ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs appears to have earned itself the dubious distinction of a haven for officials who wish to remain in service after superannuation. The culture of extension thrives at the ministry with top diplomatic slots occupied by officers on extension.

The extension culture has blossomed under the present government that has been granting wholesale extensions to officials. Starting with the head of the foreign ministry to the special secretary to the senior-most additional secretary, all fall in the ‘extension’ category.

Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan who retired in November last year has been given two years service extension. Special Foreign Secretary Sher Afghan who retired in January this year has been given one-year extension. Additional Foreign Secretary (UN) Tariq Osman Hyder, who retired in 2003, has been on extension for the last three years. He gets the green signal on yearly basis and his current extension ends in April 2007. The word around is that in all likelihood he will get another extension.

Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Munir Akram is also on extension. Director-General Foreign Minister’s Office Khalid Mahmud has been on extension for the last three years.

Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India, Aziz Ahmed Khan, is also on extension for the last three years. He was appointed to the post after his retirement in September 2003.

Shahid Malik who is tipped as the new High Commissioner to India is due to retire in July 2007. Obviously he will also get an extension because he cannot be appointed to the post for such a short period. Earlier, Bashir Wali Mohammad, High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, who was sent on two years’ contract was also given an extension for another year. Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Malaysia Maj-Gen (retd) Talat Munir was also given an extension.

Pakistan’s ambassador to Italy, Mirza Qamar Baig, who belongs to the District Management Group, was also appointed to the post after retirement. He was appointed to the post despite strong protests by Foreign Service officers.

He was given two extensions beyond retirement, one by former prime minister Zafarullah Jamali and the other by the current prime minister. Now he is said to be trying for yet another extension. His tenure ends in December 2006.

Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Australia Babar Malik, a lateral entrant to the Foreign Service, has also been given two years’ extension which ends in April 2007. There are strong indications that some other ambassadors who are due for retirement by the end of the current year and next year are also vying for extensions. Among these are Ambassador to France Aneesudin Ahmed who retires in December, Ambassador to Russia Mustafa Kamal Kazi and Ambassador to Jordan Arif Kamal.

Several serving and retired Pakistani diplomats agree that the Foreign Ministry has never seen such ‘extension galore’ as it has under the present government. Often officers in other services make light of it by saying that the ministry ought to be renamed as the Ministry of Extension Affairs!

The rampant extension in service has had a demoralising impact on career diplomats due for promotion and ambassadorial assignments. They remain on the ‘waiting list’ because there are no vacancies. While granting of extension in service may be understandable in rare cases where career diplomats are exceptionally outstanding and when critical factors are at play, this does not merit justification from a professional standpoint. Clearly, there is no dearth of competent and committed diplomats in the ministry. However, the growing and unhealthy trend of extension tends to kill the spirit and initiative of promising career officers.

While the extension issue remains an acute irritant at the Foreign Ministry, it has never been raised at the Envoys’ Conference where key policy and administrative issues are discussed and debated. Perhaps, the main reason being that many of those participating in it were either on extension or on the verge of seeking one.

Extension to Foreign Ministry officials is granted on recommendation by foreign secretary and approval by the prime minister. Currently the government is following a policy of two- year extension beyond superannuation. A review is certainly called for.

BAGHDAD: Death squads move with impunity after curfew. Abductions are rampant, but kidnappers are rarely caught. Corruption has poisoned every layer of government, yet few have faced criminal charges.

Double-park a car on a Baghdad street, however, and you can be sure of this: The law will hunt you down.

Abdel Nasser, a 32-year-old traffic officer, describes himself as a warrior, battling evildoers in a city without signs, traffic lights or speed limits. Nasser and his colleagues are beacons of civility in the choppy waters of Baghdad traffic, where the term ‘riding shotgun’ is taken quite literally. Until recently, they valiantly defended deadly intersections with only a whistle. Now they have a handgun too.

“Despite the danger, we feel we are securing our country,” said Nasser, a police officer who was reassigned after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Although his previous job was gratifying because it gave him authority, his present duties give him a sense of well-being, he said.

“I go home feeling proud,” he said. “Other officers serve the government. But we serve the people.”

Iraqis may complain of corrupt clerics, greedy politicians and murderous security forces, but for the most part they remain devoted to this cadre of stoic traffic wardens, who even during the Saddam Hussein years had a reputation for integrity.

“The traffic law is the only thing nowadays that functions correctly,” said Mustafa Hatim, a 32-year-old electrical engineer. Hatim said he got into trouble with the law only once. He had parked outside a downtown ice cream parlour and returned to find a $12 ticket on the windshield. The offence: a sloppy parking job.

“They work hard doing their job, and I thank them,” said minibus driver Khamis Yousif, 51. “They are committed to their duties, and they deal with us as brothers.”

Munir Nouri, a 43-year-old used-car-parts salesman, commended them for their good manners. They ‘talk to you before ticketing you’, he said.

Wearing neat blue-and-white uniforms with matching blue hats, nearly 3,500 traffic officers labour on the streets of the capital, working seven-hour shifts in 120-degree heat.

From a small concrete shelter, Nasser watches vehicles flow through a flag-decorated traffic circle in the city’s Karada district, near a bridge to the fortified Green Zone. Black funeral banners are draped on a wall behind him. Across the street, sheep munch on weeds and garbage as boys play football in the dust nearby. Key Baghdad arteries come together in this intersection, and Nasser controls his fiefdom with discreet, tightly choreographed movements.

Nasser is fastidious about his uniform. His shoes are brushed and his shirt is ironed every day. The hat and the three stripes on his shoulders keep his back straight and his gaze steady.

Although his job is meaningful, it is also increasingly dangerous, he said. Bombings and gunfights make Baghdad streets the meanest in the world, and dozens of his colleagues have died on the job. A few days ago, one of his friends was shot and killed while guarding an intersection near Nasser’s corner. The bilingual website for Iraq’s traffic police includes a page with pictures of slain traffic police officers.

Drivers are armed and edgy, and road rage is common.

Once, Nasser stopped a man who wanted to drive through the intersection before his turn.

“He said he was late for work,” Nasser recalled. “I told him, ‘It’ll just take two minutes.’ He said, ‘No, I’m not waiting.’ He got out of his car, and we started boxing each other.” After five days in jail, the driver apologised.

Politicians, soldiers and police officers are the biggest scofflaws, drivers and traffic officers say.

“They drive very fast, pay no attention to traffic regulations and expect others to give them way, regardless of the conditions of the street,” said Ammar Abbas, 30, a taxi driver with a university degree in physics. “If other drivers don’t make way immediately, they hit cars or shoot randomly.”

During Saddam’s rule, there was less anarchy — and fewer cars — on the streets. Then, Iraqis mostly drove Russian Ladas, Brazilian-made Volkswagens and beat-up Chevrolets. Today, big BMWs, large Toyota pickups and huge GMC SUVs, most of them owned by foreigners, drive bumper to bumper with beat-up wrecks steered by Iraqis.

The red double-decker buses from London, once ubiquitous, have all but disappeared. A few remaining buses are covered with large ads for Iraqi cellphone companies and French cigarettes.

The American-led invasion also brought Humvees, tanks and checkpoints to Baghdad, transforming the capital into a maze of concrete and concertina wire. And the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority overhauled the Iraqi traffic code, making it illegal to make reckless U-turns, according to the rules posted on the traffic police website.

The most common offence is driving on the wrong day. Because of chronic gas shortages, the government last year enacted a law allowing Iraqis to drive in Baghdad only every other day, according to the license plate number.

Salah Mehdi, a successful car dealer who lives in a middle-class neighbourhood, was recently ticketed 30,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $20, for driving his car on the wrong day of the week.

“I tried to bribe him,” said the 24-year-old, happily acknowledging his own unprincipled ways. The officer rejected the bribe. “But he did not get angry,” Mehdi said with admiration.

Mustafa Mukhtar, a computer engineer, tells a cautionary traffic tale. Recently, Mukhtar, 28, and a friend double-parked on Sinaa Street but didn’t pay the fine immediately.

After a month, Mukhtar checked the website, which provides users up-to-date information about the status of their tickets. The fine had doubled.

Mukhtar now logs on to the traffic police website regularly to see whether he has outstanding tickets, and has taught his friends to do the same. Even though there’s no collection effort as yet, you can’t sell the car unless you pay your ticket.

“Driving in Baghdad is very hard,” he said, offering his best advice for anyone getting behind the wheel in the capital: Check all mirrors and ‘expect the unexpected’.—Dawn/The Los Angeles Times News Service