Archive for April 10th, 2009
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — Pro-Taliban cleric Sufi Mohammad has announced he has pulled out of a peace deal in the violence-plagued Swat Valley, saying the government is not serious about implementing Islamic law, or sharia, in the region.
Mohammad brokered the cease-fire in late February between the Pakistani government and his son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah, who commands the Taliban in Swat Valley.
With the deal, the area would come under sharia law, which — under the Taliban’s strict interpretation — would prevent women from even being seen in public without their husbands or fathers.
Mohammad has set up a protest camp at the headquarters of his son-in-law’s Taliban-aligned group, Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM), according to a police official. The headquarters are located in Batkhelah in the Malakand agency of North West Frontier Province.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Mohammad expressed frustration that President Asif Ali Zardari had not signed off on the peace deal. He blamed the Pakistani government for any bloodshed that might follow.
Mohammad’s pullout does not automatically mean the deal is over. The Taliban, itself, has not announced whether or not it too is pulling out.
A lawmaker with the Awami National Party (ANP) of the North West Frontier Province — where Swat is located — said he did not expect fighting to resume.
“God willing, there won’t be anything that happens to take this [peace] out of our hands,” said Hashem Baber of the ANP.
The province’s government will send a contingent to meet with Mohammed and hear his complaints.
“We’ll meet and talk and if they have an complaints, we’ll try to push those away and solve the situation to get back to the peace deal,” Baber said.
Critics of the cease-fire have called it a major concession by the Pakistani government in an attempt to hold off Taliban attacks.
Indeed, after the deal went into effect, Fazlullah proclaimed himself the Emir of Swat.
Swat Valley was once one of Pakistan’s biggest tourist destinations. It is near the Afghanistan border and is 186 miles (300 kilometers) from the capital, Islamabad.
The central government has long exerted little control in the area, but it launched an intense military offensive in late July to flush out militants from areas of the North West Frontier Province
As retaliation for the military presence, the Taliban carried out a series of deadly attacks, beheadings and destruction of girls’ schools. They also continued to gain ground, setting up checkpoints throughout the area.
Sufi Mohammad was released from jail last year by Pakistani authorities after he agreed to cooperate with the government. He was detained in 2002 after recruiting thousands of fighters to battle U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Fazlullah took over TNSM during Sufi Mohammed’s jail stint and vowed to continue his fight to impose fundamentalist Islamic law in the region.
Last May, Pakistan’s government announced it reached a peace deal with militants in Swat Valley.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Older women with high levels of lead in their blood are likely to die sooner — particularly from heart disease — than their counterparts with low lead levels, new research indicates.
Researchers followed 533 women aged 65 to 87 years old for roughly 12 years. Those with lead concentrations above 8 micrograms per deciliter of blood were 59 percent more likely to die of any cause, and three times more likely to die of heart disease, than women with lower blood lead levels.
“Despite declines in blood lead concentrations during the past 30 years, environmental lead exposure continues to be a public health concern,” Dr. Naila Khalil of University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and colleagues wrote in BioMed Central’s online journal Environmental Health.
“Lead is a toxic metal, and our results add to the existing evidence of adverse affects of lead on health as seen in an older cohort who experienced greater historic environmental lead exposure,” Khalil added in a written statement.
Results of the most recent US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2001-2002) indicate that average blood lead levels have declined sharply — relative to earlier surveys — to 1.45 micrograms per deciliter.
However, the women studied by Khalil’s group were part of an earlier study conducted between 1986 and 1988, and were therefore alive while lead was still used in paints, water systems and gasoline. Their average blood concentrations were 5.3 micrograms per deciliter, with some women showing levels as high as 21 micrograms per deciliter.
During the 12 years these women were followed, 123 died and these women had slightly higher average blood lead concentrations than survivors (5.56 versus 5.17 micrograms per deciliter.
Multiple factors contribute to the development of heart disease, and the current study shows that lead exposure may be one of them, the investigators say.
“While the damage may already have been done for some older people,” they say, “it is important that we recognize the harm that environmental exposure to lead can cause. We must remain vigilant and ensure that lead pollution is minimized for the sake of future generations’ health,” the researchers conclude.
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