THOUSANDS more poured into the US capital on Saturday to join those already protesting the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund because they say their policies hurt the poor.

By Friday evening, Washington police had already arrested more than 600 protesters and blocked all roads leading to the World Bank and IMF headquarters, near the White House.

Demonstrators chained themselves together, set tyres on fire, broke windows and harassed police with false emergency calls in an effort to shut down the US capital as finance ministers from around the world began a weekend meeting at the World Bank.

Even persistent rain, which later changed to muggy heat, did not dampen the spirit of the protesters who had gathered from all over the United States and abroad to show their rejection of the World Bank’s policies.

The police, who appeared on Washington’s streets before the demonstrators, were even more adamant. They guarded the WB and IMF buildings, carrying batons and wearing body armour.

A group of about 600 demonstrators, most of them teenagers, was surrounded and arrested in its entirety on Friday, slowing down the chant, “hey, hey, ho, ho, World Bank got to go.”

Their chants went unanswered and probably had little impact on middle-aged wizards driving around Washington in their sleek limousines. Their dreams may have failed to penetrate stonewalls of the World Bank, but they did have an impact on Washington’s overcast sky. It opened up and shed tears on their helplessness.

Away from these damp but well-meaning protesters, another group prepared for another battle to be fought inside the tastefully decorated meetings rooms of the World Bank.

Instead of burning tires and batons, this battle will be fought with tons of documents containing often-contradictory proposals for bringing prosperity to this unequal world of ours.

Some of the topics likely to cause sparks are: how to assure that the global economy recovers rather than falling back into recession; how to prevent Brazil from following its neighbour, Argentina, into chaos and debt default; and how to advance the cause of trade opening via the reduction of developed country trade barriers.

On all these subjects, the chances of success look as bleak as the possibility of the protesters actually forcing a change in the attitude of the WB tsars.

“I believe the US economy has weathered storms, and by staying the course and following good policies, productivity is strong and economic growth has returned,” said US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill in a statement to open the meetings of Western Hemisphere finance ministers.

Yet doubt about the sustainability of the US economic recovery is perhaps the darkest cloud hanging over both the weekend meetings and the world economy. The second-quarter growth estimate for the United States was revised on Friday by the Commerce Department to an annual rate of just 1.3 per cent.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell by 296 points on Friday, meaning that it has fallen for five consecutive weeks.

With oil prices rising as the United States plans an attack on Iraq, the risk that the United States will fall back into recession next year has risen appreciably. That in turn dampens the prospects for the global economy.

This weekend, O’Neill will be calling on his counterparts in Europe and Japan to encourage their own rates of growth. He will no doubt call for the European Central bank to cut the eurozone interest rate from its current level of 3.25 percent, which is 1.5 percentage points above the US Fed funds rate.

With German growth weak, it is possible that his likely call will be heeded.

In Japan, O’Neill may look for further quantitative easing of monetary policy. The IMF’s Managing Director, Mr Hans Koehler, has already called for structural reforms that will reduce bad loans and encourage higher productivity in Japanese companies.

Such calls have been made for many years, without success as the political will in Japan has been lacking.

Political will is also called for in Brazil, whose currency and bonds continue to fall heavily as the risks of debt default rise. O’Neill said: “Commitment to sound economic policy was also a critical element in the US government’s support for a 30 billion dollars IMF loan to Brazil last month.”

Yet Brazil’s “commitment” may not be sustained for more than a couple of weeks. On Oct 6, Brazil holds the first round of a presidential election which may well see the victory of the left-wing candidate, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, commonly known as Lula.

If Lula is victorious and does not demonstrate absolute commitment to paying debt, there can be little doubt that the financial markets will panic and soaring yields on debt will bring about the default the market fears.

Political will is also key to the opening of developed country markets to developing country exports. Koehler, his research director Ken Rogoff, and their counterparts at the World Bank — Jim Wolfensohn and Nick Stern — have all called for progress.

The academic case has been made. The gains from trade should add about 100 billion dollars to world income per year, with half that gain being enjoyed by developing countries.

Developing countries will push hard for agricultural subsidies and tariff and non-tariff barriers to be reduced. They may remind O’Neill that this year the United States introduced a farm bill that increases farm subsidies and has raised steel tariffs.

Are developed countries likely to reduce trade barriers at a time when global growth prospects look poor?

The storms have not yet been weathered. The ranks of the powerful look serried. The developing world looks to have about as much chance as the protesters.

ISLAMABAD: Although the military government has barred the country’s top woman politician from contesting the October general election, the election will be a boon for women who are poised to bring about a small revolution from new opportunities.

All major national and regional parties have fielded “Begums” to flirt with politics to topple men unwilling to make way for them on general seats or grab the maximum share from a higher number of reserved seats in National Assembly and four provincial assemblies.

Some of the women candidates are party activists while many have entered into the unfamiliar field to save family honour besmeared by court convictions or the lack of academic qualifications of male politicians.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), whose self-exiled leader, Benazir Bhutto, has been disqualified by President Pervez Musharraf’s controversial decrees, says it has named the largest number of women candidates, most of them for reserved seats.

Among other contenders are two main factions of the Pakistan Muslim League — PML (N) of exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and former Punjab governor Mian Mohammad Azhar’s PML (QA).

Religio-political parties, which have traditionally opposed giving political power to women, have not lagged much behind and have listed their candidates for the reserved seats, which in the past lured much fewer candidates for election in each chamber by directly-elected members.

The parties have listed a record 272 women for 60 reserved seats in the 342-seat National Assembly. The largest number comes from Punjab (135) for 35 reserved seats, followed by Sindh (79) for 14 seats, the NWFP (45) for eight seats and Balochistan (22) for three seats.

About 60 women are in the run for general seats in the National Assembly compared to 29 in the last 1997 elections, when there were no reserved seats for women because a constitutional provision allocating 20 seats to women in the 1973 Constitution had run out.

President Musharraf has increased the women’s reserved seats to 60 from the previous 20 in a 237-seat house and those for the four provincial assemblies — among a total of 728 deputies — to 128 eyed by hundreds of candidates.

Women rights groups have welcomed the increase as a step to give half of the country’s 140 million-strong population a greater say in the male-dominated politics and the country’s governance, but have demanded a further raise to 33 per cent as in the local bodies.

Most women candidates this time do not know much about women’s problems as they are contesting on behalf of their fathers, uncles or fathers-in-law rather than in their personal capacity, renowned poet and woman activist Kishwar Naheed said.

“But when a bird is allowed to fly, it will acquire the power to fly,” she added.

Ms Bhutto, who made history to become the first elected leader in the Islamic world when she took over as prime minister in 1988, had filed nomination papers for two general seats and one reserved seat of National Assembly from her home province of Sindh.

But her papers were rejected because of her three convictions by special accountability courts for failing to appear before them to face corruption charges she denies.

Another presidential decree bans her and her one-time arch- rival Nawaz Sharif from ever becoming prime minister again because they have held that office two times each, though for short-lived periods.

The candidacy of Nawaz Sharif’s wife Kulsoom Nawaz for a National Assembly seat from Lahore was rejected along with those of her brother-in-law and former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif because their signatures on their nominations papers were not attested by the Pakistani consulate in Jeddah where they have been living in exile since December 2000.

Kulsoom’s ouster — though a final court ruling on this has yet to come — leaves former MNA and daring Nawaz loyalist Tehmina Daultana from southern Punjab’s Vehari district as the star woman candidate of the PML-N for a general seat in National Assembly.

ALL IN THE FAMILY: Although political parties have not published the lists submitted to the Election Commission for women’s reserved seats, some party leaders are reported to have named close relatives while some politicians disqualified for not being graduates or for their court convictions have put up their wives or other relatives to keep the family flags high.

PML-N acting president Javed Hashmi, who himself is contesting from jail for a National Assembly seat in Multan, has got a party ticket as well as nomination for a reserved seat for his daughter.

Television star Tariq Aziz, disqualified as a convict for a raid on the Supreme Court during Nawaz Sharif’s government, is reported to have a PML-QA nomination for his wife for a reserved National Assembly seat.

Two nieces of Millat Party President Farooq Leghari reportedly top the party list for National Assembly reserved seats and so does a daughter of Jamaat-i-Islami Amir Qazi Hussain Ahmed.

Pakistan Awami Tehrik Chief Tahirul Qadri, who is contesting for a National Assembly seat, is reported to have listed a daughter-in-law for a reserved seat and Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan Chief Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani has named her sister.

Dr Azra Zardari, sister of Asif Ali Zardari, is a PPP candidate for a general seat of National Assembly from the Nawabshah district, while the PPP leader’s powerful political secretary, Naheed Khan, tops the list of candidates for reserved National Assembly seats from Punjab.

Among prominent the PML-QA women candidates for general seats are former information minister Begum Abida Hussain, who is pitted against a strong PPP candidate, Faisal Saleh Hayat, from their traditional constituency in the Jhang district, and President Musharraf’s former women development minister Begum Atiya Inayatullah for a reserved seat.

Another PML-Q woman nominee, Neelofar Bakhtiar, is challenging her one-time mentor and former information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, who is contesting as an independent from Rawalpindi city after winning that seat five times in a row.

Zubaida Jalal, who resigned as education minister from President Musharraf’s cabinet to contest in the elections, is trying her luck against four male candidates in Balochistan’s Kech-cum-Gwadar National Assembly constituency.

BEARDS AND BURQAS: When elected, most women deputies are likely to come to the assemblies wearing traditional shalwar-kamiz and dupatta. But those of the six-party Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal — most of whose male members will grace the assemblies with more beards — will surely appear in burqa, much maligned worldwide in recent years after Afghanistan’s Taliban movement prohibited women from travelling without wearing this head-to-toe veil.

The PPP has vowed to bring Ms Bhutto to parliament even if the courts finally reject her challenges to disqualification decrees, by possibly throwing them out if the opposition parties gain the required strength in the parliament.

Political sources say President Musharraf, who increased women’s representation first in local bodies and then in assemblies, will still have to face a woman challenger to his rule as did his two late predecessors — Gen Mohammad Zai-ul-Haq and Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan.

Gen Zia could not have a final showdown with Ms Bhutto because he died in a mysterious plane crash before holding the promised elections in 1988, which the PPP later won.

Fatima Jinnah lost to Ayub Khan the 1964 presidential election under the basic democracies system — later discarded — but sowed the seeds of an organised resistance to his rule that ended when he handed over to army chief Gen Mohammad Yahya Khan in 1969.

KARACHI: Something strange is happening to our lives. The stage is becoming terrible and brutal; and the agony unfolds in a way that the mind finds it hard to accept. We have a scenario where seven Christians have been killed in a way that reflects both insanity and fear, and even more.

Somehow for all that is being done to give a sense of security and confidence, more insecurity and fear is being injected into our lives.

I am thinking of the innocent schoolchildren whose schools were closed due to three-day mourning announced by the Christian community to condemn the attack on the office of a Christian charity right in the heart of the city.

Let’s focus on the school-children’s angle. Take the fact that often the majority of the schoolchildren in the city’s institutions are Muslims. What are they thinking of the fact that Christians have been targeted, and the print media and the electronic media are full of stories of how it all happened. What are the Christian school kids thinking about the ghastly episode.

Many of us have happily been to local Christian schools and colleges, and let me put on record that some of our best friends and teachers in school, college, and even university, have been affable Christians, and one is grateful for the education and values that were given to us. Are we undoing all that, and was all that a waste. Surely not.

Then how does one explain this mad, senseless killing that reflects a brutalisation of our society, a society that should, in fact, providing the maximum security and safety to its minorities, in light of the principles and vision of Islam. What kind of a message are we sending to the whole world in the context of traumatising incident that took place on Wednesday morning, the Sept 25.

Of course, there are voices being heard that with general elections due in about a fortnight’s time, it is inevitable perhaps that there would be violence of this kind. That there would be unrest. But this is no election trouble, on the face of it. It is so far, from reports available in the media so inexplicable.

The murder of these seven persons, so far, is an absolute mystery.

There are many voices that are being heard, and there are many interpretations and dimensions. We are indeed a society, both troubled and sad.

Also a city that is unfortunate in the sense that the more it tries to develop itself and the more it expands, the more insecure it seems to become.

We spoke of the depth of the insecurity that Karachi has come to acquire last week, and let me mention a small example which comes to our mind. One agitated citizen said during the week that visible security measures have been heightened both at his place of residence and his place of work. He resides in a block of middle class apartments and his office is in a multistoried building in a posh area of Karachi, but both are insecure.

Barely had one finished talking to him when another citizen said in his block of apartments where he had been living for the last 24 years now, the parking of visitors vehicles had been stopped only because of the increasing crime and insecurity in the city, and consequently also in the apartments where he resides.

There were two instances where inmates had been easily held up as they reached home, after withdrawing cash from the bank nearby. Another citizen said to me that he was frightened each time he had to come home after he had visited his bank.

These are just glimpses into the minds of Karachiites, who have undergone still more anxiety and torment this week, in a city with high profile security, and high profile killing.

Of course one valid question that is in the air is where does it all goes from here? There are many answers. And there are many questions. Does it indicate that it is going to get worse? That is a central question.

One thing is certain: it must not be allowed to get worse. The Bishop of the Church of Pakistan has very appropriately said “we are very sad, and so is the rest of Karachi.

“Nothing can sum it up better.” The Auxiliary Bishop of the Catholic St. Patrick’s Church has said the “Christian community should be patient and peaceful and bear this loss bravely”.

There is truly much in this word “bravely”, and indeed to be brave at this hour of loss and grief is to be heroic in a way. The enemies of harmony and stability in this country must not be allowed to have it their way, wherein they have evidently sought to destroy life in Karachi, and set the clock back.

Admittedly Karachi has been a platform to a list of killings and bloodshed that makes us hang our heads in shame. Sectarian and ethnic killings, and on linguistic basis, too. But evidently and thank God for it Karachi has an inherent strength, that it will fight back cowardly with terrorists who are repeatedly trying to ruin a huge city, whose citizens have faith in themselves. And there is not the slightest doubt that despite the saboteurs and criminals who operate in our midst, the forces of good will triumph.

The Christian community in Karachi and elsewhere in the land has a track record of having done excellent service to mankind in the field of education, health, social welfare, and their contribution to the community is truly phenomenal; this is a realisation that is widely shared.

As a minority, they have played a sterling role, and awful setbacks like this recent one should not be allowed to leave a lasting impact, even though the bleeding wound has left deep and ugly scars.

For long has Kishwar Nahid been a female chauvinist — a role she has played rather well as a relentless destroyer of the male ego. Bluntly unceremonious, she has given no quarter to conciliate. There was a swagger she assumed, not so much in self- defence as to mimic male pretension and when she has blown her own trumpet, it has been to boo men. Hers was not empty bluster. The lady meant business. But of late she has been changing course. Using pen as ore she is going farther into the sea of worldly affairs that men exclusively control. Activism has replaced ardour and protest the remaining poetry. The area of her agitation against the male world has spread in all directions.

That charge, of chauvinism, appeared more than a little exaggerated when you read her lovelorn lyrics. She dipped her darts in sugar. There was no simulation or design when she whined and moaned and crooned for love in her endlessly plaintive song. This made her a very different fighter. Prudery that often disguises some functional disability and frigidity that is posed to frustrate virile postures she had the grit to boldly reject. Her stratagem now in this private world is compromise. She is ready to coexist on mutually agreed terms. If men consider this as an invitation to self-destruction, so be it. All she can do as a measure of assurance on her part is uncoil to show it’s not the boa constrictor’s embrace her sex offers. But what to do of men? Will ever God in His infinite wisdom permit such insensitive clods to walk this earth again? The old Adam-Eve scheme has all but failed. Everywhere. It is not to be free even in the so- called free world to have your dignity stripteased before ogling old machos to create illusions of fulfilment. What is needed is a new contract, a new code for cohabitation.

Kishwar Nahid, in her own right, the priestess of her torrid cult, has antechambers in her temple of poetry where the kama sutra of detente provides the modus vivendi to practise togetherness without attachment and intimacy. Her new book, Sokhta Samaaniey Dil, bares the inadequacies of traditional relationship. There’s no room for it. Gone are the days when if the lover offered ‘the jasmine of intimacy, she would drink up the washing of his feet.’ Now a thousand ‘seasons of love are buried’ in her. She remembers them, O.K. But she can shrug off their memory and ‘go to the kitchen laughing to make her a cup of tea.’ The ‘ecstasy of union’ is merely a pleasing thought that she can equate with the ‘desire to be alone’. The ocean of her being, her woman-ness, has not dried up but the sealed seashells that opened to the lover are missing from its depths. There’s only table talk and smiles are exchanged like polite strangers do on a bus. The acrid succulence of her verse is better relished with this pungent sauce.

The final measure she has touched in the attainment of this impassive maturity is in her renunciation of the need for beauty, a touchy spot that exposes dependence in a male world. To be free of it in the real sense, and not just rhetorically, is to be free ultimately. Even in paragons of beauty the loss of physical charm with age signals a devastating crisis that women in our culture are lucky to be able to manage in family life and domestic bliss provided by henpecked husbands. Kishwar, oddly, rejects that too. ‘I have never loved my womb,’ she declares in one of her more callous poems. But the reason she gives does not seem to fit into her own scheme of independence. Her man has taken another woman and she cannot help being a woman after all. It is as if she still nurtures hope, the hope of the lover’s return. But he will not, unless he is freed of this compulsion, this expectation, as Khalil Jibran said.

But the protocol of the new relationship that she proposes for the modern woman and the ensuing detente is suggested in another of her more confident poems, Mauzu-e-Guftagu (Talking Points). We will dine this evening With the promise You will avoid expletives Nor will I overstate my privations We will sit like two kindly friends Newly acquainted Will not read defeat in the ebbing tide Neither paste our regrets On the trail of our tears Or add our sorrows to the hotel bill Some decisions these! Enough for now What else? The moon, shall we, between bites?

Compared to her feminist poetry in which she is able to trace the greys beneath the stark patterns that surface in the interaction and to which from personal depths she can bring lyrical allurements and subtleties of expression, her protest poems as a pacifist, humanist and political activist have a bland perfunctory plainness. This is probably because political statements have to be timely, whereas art is timeless.

The book has an intriguing title cover, all in style as all matters the lady touches ever are. There’s a door handle in the locked position with a keyhole to provide eyefuls to Peeping Toms. An umbrella there is with some cartographical significance. In a corner a flock of swallows are seen in flight. Atop piles of stacked timber sits a bird that seems to have eaten its daal ka dana. Saved from an evil fire mutilated remains of some old testament further obscure the mystery. If these symbols refer to some buried tale of passion, Donne’s verdict that all love is a diabolical swindling since men have nothing to offer and women little to give should assuage whatever sense of loss there still might be.