All about pakistanis

School accused of Mumbai terror role opens its doors

- 4 hours and 21 minutes ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/47153?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+School+accused+of+Mumbai+terror+role+opens+its+doorsch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Mumbai+terror+attacks+%28News%29%2CIndia+%28News%29%2CPakistan+%28News%29%2CTerrorism+-+international%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Saeed+Shahc7=2008_12_05c8=1129193c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Mumbai+terror+attacksc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FMumbai+terror+attacks" width="1" height="1" //divpAt first sight, they could be the grounds of an English public school, with neatly trimmed lawns and earnest young pupils walking between classes. But this is the site that India believes is the headquarters of the terrorist group responsible for last week's Mumbai attacks. /ppBoarding houses provide spartan accommodation, and orderly rows of trees line the sprawling site, just outside the eastern city of Lahore. Smartly turned-out pupils perform science experiments in the classrooms, peering into microscopes and connecting electric circuits. There is a farm, a swimming pool and a hospital. /ppIndia, and some western terrorism experts, believe this is the headquarters of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned Islamist group suspected of carrying out last week's Mumbai attacks. But according to the organisers of a tour of the site yesterday, it is simply the educational and charitable arm of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an Islamic group that is legal in Pakistan but declared a terrorist organisation by the US./ppFollowing Pakistan's ban on Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2002, it is widely believed to have morphed into Jamaat-ud-Dawa, though the two claim to have no link./ppThe campus, set in countryside at Muridke, an hour's drive from Lahore, is the place that India would be likely to target if it took retaliatory military action over the Mumbai attacks. /pp"This is a residential and educational complex," said Abdullah Muntazir, Jamaat-ud-Dawa's spokesman, taking journalists around the Muridke site yesterday in a media charm offensive launched by the group. "You can see for yourself. This is all Indian propaganda."/pp"Jamaat-ud-Dawa speaks up very loudly against Indian conspiracies; we let the public know that India is the real enemy. That's why they always point at us."/ppThe carefully orchestrated visit took foreign and local journalists around the beautifully equipped school and hospital. The school follows the national curriculum, the headteacher, Rashid Mehnaz, said, taking pupils from around the country. The poor were given financial help, with richer pupils paying fees. Mehnaz condemned violence, saying suicide attacks were "absolutely wrong - it is forbidden in Islam"./ppA press conference and sumptuous lunch was laid on for journalists. However, the madrasa, mosque, and other facilities remained out of bounds, and once the official tour was over the media were no longer welcome. Although the group had said anyone was welcome to look around the site at any time, the Guardian's attempt to take up this offer after the tour was met with a heavy-handed response: burly young men arrived on motorcycles and circled, demanding that we leave. /ppGiven the attention that has suddenly been focused on Lashkar-e-Taiba, and on to the complex at Muridke, the invitation to visit may have been arranged after a prod from the Pakistani authorities. /ppCertainly there were plain-clothed officials present, who said they were members of "special branch" - often a euphemism for the Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency. They wanted to provide an armed escort back to Lahore, but why intelligence agents were there - and why an escort might be necessary - was unclear. Muridke is not in a dangerous part of Pakistan, and the offer was declined. /ppIt has long been said that the ISI has secretly backed Lashkar-e-Taiba, though the agency always rejects the accusation./pp"The Indian media is creating a hype, but I don't think they'll bomb us," said Muntazir. "If they did, it would be up to the government of Pakistan and the armed forces to deal with it."/ppHe said Jamaat-ud-Dawa was a peaceful group, but it had "supported" Lashkar-e-Taiba until that organisation was banned. He said that "morally", they still backed those who were fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. Lashkar-e-Taiba is the leading such group. "The [Kashmiri] freedom fighters are doing their job very well. Their cause is just," said Muntazir. "But I can't speak on behalf of Lashkar-e-Taiba."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/mumbai-terror-attacks"Mumbai terror attacks/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/india"India/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/pakistan"Pakistan/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/terrorism"Global terrorism/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/Zq_LTmdsuXM6b-VPE7JkoUpXN4Y/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/Zq_LTmdsuXM6b-VPE7JkoUpXN4Y/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Add a comment

terrorist groups,charms,islam,kashmir,mosque

Terror base?

India names Pakistani masterminds, date plot to 07

India Airports On High Alert After Warning

India: Security scare at Delhi airport

Guardian Unlimited

- 7 hours and 22 minutes ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/63728?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Security+scare+at+Delhi+airportch=World+newsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=India+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Staff+and+agenciesc7=2008_12_04c8=1129217c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Indiac13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FIndia" width="1" height="1" //divpIndian police tonight reported a 'minor incident' at New Delhi's international airport, but say no-one was killed./ppPolice spokesman Rajan Bhagat said: "It was not a terrorist incident. No one was killed." He gave no further details./ppThe Indian NDTV channel reported that two sharp sounds had sparked a security scare at the airport. But nothing was found after police searched the terminal, and normal operations resumed. /ppEarlier reports from the BBC said six gunmen had been shot and killed by security forces at the airport. The report, which was carried on the BBC website, was attributed to airport officials./ppAirports in India went on high alert following fresh warnings of attacks, as officials said two senior leaders of a banned Pakistani militant group are suspected of orchestrating last week's attacks in Mumbai./ppMore details soon .../pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/india"India/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/WwMDWTRN7RcA-OscaRkRJN_svvc/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/WwMDWTRN7RcA-OscaRkRJN_svvc/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Add a comment

international airport,india,airports,margins,polices

India Airports on High Alert After New Attack Warnings

India: Stop The Blame Game

Zardari Vows 'Strong Action' Against Mumbai Terror Plotters

Rice in Pakistan to defuse tensions

Pakistan snubs India over terrorist 'suspects'

Guardian Unlimited

- 1 days and 4 hours ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/33001?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Pakistan+snubs+India+over+terrorist+%27suspects%27ch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Mumbai+terror+attacks+%28News%29%2CPakistan+%28News%29%2CWorld+news%2CIndia+%28News%29%2CTerrorism+-+international%2CUS+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Vikram+Doddc7=2008_12_04c8=1128422c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Mumbai+terror+attacksc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FMumbai+terror+attacks" width="1" height="1" //divpPakistan's president yesterday rebuffed India's key demand that he hand over 20 alleged terrorists, as the US intensified its efforts to ease tensions between the two nuclear powers in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai./ppSpeaking from Delhi, the visiting US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, told Pakistan it had a "special responsibility" to help India's investigation into the terrorist attacks. Washington also sent its most senior military official to Islamabad to hammer home the same message./ppWestern powers, led by the US, are trying to stop tensions between the two countries spilling over after last week's attacks in Mumbai, which killed more than 170 people. India and Pakistan have fought three wars and had numerous skirmishes in the past 60 years. /ppIndia has demanded that Pakistan stop providing sanctuary to 20 people it alleges are linked to violence against it. But Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, yesterday appeared to reject this demand, saying the 20 would be tried in Pakistan if there was evidence to charge them./ppZardari's comments are likely to anger India's government, which is under sustained pressure from its people to take strong action in the wake of the attacks./ppDelhi says all 10 terrorists in Mumbai were Pakistani, and had received training there for a terrorist plot controlled from Pakistan that subjected India to a four-day national nightmare. /ppZardari told CNN: "If we had the proof, we would try them in our courts and we would sentence them." He said he doubted that the only terrorist captured alive was a Pakistani citizen, as India alleges. "We have not been given any tangible proof that he is definitely a Pakistani."/ppYesterday Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, arrived in Pakistan. Mullen urged Pakistan to "investigate aggressively any and all possible ties to groups in Pakistan" and "take more and more concerted action against militant extremists in the country"./ppMost analysts, though, believe the eight-month-old Zardari presidency has limited room for manoeuvre, even if it wants to help India's investigation. Zardari's civilian government faces pressure from hardline groups not only to resist Indian demands, but over the help provided to the west's war against al-Qaida and Taliban elements in its border region with Afghanistan./ppBut in Delhi, Rice said: "This is the time for everybody to cooperate and do so transparently ... Pakistan needs to act with resolve and urgency. That message has been delivered to Pakistan."/ppIn Mumbai, public confidence in India's authorities suffered another blow after it emerged that bombs lay undiscovered for a week at the city's main rail station attacked by terrorists last Wednesday. Police found explosives hidden in a bag among abandoned luggage./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/mumbai-terror-attacks"Mumbai terror attacks/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/pakistan"Pakistan/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/india"India/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/terrorism"Global terrorism/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/qcfnAPthCY82CKD8ZLmvDriKZME/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/qcfnAPthCY82CKD8ZLmvDriKZME/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Add a comment

resist,proof,investigations,angers,islamabad

Why Doon Mackichan, star of Smack the Pony and The Day Today, has fallen for Joe Orton

Guardian Unlimited

- 1 days and 4 hours ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/69710?ns=guardianpageName=Stage%3A+%27My+whole+life+has+been+a+black+comedy%27ch=Stagec3=The+Guardianc4=Theatre%2CCulture+section%2CJoe+Orton+%28Playwright%29%2CStage%2CTelevision+%28Culture%29c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CTelevision+Media%2CTheatrec6=Catherine+Shoardc7=2008_12_04c8=1128305c9=articlec10=GUc11=Stagec12=Theatrec13=c14=h2=GU%2FStage%2FTheatre" width="1" height="1" //divpIt has been a while since Doon Mackichan was last hung, drawn and quartered for laughing at the suffering of children. There was a week in August 2001 when you couldn't pass a newsstand without seeing her handsome, sparrowhawk face, forehead partially obscured by the word "evil" or "depraved"./ppThe Brass Eye paedophile special is now mostly remembered as virtuoso satire, so it's easy to forget what a stink it caused at the time. And it was Mackichan, who played TV presenter Swanchita Haze, who bore the brunt of it. People expected that sort of thing from Chris Morris, but Doon was a woman with - gulp - children of her own. "[Mackichan] had seen herself as a major comedy force in the making," wrote the Mail. "She even dreamt of becoming a film star. But with the Brass Eye disaster as her epitaph, all those plans lie in tatters."/ppLooking back, it's hard to say her career didn't suffer. There were two more seasons of Smack the Pony, the girly Channel 4 sketch show with Sally Phillips and Fiona Allen, but to diminishing returns. There were wifely roles in ropey sitcoms. There was theatre. Then came a two-year break for unhappier reasons (of which more later). And now she's back, in a play that, well, laughs at the suffering of children. Adults, too. Especially those six feet under. /ppJoe Orton's Loot, like Brass Eye, is comedy that sets out to shock. Don't be fooled by its age; although the play was first performed in 1965, Loot has weathered better than, say, a TV parody of late-90s news shows. Death doesn't date as a cultural taboo; likewise religion. Rereading Loot is like having a shower when you hadn't realised the boiler's broken: unexpectedly shocking./pp"Yep, it's full on," says Mackichan, eating a tuna sandwich between rehearsals in London. "There's this one line about a really great brothel run by Pakistanis who pimp out their kids for Mars bars." She smiles: an attractive smile, heavy on the lippy. "I'm like, 'Oh we'll cut that, won't we?' Well, no, we can't, because what about all the other things people might find offensive? Cut them all and you won't have much of a play left."/ppOther lines trouble her. Orton's gleeful description of a sexual assault, complete with tooth-breaking detail. "That specific image is just really horrible. Do you lose a portion of your audience when you leave that in? Do people stop thinking it's a great play? Or as my mum would say, 'Ooh, Orton's so kinky; yes, I love all that.' " /ppDoon plays Fay, an Irish Catholic home nurse and a prolific serial killer (87 in one week alone). She has lately buried her seventh husband and has her eighth in her crosshairs, having just dispatched his wife with a syringe of poison. Loot takes place on the day of the wife's funeral, and charts the power struggle between Fay, Hal (whose mother is being buried), Dennis, Hal's boyfriend, with whom he has robbed a bank and put the money in mum's coffin, and Detective Truscott, the sinister inspector who comes calling. /ppOrton's stage instructions put Kay in her late 20s; other than that Mackichan, 46, is a good fit. She is Celtic, by nurture at least. She grew up in Surrey but moved to Fife with her family when she was nine. She survived the transition, she says, by acting, specialising in "posh bitches". This is something she still does: she is a natural authoritarian, physically pneumatic, temperamentally tough - a few years back she swam the English channel with a team of paratroopers. /pp"Yes, I could kill someone," she says, without thinking too hard about it. "It must be so easy to just nip a needle in, or hold a pillow over an old person's face. The power and the buzz you'd get." She has been boning up on True Crime magazine to further understand her character's homicidal motivation. "But I just can't read the books. There's such an orgasm about they way they're written. 'Women who kill! Viciously!' When it comes to sex and violence, we're an island of obsessives. I mean, how does it help people to know the details of how someone was physically tortured?"/ppTen years ago, Mackichan got her fingers burned over an Anglican sketch on her Radio 4 show, Doon Your Way, but it hasn't left her any more on-message when it comes to religion. "It's been extraordinary finding out what Catholics actually believe!" she says of the research process. "All the rituals and superstition. The whole voyeurism of talking to someone behind a little screen. The idea that you can think, OK, I'll be a bitch, then on Sunday I'll say, 'Oh, I was a bit of a bitch' and then feel great!"/ppShe is not religious herself, "but I don't think I'm in an atheistic universe. I do think there's a higher power". Has she ever prayed? "Oh, I've been down on my knees many times." She pauses and then roars with laughter - it's a genuine, accidental Orton-ism. /ppIt turns out that Mackichan has had an extremely tough few years. Her father recently died. She is in the process of getting divorced from her husband, Common As Muck actor Anthony Barclay, with whom she has three children, India, 11, Louis, 10, and Ella-Rose, four. And, three years ago, Louis contracted leukaemia. Much of the past three years has been spent with him in hospital. He is now in remission, but shadows still hollow out her face. She wells up frequently, and there is something frayed behind the raucous laugh and actorly tics. "I do find authority hard to deal with now," she growls, after an assistant gives us a 10-minute warning that she needs to get back to work. "I feel a bit of an anarchist. I don't think I could work for someone who was an arsehole any more." She gulps down some fruit juice. "I can't actually have confrontations with people. It's too much. I'm a single muvva with three kids and a show to do." She laughs but she's dead serious./ppWhen things were at their worst, she says, her monopoly on heartache was hard to handle. "People would tut behind me in a supermarket queue and I'd have to go, 'Please, go ahead of me, you've obviously got somewhere to go. I'm just going back to the children's cancer ward.' I once had an actress telling me her hair was falling out because of her new kitchen and I thought, I'm not going to say anything, because this is quite interesting, because I remember how I was before it all." And how was she before it all? "Quite selfish, neurotic. Up my own arse. It's made me very tough. I do think I have endurance beyond the pale." /ppWhen Louis was well enough, Mackichan took her children with her to Africa to shoot a BBC2 series, Taking the Flak, loosely based on John Simpson's reporting from poverty-stricken, war-ravaged places. After such harrowing experiences, how she can cope with her relatively comfortable existence? "You walk into your house and you go: I'm a millionaire. I'm a princess; I live in a palace. And you think: I don't have a lot of shoes, but I do have too many shoes. You look at yourself and think: Party's over, mate. Time to be useful."/ppAnd yet she is not an aid worker in Africa. She is in north London, rehearsing a play. "I did think, I can't go back to acting. It's too vain, too ridiculous. I was going to retrain as a play specialist in Louis' cancer ward. But this is what I've done for 20 years. It's what I do." /ppShe's right. Mackichan is a natural born thesp, right down to her floaty black blouse and stripy woollen leg-warmers. Slice her in half and you would see "actor" written right through the middle of her. "I have a real mission now to be in work that will be cathartic for people. [Work] that's really honest about just how fucking hard it is to stay afloat."/ppLoot isn't exactly what she had in mind, she admits, but its no-nonsense attitude to tragedy has been cathartic. "My whole life lately has been a bit of a black comedy." She snorts. Might she consider turning it into one? "There's a lot of mileage in a children's cancer-ward comedy. All the opening curtains and waving at people being sick into bowls. You could set it in the tiny coffin-like kitchen where only the adults are allowed. You see these little bald children running past the window. It was like suddenly being in a war."/ppCould she really bear to return there, even imaginatively? "I don't know. They haunt me, those nighttime corridors. The characters, too: the carers and nurses and staff and the petty quarrels. And getting high on Quality Street till 3am. But I would like to." /ppstrongmiddot; /strongLoot is at the Tricycle, London NW6, from December 11. Box office: 020-7328 1000./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatre"Theatre/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/orton"Joe Orton/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/television"Television/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lAQCNb9eC0BbtenHfBz0jZUDjxo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lAQCNb9eC0BbtenHfBz0jZUDjxo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Add a comment

pillow,anglicans,nurse,crimes,serials

Dec. 3 2008 Daily News

IPTV Daily

- 1 days and 5 hours ago

US telco FairPoint to start IPTV trials in Portsmouth IPTV News - UK December 3, 2008 - US telco FairPoint Communications is to start trialling a new IPTV service next January in the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, ... Commercial Satellite Industry Set to Grow Even in Troubled ... MarketWatch - USA Some countries have two, three and even five DTH platforms, not even counting cable or IPTV pay-TV services, stated French. The failure of a few of these ... Groups team for Chinese IPTV reference designs EETimes.com - USA LONDON mdash; Fabless semiconductor startup Mirics Semiconductor (Fleet, England) is partnering with wireless SoC specialist Spreadtrum to bring broadcast TV to ... FairPoint plans IPTV pilot in Portsmouth FierceIPTV - Washington,DC,USA FairPoint Communications is set to conduct an IPTV trial next month in Portsmouth, NH, which is expected to last about 90 days. ... Commercial Satellite Industry Set to Grow Even in Troubled ... MarketWatch - USA Some countries have two, three and even five DTH platforms, not even counting cable or IPTV pay-TV services, stated French. The failure of a few of these ... Groups team for Chinese IPTV reference designs EETimes.com - USA LONDON mdash; Fabless semiconductor startup Mirics Semiconductor (Fleet, England) is partnering with wireless SoC specialist Spreadtrum to bring broadcast TV to ... FairPoint plans IPTV pilot in Portsmouth FierceIPTV - Washington,DC,USA FairPoint Communications is set to conduct an IPTV trial next month in Portsmouth, NH, which is expected to last about 90 days. ... Fairpoint To Test IPTV In New Hampshire Converting FiOSTV from ... Dslreports - USA But unlike Verizon, whose FiOSTV is a hybrid coaxial/fiber system, Fairpoint apparently seems interested in running pure IPTV. Says the report: Itrsquo;s part of ... New South Asian IPTV Network Debuts Premier Television Content MarketWatch - USA TV-Desi is the first IPTV service dedicated to the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in North America delivering a television viewing experience ...

Add a comment

desi,new hampshire,startups,broadcast tv,asian

Apologetic Mumbai Killers: We Didnt Get the Memo About Obama (iowahawk)

Police: Mumbai Gunmen Came by Boat From Pakistan