Use of CNG: some suggestions

THE explosion at the CNG plant of a Shell pump in Khayaban-i-Bahria, Phase VI, Defence Housing Authority, Karachi, in which 17 people were injured, should be taken seriously by the government to avoid repeat of such incidents in the country.

Some time back there was another report about an explosion in a CNG gas cylinder fitted in a van in which two children died of severe burns and injuries.

Because of the continued increases in petrol prices, a number of CNG stations have emerged in the country and people are converting their vehicles from petrol to CNG from different conversion centres, which do not adhere to international safety standards. Also, there is no authority that can check whether the gas stations or CNG conversion centres maintain the safety standards.

Only qualified people should be authorized to modify a vehicle from petrol to a CNG kit as per the vehicle’s requirement and type of the engine. Vehicle owners must ensure that the CNG kit and its accessories for conversion match the type of their vehicles.

Also, any gas station or an individual offering conversion services must follow the international safety standards and keep the following points in mind:

1) The cylinder installed in the vehicle should be certified and approved by the relevant government department.

3) The cylinder should be vapour-tight to the interior of the vehicle and be vented from its lowest point to the outside of the vehicle.

4) High- and low-pressure piping supplied should be used as they confirm to relevant standards.

5) Every joint or connective fitting should be of metal and of a type suitable for service with CNG at the operating pressure.

6) Flared joints or compression union fittings with brass olives should be preferred.

7) Soldered or welded joints and “bite” type compression unions should not be used.

8) Every pipeline feeding from or into the fuel tank/cylinder should follow the safest route and be protected from impact, preferably below the body shell where structural parts of the vehicle may shield it.

9) Pipelines should be at a distance from the vehicle exhaust system.

10) Pressure regulators/vaporizers should be able to consistently respond to the engine requirements. It should be made of materials suitable for use with CNG and be capable of withstanding maximum pressure likely to be encountered in service.

11) The complete system, including the CNG cylinder and all joints, should be tested with a soap solution to ensure that the system is leak-proof. A final leak test be carried out on any joints not previously tested under CNG pressure, once the CNG cylinder has been fitted.

12) Customers should insist on an installation certificate from the CNG kit conversion centre that should mention the pressure regulator/vaporizer, type of cylinder, manufacture details and its expiry, etc.

The government should ensure that the staff of the relevant department go for a periodical check on every petrol/gas station operating in the country and ensure its safe operation to save people from similar incidents in future.

SYED A. MATEEN

Karachi

Why float euro bonds?

REPORTEDLY, foreign currency reserves of nine billion dollars have been transferred to banks abroad, and hefty commission is being offered to foreign banks to float bonds worth 500 million euros for Pakistan, with high interest on maturity. Since our financial managers owe explanation only to the IMF, I appeal to Pakistan’s financial experts to make readers like me wiser on the following points:

a. What is the logic for transferring our foreign currency reserves to banks abroad, and asking foreign banks to arrange foreign money for our bonds which will ultimately cost us far more than the benefits to be derived from the equivalent reserve foreign currency kept in banks abroad?

b. Judging from subscription of over Rs24 billion for the OGDCL shares in four days, a positive response of Pakistanis to forex bonds should be expected if right type of incentives are provided. Why cannot the Protection of Economic Reforms Act 1992 be restored in original, and bonds worth 500 million euros be offered to residents, including former expatriate, and expatriate Pakistanis to subscribe with forex transferred through the banking system to obviate hefty commission and interest to foreigners?

c. Since December 1999, a number of rules have been promulgated, including mandatory reporting of forex inflow to the FBI, to discourage forex inflow through the banking system and to force Pakistanis to keep their forex in US and European banks. The question arises: why is the forex of Pakistanis in US and European banks, on mainland or off-shore, acceptable to our financial managers but its inflow needs scrutiny by the FBI and the SBP monitoring team?

d. On what moral grounds are the IMF and the US imposing restrictions on us when illegal trillions of dollars (including billions laundered by our politicians, government officials, industrialists and businessmen now living in the US, the UK and Canada) are being utilized for socio-economic development of these countries?

Apparently, it is a conspiracy to keep Pakistan starved of forex to remain subservient to the IMF terms and conditions dictated by the US.

SHAKEEL AKHTAR

Rawalpindi

LFO controversy

AS the political climate of the country is being mired by the controversial Legal Framework Order, disarrayed opposition and the indifferent ruling coalition, the fate of the common man hangs in limbo, and the suffering of citizens continues unabated.

What kind of a political environment are we in and is there any hope left for smooth functioning of our democratic institutions? Unfortunately, the horizon appears murky.

A strong stable democratic system is a main prerequisite for economic and social development of any society. Unfortunately, throughout our chequered history, undue interference of the military and bureaucracy in the state’s affairs played havoc with the prospects of establishing a modern and progressive political system.

The politicians, too, driven by selfish and nefarious interests, contributed their part of the bargain to the weakening of the system. But the arbitrary involvement of the military dashed all hopes of development of a healthy political environment in the country. Several military regimes came into power under the pretext of public being too naive to elect good for nothing and corrupt politicians.

The scourge of martial laws only led to stifling of freedom of expression, playing hostage to external powers, adding to economic woes and social disintegration of society. Were the authoritarian regimes of Ayub, Yahya and Zia conducive to promoting a free and transparent political system? What do we expect now?

The untold miseries of the common man will continue while nefarious political actors strive hard to protect and defend authoritarian and autocratic tendencies of the present regime under the disguise of the so-called democratic system.

HASAN CHEEMA

Lahore

Cricketing matters

NOW that Lt-Gen Tauqir Zia has resigned from the chairmanship of the Pakistan Cricket Board, one hopes that a seasoned cricketer will be appointed to this crucial position.

On a related note, one has recently heard of reports that India, or at least the Indian cricket captain, Saurav Ganguly, is interested in hiring the services of legendary fast bowler Wasim Akram. What a pity, and not to say a great irony, that our own cricket board does not see the logic in using the services of the great fast bowler to coach the current lot of young bowling talent in the country. One hopes that whoever takes charge of the PCB now will have the foresight to take, if necessary, advice from Wasim.

In any case, the state of affairs at the PCB had of late taken a nosedive. The controversy between coach Javed Miandad and chief selector Aamir Sohail was not handled well and both men were allowed to wash their dirty linen in public. These people should have known that they are representing Pakistan cricket at the highest level and should have avoided bringing their dispute in public since it gave the sport a bad image.

The new PCB chairman will hopefully be one who has a cricketing background. With all due respect, Lt-Gen Tauqir Zia had done a fair job but his tenure was full of controversies, the most recent one being the selection of his son Junaid in the team.

However, the general must be credited with giving the Pakistan cricket team a new look and lots of abundant talent, which is a good thing for the future.

I have a bit of advice for the PCB. It would be a dream come true if the PCB managed to make Imran Khan the chairman, Wasim Akram the

bowling coach and Javed Miandad the batting coach. Then, surely the champions will rise again.

MASOOD IQBAL

Karachi

Benazir Bhutto’s name

THIS is with reference to the letter (Dec 3) by Sardar Mumtaz Ali Bhutto regarding Benazir Bhutto’s last name.

I remember him only as an Oxford-educated talented cousin of ZAB. I was surprised to read his comments on Benazir Bhutto’s name. I am sure Sardar Sahib knows it very well that in Islam the daughter’s name is kept after her father’s name. It is a western practice to use the husband’s family name after marriage.

Benazir Bhutto is a well-known national and international personality and she has the full right to keep her father’s last name.

I fully support your news-paper for correcting Sardar Sahib.

DR ASHRAF KHAN

Hackensack, NJ, USA

(2) THIS refers to Mr Mumtaz Bhutto’s complaint to this publication for adding in his article the name Bhutto at the end of Benazir’s name.

As a young Pakistani student in the United States, I was very disheartened to read his complaint about an issue of such insignificance.

Instead of worrying, working and struggling for the millions of humiliated, hungry, jobless and hopeless people of our country, specifically Sindh,he seems to have channelled his energies, skills and knowledge towards such a trivial matter.

As a prominent politician and former chief minister of the province, he is in a great position to help change the destiny of those countless, nameless sufferers of our land and yet he looks away from that responsibility and, instead, works towards such things as suing American and English newspapers.

SARMAD PALIJO

Boston, MA, USA

Fiscal policies and NSS

THE treatment meted out to senior citizens during the last four years has no parallel in the history of Pakistan or, for that matter, in any other country of the world. It is both surprising and sad that nobody takes any notice of their plight and the cruel treatment continues abated.

On the one hand, the cost of living is being allowed to continue to rise, but on the other earnings/incomes are consistently and systematically reduced. All avenues of investment of savings have either been closed or reduced to make them unattractive. The return on the national savings schemes has been lowered to a disgraceful level and it is still open to further cuts.

It seems that the two top foreign-trained fiscal and economic managers of Pakistan care more for the IMF and the World Bank than for the common man of the country.

The president is an honourable and honest man. Is he not seeing all this happening? If we recollect, the president, in his first address to the nation way back in December 2000, announced withdrawal of the 10 per cent withholding tax on the profit on the NSS as a relief to the old citizens, retired persons and small savers. Unfortunately, the relief was short-lived and soon thereafter the process of cutting down the profit rate was started and the 10 per cent withholding tax was reimposed.

The profit on the NSS has come down from 16 per cent to almost six per cent. Besides, the policy of favouritism and discrimination has openly been pursued by government’s economic experts. A retired person of the SBP or the CBR now gets more return on the NSS than an retired person in the private sector. The reason for this open discrimination is best known to the SBP governor and the finance minister although we are all Pakistanis.

The economic achievements claimed to have been made during the last four years are certainly not visible. What we have seen are, in fact, mass unemployment, increased poverty, the ever-increasing cost of living and discriminatory policies designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

I appeal to the president to take notice of the unwise and unethical fiscal and banking policies and order restoration of some dignity to the senior citizens, retired persons (both public and private), small individual savers and the poor of the country without which the programme of poverty alleviation becomes meaningless.

ABDUL HAMEED

Karachi

Rawalpindi residents’ woes

I AM writing this letter on behalf of the residents of Al Mumtaz Colony, Gulraiz-1, Chaklala Scheme 3, Rawalpindi, to draw the attention of the Chaklala Cantonment Board, the district nazim and the Punjab chief minister to the lack of basic facilities in these areas.

Mumtaz Colony is a thickly populated area but lacks basic necessities like drinking water, Sui gas, roads and proper waste management. As a result, people have to buy water from water tankers, and use gas cylinders, costing each family hundreds of rupees a month.

There are no roads in most of Gulraiz-1. The municipal staff never remove garbage which rots and spreads disease, specially among children who play in the streets.

As if this was not enough, a resident has blocked the road leading to our colony by building a garage for his house. Now we have to take a longer route to reach our homes.

We request the relevant authorities to pay a visit to Gulraiz-1, specially Mumtaz Colony, and see for themselves the poor conditions, and do the needful.

NAILA NAIYYAR

Rawalpindi

Unemployed engineers

I REFER to the letter “Unemployed engineers” (Nov 7). The writer, Mr Sajjad Khan, has laid bare before the government not only his heart but also those of thousands of such engineers who have been waiting for a couple of years to see the dying lamp of hope flicker again.

I would like to add that the government should bind all big companies, mills, factories and such other institutions as can need technical persons at any time that whenever they demand a few engineers, they should select candidates on merit and then give them necessary training. During this training they may be given a reasonable stipend to enable them to meet their board and lodging expenses.

After completion of the training, they may be posted in the relevant branch. This will ease the employment situation for fresh graduates. Also, the engineers who are already in service can avail themselves of such an opportunity if they find a pay higher than the one they are already drawing, because they are the only experienced people.

LALA FAZAL AHMED

Hyderabad

Education in the dock

THIS is to inform you that the Sanghar district is lacking many basic facilities, specially quality education.

This district is lagging far behind other towns of the province of Sindh in education but the authorities concerned are not paying due attention to this problem. Many primary, elementary and even secondary schools in the district are not imparting quality education because of slackness on the part of the education officers concerned.

Teachers are not performing their duties either; they are rather busy in their personal businesses and remain out of schools by greasing the palms of their supervisors every month. The situation thus obtaining has put the education system in the dock and made the students’ future bleak.

Furthermore, many schools are closed for being in possession of local waderas who use them as their “autaqs”. The officers of the district education department seem helpless and cannot dare pay a visit to these schools or try to re-open them. The higher authorities, too, are oblivious of their duties and do not care to know the facts. The careers of many students have, therefore, been put at stake.

On behalf of the people of these remote areas, I request the Sindh education minister to take appropriate measures to end the stronghold of the vested interest, and ask the relevant authorities to pay frequent visits to these schools to ensure that things start moving in the right direction.

G. K. DADA

Banghar

SC judgment in SSGC case

THIS is with reference to the letter “SC judgment in SSGC case” (Nov 23) by Mr Khuda Bux Laghari.

The Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) fully respects the judgments of the Supreme Court and other superior courts, and has always complied with them in letter and in spirit.

The SSGC is a public-sector organization in which the federal government holds majority shares up to 90 per cent. The government has filed review petitions in the apex court, which are at present being heard by the court. This matter is, therefore, sub judice.

This is also to point out that the managing director of the SSGC, who is a public servant, works and carries out the company’s affairs on the directions of the board of directors who represent the interest of the shareholders, and in accordance with the policy of the government.

We may reiterate again that the company fully respects the Supreme Court and, in fact, in compliance with its order had earlier absorbed a large number of trainees.

It appears that Mr Laghari is not fully informed in the matter. Further, he should be aware that such matters as are pending before the apex court should not be debated publicly.

S. NASRIN HUSSAIN

Chief Manager (ER),

SSGC, Karachi

Unlit bridge

In Karachi, the well-known “Kala Pull” was renovated a few years ago, but the irony is that the lights which were then installed have not been switched on yet.

Is it that the KESC is waiting for long outstanding dues, or is it for some other reason?

F. J. KHAMBATTA

Karachi

The anatomy of aggression

A sky white with a frightful whiteness, And the earth like coal and granite. Under this withered moon Nothing shines anymore.

— Anna Akhmatova, 1914

THE train from San Francisco to the heartland of California takes me from the edge of the Pacific Ocean to the core of the San Joaquin Valley. I watch as lavender mountains cast long shadows across the jade waters of the bay, and nightfall unfolds like a blanket covering a child’s nakedness.

The sun has begun to set as we head into the flatland of the valley, the wheels of the train keeping rhythm with my heartbeat. Outside, the vast splendour of this country hurtles past, leaving only a vague memory of the blood which taints its silent landscape, the blood of the many tribes which inhabited this space between ocean and desert, between land and sky.

Two centuries ago the United States was a collection of thirteen small colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. In 1776 American revolutionaries rose up against their colonial master, King George of England, and declared that every nation had the right to determine its own destiny. That the many Indian nations which lived in the “new world” were not considered to be worthy of this right is part of the bloody history of this most powerful nation on earth. That the leaders of the newly independent colonies believed that they were preordained to rule all that stretched before them was part of the manifest destiny of this chosen nation.

By 1848 the United States stretched from the east to the west coast of America. In 1894, calls for empire were echoing through the halls of Washington, with Senator Orville Platt of Connecticut declaring that “I believe that when any territory outside the present territorial limits of the United States become necessary for our defence or essential for our commercial development, we ought to lose no time in acquiring it.” By the next year, the US had declared war on Spain, eyeing its colonies in Cuba and the Philippines. Rebel armies were already fighting for independence in both countries and Spain was on the verge of defeat. Washington declared that it was on the rebel’s side and Spain quickly capitulated, making it clear fairly soon that it had no intentions of leaving.

The era of empire had begun for the newest nation on the imperial block. Elaborate racist theories were formulated to justify colonialism. In the words of Senator Albert Beveridge in the year 1900, “We are the ruling race of the world. We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world... He has made us adept in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples.”

The Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam were made US colonies in 1898. Cuba was formally given its independence but along with it the Cubans were given the Platt Amendment which stipulated that the US navy would operate a base in Cuba forever, that the US marines would intervene at will, and that Washington would determine Cuba’s foreign and financial policies.

During the same period, the US overthrew Hawaii’s Queen Liliuokalani and transformed these Pacific islands into a US navy base surrounded by fruit plantations set up by Dole and Del Monte. In 1903, US President Theodore Roosevelt sent gunboats to secure Panama’s separation from Colombia after that government had refused Roosevelt’s terms for building a canal, hampering the movement of US warships as well as US trade.

Between 1898 and 1934, US marines invaded Cuba four times, Nicaragua five times, Honduras seven times, the Dominican Republic four times, Haiti twice, Guatemala once, Panama twice, Mexico three times and Colombia four times. In many countries the marines stayed on for decades as an occupying army. When the marines finally went home, they typically left the country they had occupied in the hands of a “friendly dictator”, armed to the teeth to suppress his own people.

Behind the marines came legions of US business executives ready not only to sell their goods but also to set up plantations in the manner of latter day Spanish conquistadors who established their feudal estates on latifundios throughout Latin America in the 17th century. Business interests in these new “territories” included drilling for oil and mining for minerals, gold, and precious gems. Marines were often called in to put down the rebellions of workers entrapped in slave-like conditions by their colonial masters. This “intervention” was considered necessary to secure the required environment for American capital.

One of the most celebrated leaders of these marine expeditions, General Smedley Butler, described his career once he had retired as follows: “I spent 33 years in active military service... and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

During the years leading up to World War I, the United States had managed to secure American oil interests in countries as far apart as Mexico and China, it spread sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic and Cuba, and set up fruit companies in Honduras and other Central American countries, giving rise to the term banana republic, another way of describing a sovereign state which had lost its sovereignty to business interests, starving its people by substituting its staple foods for cash crops which would feed what is currently the most obese nation on earth.

The advent of World War I saw European colonial powers scramble for imperial domination over specific spheres of influence. When President Woodrow Wilson decided that the US was to enter the fray, he told his people that he was sending troops to Europe to “make the world safe for democracy”, words which have been echoed for almost a century now by every American president who has disguised the expansionist intent of corporate capitalism by veiling it in the rhetoric of liberation. In 1917, Wilson’s ambassador to England said rather forthrightly that the US would declare war on Germany because it was “the only way of maintaining our present preeminent trade status”, an act which sent 130,274 US soldiers to their deaths by 1918.

The World War 1 was supposed to end all wars. In reality, the years between 1914 and 1918 were a precursor to the savagery which was to come, claiming millions of lives and devastating thousands of miles of war-ravaged countries. In October 1940, as German and Japanese troops were marching in Europe and Asia, a group of prominent government officials, business executives, and bankers was convened by the US State Department and the Council of Foreign Relations to discuss US strategy. The gentlemen present concluded that their country had to prepare for war and come up with an “integrated policy to achieve military and economic supremacy.”

A private memorandum between the Council on Foreign Relations and the State Department, dated 1941, states: “If war aims are stated which seem to be concerned solely with Anglo-American imperialism, they will offer little to people in the rest of the world...the interests of the other peoples should be stressed... this would have a better propaganda effect.”

The “integrated policy” of the United States and allied states led to the death of millions in Europe and 200,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tens of thousands died later from radiation poisoning. At the end of the war, President Harry Truman prayed to God to “guide us in the use of the Bomb in His ways and His purposes.” The sacred intent of genocide was clear — it was the order of the day for the “majority stockholder in this corporation known as the world”, the words of Leo Welch, former chairman of the Board of Standard Oil, now Exxon.

On November 21, 2003, the most powerful conventional bomb in the US arsenal exploded in a huge, fiery cloud on a Florida test range. This nearly 11-ton weapon of mass destruction is fondly referred to as the “mother of all bombs.” An MC-130E Combat Talon I dropped the 9,800-kg satellite-guided GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB. Officials said the bomb was developed in only nine weeks to be available for use this past spring in the Iraq war. Its only previous live test came on March 11, the week before the US-led invasion. The MOAB, the most powerful nonnuclear US bomb, carries 8,482 kg of high explosives, detonating just above the ground when the tip of the 9.1-metre-long bomb hits the earth.

The MOAB is envisioned as a successor to BLU-82, the 6,800-kg “Daisy Cutter.” The “Daisy Cutter” was used to clear helicopter landing areas in the Vietnam War and was used in the 1991 Gulf War and in 2001 in Afghanistan. In the latter two conflicts, US commanders used the “Daisy Cutter” partly for the “psychological effect” of such a massive blast.

The United States maintains the largest and most powerful military in history. Military spending amounts to more than half of the federal government’s annual discretionary spending. On November 24, 2003, George W. Bush signed the National Defence Authorization Act enabling the US military to increase its spending to $400 billion. Of this colossal sum, one billion is to be used to develop chemical and biological weapons, while nine billion will go to improve the existing ballistic weapons system. This, in the words of Mr. Bush, was to ensure the “advance of freedom” all over the world, particularly in countries currently under US occupation — Afghanistan and Iraq. This expenditure will go towards the creation of yet more powerful arms in the already overflowing arsenal of the world’s greatest military power.

The writer is United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Population Fund.