Headlines

• UK Politician Lord Hodgson Blames Muslims for Decline of Pub Industry

• British Muslims Face Worst Job Discrimination of Any Group, Research Finds

• Pakistan Trench along Afghan Border Enrages Kabul

• Enemy Lives Within us and Looks like us, Says Pakistani Army Chief

Details

UK Politician Lord Hodgson Blames Muslims for Decline of Pub Industry

A Conservative peer - also a former brewery boss - has been labelled "ridiculous" for blaming Britain's Muslim community for the collapse in pub numbers. During a House of Lords debate, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, who was a director of Marston's Brewery in Burton Upon Trent for 12 years, said that "socio-economic factors", including a growing number of teetotal Muslims, were more responsible for dwindling pub number than "rapacious" pub chains. Speaking in defense of the major pub chains, the former MP said: "In areas of Nottingham, Leicester, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham the increase in the Muslim population who don't drink leads to many pub closures. It is exceptionally hard for a publican who has put 10 years of his life into trying to build up a business to accept the inevitability of these tides of history. Lord Hodgson told the Independent that his critics were being "slightly over sensitive" and that his speech listed many different reasons why British pubs were in decline, including issues over business rates, the "de-industrialization of Britain", tougher licensing laws and the influx of cheap alcohol from supermarkets. He said, "This is not a criticism of Muslims. I thought nearly all Muslims don't drink, but maybe some do. And my speech referred to many serious problems for pubs." [Source: The Independent]

Muslims only number 3 million, while the population of Britain is circa 60 million. So the decline in public drinking houses has got nothing to do with Muslims, but government laws which have made alcohol accessible to everyone through supermarkets and similar shops - even kids can buy cheap alcohol. Rather than address the alcohol fuelled debauchery which is on the increase, UK politicians have nothing better to do than blame Muslims for all the ills in British society.

British Muslims Face Worst Job Discrimination of Any Group, Research Finds

Muslims experience the worst discrimination of any other minority group in the UK when it comes to job prospects, new research has found. The research, revealed by The Independent, found that Muslims are seen by employers as "disloyal and threatening" which results in followers of Islam being far less likely to be employed than Christians. Muslim men are up to 76% less likely to have jobs than white British Christian men of the same age, with the same qualifications. Muslim women were also up to 65 per cent less likely to be employed than their white Christian counterparts, according to the report from Dr Nabil Khattab and Professor Ron Johnston from the University of Bristol. Muslim men and women were also less likely to have a role at managerial level. The research drew on data from the Office for National Statistics' Labour Force Survey, which covered more than half a million people. Studying 14 ethnic and religious groups, it concluded that while skin colour made little difference to whether people were hired or not, Muslims were the most disadvantaged group. White British Christians suffered the least employment discrimination, according to the report, except for British Jews, who appeared to fare best in the job market. Jewish women were 29% more likely to be in work than their British while Christian peers, and men 15% more likely than white Christian counterparts. White atheists British men and women were 20 and 25 per cent less likely respectively to have a job than Christians. [Source: Huffington Post]
Allah (swt) says in the Quran:

((قَدْ بَدَتِ الْبَغْضَاء مِنْ أَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَمَا تُخْفِي صُدُورُهُمْ أَكْبَرُ قَدْ بَيَّنَّا لَكُمُ الآيَاتِ إِن كُنتُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ))

"Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, and what their breasts conceal is greater. We have certainly made clear to you the signs, if you will use reason." [TMQ Ali- Imran: 118]

Pakistan Trench along Afghan Border Enrages Kabul

In the dusty badlands along its disputed border with Afghanistan, Pakistan is carving out a massive trench to keep out separatists, smugglers and militants in an attempt to bring order to a lawless, tribal region. But like the Berlin Wall or Israel's West Bank barrier, the planned 485-kilometer (300-mile) trench is giving physical form to a border that locals have long seen as artificial, dividing families and crippling trade. And it is adding to simmering tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, US allies which have long accused each other of turning a blind eye to insurgents. The trench runs along part of the 2,640-kilometer (2,640-mile) Durand Line, named for British diplomat Mortimer Durand, who drew the now internationally recognized border in an agreement with Afghan ruler Abdur Raham Khan in 1893. But the modern Afghan government has never accepted the border, and neither have the mainly tribal communities that straddle it. They are accustomed to moving back and forth freely and in some cases own land on both sides. The trench is being built in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, where Baluch rebels have been battling Islamabad for decades, demanding greater autonomy and a larger share of the region's oil, gas, copper and gold. It's an eye-sore of construction; a massive furrow 10 feet (three meters) wide and 8 feet (2.4 meters) deep that already snakes 180 kilometers (110 miles) across the desert landscape. Pakistan's Frontier Corps said in a recent statement that the trench would "not only help in effectively controlling the movement of drug and arms and ammunition smugglers, but also will help in stopping the intrusion of terrorists and illegal immigrants." Pakistan fears that arms could make their way to any number of insurgent groups, including the Taliban. But Kabul sees the trench as the latest move in a new incarnation of the colonial-era Great Game, in which Pakistan hopes to destabilize its neighbor to extend its regional influence. It already considers Pakistan as the source of the Taliban insurgency it has been battling with US and NATO support for the past 13 years. "The people here have never accepted the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the first place," said Gen. Abdul Raziq, the police chief of Afghanistan's Kandahar province, which borders Baluchistan. "Pakistan is not doing anything to stop terrorism. If they want to stop it, they should stop producing it," said Raziq, who has long had a reputation for ruthlessness in battling the Taliban. "This trench is simply to draw a border with Afghanistan and claim our land as their own," he said. Pakistan insists it is committed to fighting extremist groups and points to a massive offensive it launched in the tribal region of North Waziristan along the Afghan border over the summer. [Source: ABC News]

The border is a source of perpetual misery for both Afghans and Pakistanis. Rather than waste valuable resources quarrelling each other, the correct thing to do is shed the cloak of nationalism left by the British by breaking down the artificial border and living as brothers side by side. Allah (swt) says:

وَاعْتَصِمُواْ بِحَبْلِ اللّهِ جَمِيعًا وَلاَ تَفَرَّقُواْ وَاذْكُرُواْ نِعْمَةَ اللّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ إِذْ كُنتُمْ أَعْدَاء فَأَلَّفَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِكُمْ فَأَصْبَحْتُم بِنِعْمَتِهِ إِخْوَانًا وَكُنتُمْ عَلَىَ شَفَا حُفْرَةٍ مِّنَ النَّارِ فَأَنقَذَكُم مِّنْهَا كَذَلِكَ يُبَيِّنُ اللّهُ لَكُمْ آيَاتِهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ

"And hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided. And remember the favor of Allah upon you - when you were enemies and He brought your hearts together and you became, by His favor, brothers. And you were on the edge of a pit of the Fire, and He saved you from it. Thus does Allah make clear to you His verses that you may be guided." [Ali-Imran: 103]

Enemy Lives Within us and Looks like us, says Pakistani Army Chief

Chief of the Army Staff Gen Raheel Sharif has said that security does not refer only to external threats but is a concern in terms of politics, human rights, economy, water security, terrorism and insurgency. Gen Sharif, who was the chief guest at a conference (Industry Summit) organized by the South Asian Strategic Stability Institute in a hotel in Karachi on Thursday. He said Pakistan's current enemy "lives within us and looks like us", adding that the definition of security had changed with the passage of time.

He said that because of increased polarisation, governments were unable to protect their people and national security. "In contemporary geopolitics, the battles are no longer between state and non-state actors but are with supra-individuals, those individuals who exploit both the national and international space for their desired objectives. These supra-individuals have the capacity to manipulate networks, organizations and state institutions to create waves of instability and create discord at the centre of the state institutions. Explosions are still a viable tool of war, but implosions are the new defeat mechanisms," he said. [Source: Dawn News]

General Sharif is wasting no time in hammering home the point that Pakistan must focus on internal security threats. Sharif's stance is in line with Kayani's doctrine or more accurately put; America's new doctrine for Pakistan, which stipulates that Pakistan must focus on internal issues and make peace with India. America sole focus is to make India its principal agent in the region. This means that Pakistan's military capability must be reduced and her armed forces redeployed from the border with India to maintaining internal peace. This is indeed dangerous, and if Sharif is not stopped, he will soon advocate a substantial reduction in Pakistani troops.