US support for Pakistan dam could help stem flow of bad blood

[vsdoc]

Like all good things in life, hate should be a two way street. All this intellectualizing and rationalizing about who is really responsible and who is the innocent, while your own are in need, is a luxury the American people can no longer be asked to foot the bill for. The message should be clear. If you hate us, we hate you. And our hate can hurt you far worse than yours can us. There is a cancer the world is suffering from today. And it is growing. And it needs total complete eradication. The time for half measures is over. We are already too late. And our inaction today is condemning the tomorrow of our children, and our children's children.

[troung]

When places are full of adults who don't like us somehow stories about the children they raise are supposed to make us open our wallets...

IRIN Asia | PAKISTAN: Children worst hit by new flooding disaster | Pakistan | Children | Health & Nutrition | Natural Disasters | Water & Sanitation
PAKISTAN: Children worst hit by new flooding disaster
Photo: Abdul Majeed Goraya/IRIN
More and more areas are being inundated as floods spread south
KARACHI, 16 September 2011 (IRIN) - Heavy monsoon rain in southern Pakistan is in many ways hitting children worst of all, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which says five million people are affected.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says children are among the most vulnerable in the kind of situation that prevails now in Sindh Province: “Up to 2.5 million children have been affected by severe monsoon floods in southern Pakistan - and with many still recovering from the worst floods in the country’s history just a year ago, UNICEF says more help must reach them fast before the situation worsens.”

Local media quoted disaster management authorities in Sindh as saying at least 270 people have been killed in the province’s 23 districts. The provincial government, which has called on international agencies to help, says 1.2 million homes have been washed away, while the aid agency Oxfam has reported that more than 4.2 million acres of land (1,699,680 hectares) has been flooded and 1.59 million acres (643,450 hectares) of standing crops destroyed in Sindh. It also warned the "situation could worsen" over the coming days.

“The nature of this disaster in some ways poses challenges that are more complex than those of 2010,” Kristen Elsby, a spokesperson for UNICEF, told IRIN from Islamabad. She said the main factor in this was that displaced populations were scattered, with many based along roadsides.

“We did not know where to go when the rains swept in, took away our goats and destroyed the vegetable crop we had cultivated,” said Azrah Bibi from Badin District. She and her extended family of eight are currently camped along a roadside near the town of Badin. “We saw some people here and joined them. Some people delivered one lot of food, but there has been very little since, and it is hard to cook anyway since we have no facilities other than a fire from bits of timber and scrap,” she said.

''Children, in particular, need access to clean water and also sanitation to prevent illness from breaking out''
Like many others affected by this year’s flood, Azrah Bibi and her husband, Gulab Din, 45, were also affected by the floods of 2010, widely rated as the worst in the country’s history, which partially damaged their home and also their rice crop. “This year things seem equally bad to me. The wrath of Allah has hit us twice,” she said.

Water, sanitation risk for children

UNICEF’s Elsby told IRIN that in some areas people had indeed been affected before they could recover from the previous disaster. “Children, in particular, need access to clean water and also sanitation to prevent illness from breaking out,” she said. UNICEF is now providing water in tankers to people camped along roadsides and working with the World Food Programme to offer food. “At a later stage we will need to meet educational needs since over 1,000 schools are currently being used as shelters,” she said.

“The situation in the flood zone is really bad. People need much more help and things are especially miserable for women and children who lack privacy, toilet facilities and other amenities,” Muhammad Khalid, a volunteer with the charitable Edhi Foundation, told IRIN from Khairpur District in Sindh.

As awareness of the scale of the calamity spreads, other agencies are moving in. “Children living in Sindh were already very weak and vulnerable following last year’s floods, and rates of malnutrition are high,” said Faris Kasim, spokesperson for Save the Children, US, in Pakistan.

“Now thousands of children are again having to survive in the cold, at risk of disease and facing an even tougher struggle to get the food they need. It’s crucial we provide life-saving supplies to the affected population as fast as possible to make sure children have shelter and are protected from life-threatening disease.”

But for now, the struggle is a tough one, and recovery will take time, with the Meteorological Office predicting more heavy rain over the coming week in Sindh and elsewhere, threatening to aggravate an already critical situation.

kh/cb


========================
Pakistan: Christians and 'untouchables' are denied flood aid
Pakistan: Christians and 'untouchables' are denied flood aid | EnerPub - Energy Publisher
Friday, September 16, 2011
by Speroforum

Print article Print

Among the flood victims of Sindh (South of Pakistan), Christian and Hindu "Dalits" families, considered the "untouchables", are thrown out of refugee camps set up by the government and do not receive humanitarian aid. This is the complaint which comes from the Catholic diocese of Hyderabad, confirmed by non-governmental organizations. Torrential rains hit the region of Sindh, and will continue over the next few days, causing widespread flooding. Out of the 23 districts of the province, 22 are strongly affected and the flood victims are over 5 million. Some villages are now found beneath as much as 6 metres of flood water.

Aid has started to move, with the Pakistani civil protection, as well as NGOs that are at the forefront. Fr. Samson Shukardin, OFM, General Vicar of the Diocese of Hyderabad in Sindh, and diocesan Director of the Commission "Justice and Peace", tells Fides: "We have an emergency, the entire diocese has been hit. We have 16 parishes, all 16 parish priests have asked for help. The displaced people are mostly Hindus, but there are also thousands of Muslim and Christian families. Caritas and NGOs are distributing food aid, medicines, tents. I visited some affected areas: the population has been put to the test and is discouraged. " This is why Mgr.Max John Rodrigues, Catholic bishop of Hyderabad, has issued a message "encouraging and exhorting the faithful to trust in the help of God and the neighbor's help".

The local church also reports cases of discrimination in the distribution of humanitarian aid, a terrible thing that was already registered unfortunately during the floods in 2010. Fr. Shukardin explains: "This happens for religious and caste reasons. The victims are mostly tribal, living in 8 out of 16 parishes. In the district of Badin, on the border with India, inhabited by Parkari tribes, a pastor told me that in the two refugee camps set up by the Government, Christians have been rejected because, what is said is, 'Western missionaries think about you'. In addition to religious discrimination, these people are considered 'Dalits', 'untouchable' (for legacy of the Indian system, before the partition, ndr), therefore thrown out".

Other operators of Pakistani NGOs, working on-site, confirm to Fides that in the district of Badin the Hindus of lower castes were not accepted in public refugee camps, because "the Dalits cannot be next to Muslims". Thousands of Dalit flood victims live thus still "open", without any shelter, although the heavy rains continue. NGOs call for a decisive intervention on behalf of Mohan Lal Kohistan, Provincial Minister for religious minorities in the province of Sindh, to end such discrimination.

Source: FIDES

[Dreadnought]

IMO, Let the terrorists they give safe harbor to build it and fund it. Maybe the will understand cooperation from our side finally after they laugh in their face.

[Double Edge]

Like all good things in life, hate should be a two way street. All this intellectualizing and rationalizing about who is really responsible and who is the innocent, while your own are in need, is a luxury the American people can no longer be asked to foot the bill for. The message should be clear. If you hate us, we hate you. And our hate can hurt you far worse than yours can us.

They already did this earlier, they got a few years of peace and then they got hit. We did the same after 26/11. Nothing changed. We try to make positve moves, nothing changes. Was very interested to see how the US would handle them and in balance over the last ten years they forked out $20 billion and still they are unhappy with the result. So their position is maybe slightly better than ours but at a disproportionate cost.

Terrorism has paid and paid well for the Pak regime but not for their ppl, now in addition to being neglected they get killed as well. Their ppl, our ppl, americans, chinese even does not matter. Keep it at a low enough level and they can pull all this off and still be treated with kid gloves by the world. This play will not be missed in Tehran.

There is a cancer the world is suffering from today. And it is growing. And it needs total complete eradication. The time for half measures is over. We are already too late. And our inaction today is condemning the tomorrow of our children, and our children's children.

Think about north korea & s.korean reluctance to have hordes of refugees come over. Multiply that scenario by 10 in this situation. So what is the value of your suggestion in this case.

You think you can pull it off without a refugee problem ?

[gunnut]

Wait...there's a flood in Pakistan? I had no idea. Not that I care or anything...

[troung]

You think you can pull it off without a refugee problem ?

Pulling it off would be the impossible part for India. Border picnic, shelling, a few fire fights - both sides walk away claiming the USA separated them because the other blinked first.

Wait...there's a flood in Pakistan? I had no idea. Not that I care or anything...

Think of the children.

Because we need to repair the damage done by the previous administration's wreckless war that squandered the good will of the world toward the US.*

Sadly Bush went from having them by the balls to giving them money for nothing.

=========
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...an-crisis.html

He said the poor international response had been matched by a patchy aid effort by the provincial and federal governments and a lack of trust in them on the part of western countries.

"Even for the NGOs who have performed well in previous crises, there's a fatigue syndrome," he said. "It's a lethargic response. I don't know if it is because of their economic problems, or if they have forgotten Pakistan," he said. He said most of his constituents whose lives had been destroyed in last year's flood had only received one fifth of the compensation payments they had been promised, and had been waiting on the balance to rebuild their homes.

Construction worker Anwer Mirani is one of 20,000 people in Jamshoro district who have been forced to flee their homes for the second time in 13 months. "We had just begun to restore our houses when we had to leave again because of the floods," he told Agence France Presse. He, his wife, parents and three children had escaped the rising water in a boat to the nearby hills. "What can we do except run away? No one can fight nature," he said.

[vsdoc]

Terrorism has paid and paid well for the Pak regime but not for their ppl, now in addition to being neglected they get killed as well. Their ppl, our ppl, americans, chinese even does not matter. Keep it at a low enough level and they can pull all this off and still be treated with kid gloves by the world. This play will not be missed in Tehran.

I am sorry but I have never bought into this regime vs people clean demarcation which would have us believe that our enemy is the evil regime but the poor innocent public would actually be our friends and brothers given half a chance. A people get the leadership they deserve. That is why we get the weak and corrupt Congress. That is why the Americans get clueless and confused Obama. And that is why the Pakistanis get their military and ISI, their Zardaris and Sharif's and Bhuttos, and their Taliban. No leadership exists in a vacuum. Their people get killed because its harder killing ours now. Give them half a chance to bomb musalmans (theirs or ours) versus kafir hindus, and you will get your answer loud and clear.

Think about north korea & s.korean reluctance to have hordes of refugees come over. Multiply that scenario by 10 in this situation. So what is the value of your suggestion in this case.

You think you can pull it off without a refugee problem ?

The cancer I refer to is not just next door. Please open your eyes man.

[Doktor]

The cancer I refer to is not just next door. Please open your eyes man.

I am not sure I follow this one.

[Tronic]

I am not sure I follow this one.

Someones Islamophobic. What else? lol

[vsdoc]

I am not sure I follow this one.

The cancer is radical and intolerant Islam bent of world domination through the only means it has always known and adopted since its birth - violence.

It has no country or race or ethnicity. It is all around us. And we are at war. And have always been at war. And will always be at war.

Until we are wiped out. Or they are. Or something somewhere changes.

[vsdoc]

Someones Islamophobic. What else? lol

Someone is a prepubescent moron. What else? lol

[Doktor]

Someones Islamophobic. What else? lol

I thought the same, just wanted clarification.

The cancer is radical and intolerant Islam bent of world domination through the only means it has always known and adopted since its birth - violence.

It has no country or race or ethnicity. It is all around us. And we are at war. And have always been at war. And will always be at war.

Until we are wiped out. Or they are. Or something somewhere changes.

Remember crusaders? They had no race or ethnicity, they were defeated, yet Christianity and Islam still exist.

[vsdoc]

Remember crusaders? They had no race or ethnicity, they were defeated, yet Christianity and Islam still exist.

You think the crusades and the holy jihad are done and dusted? Think again. The crusaders were defeated as many times as the jihadis were. Both came coming back at each other. The crusaders changed and evolved and adopted and prospered. Jihadi Islam never moved out of its medieval mindset, and see where they are today. But make no mistake. The crusades are still alive and kicking. And they have powerful new friends.

[Tronic]

Someone is a prepubescent moron. What else? lol

Didn't know. Let me add to it than. Prepubescent Islamophobic moron. Carry on.

[vsdoc]

Didn't know. Let me add to it than. Prepubescent Islamophobic moron. Carry on.

Shoo kiddo. Shouldn't talk when elders are speaking.