Ullah’s father told a local TV station that he was proud his son died a “martyr.”

In Islamabad, minority Christians lit candles for those killed. They chanted slogans condemning violence and vowing to support the victims.