I saw this afternoon a live telecast (Aaj TV) from Saudi Arabia of the inauguration of the Extra ordinary summit of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC). And it made me contemplate some Islamic themes, including the prospects and need for an Islamic news channel.
A day earlier there was a preparatory ministerial conference held to draft the agenda which discussed two documents: a Mecca Declaration, and a 10-year plan of action to confront the challenges of the 21st Century. Then there was the third session of the trial of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussain being shown (delayed video) on CNN.
As I write, the cricket theme and the fact that ARYOne is coming up with a fashion TV as a pioneering first in this field, or the flood of Indian content in our TV channels, also distract me. There are street crime and white collar crime that private channels have begun focusing on. There is a growing emphasis on the entertainment theme, and the PTV telecast of the LUX style awards on Saturday being an example.
There is so much television coming up that neither the cable operators and their systems can deliver, nor do viewers have the time to watch it all. Is channel surfing the only option? One must admit sometimes the desire to see more brings more frustration and futility. How much more can one see? Having said all this with a sense of inadequacy, I want to write about a very sad, disturbing, well argued panel discussion on Aaj TV on Tuesday night wherein anchor person Khalid Jameel was talking to two Aaj TV correspondents who were spelling details of the sheer inadequacy of the rehabilitation and reconstruction exercise.
And lending authenticity and credibility were film reports with interviews of men, women and children of how they were freezing in the cold, doing without the basic comforts of life, and even fighting the aftermath of the earthquake by going without proper food. Even no food, said one little girl, aged about five. And to the inquisitive TV reporter, she kept saying "Phir Kya Karain". (What should we do?) What do you do when there is no dinner provided and it is cold as well? He asked, and she answered "Phir Kya Karain".
How do you sleep without enough blankets and quilts? She asked "Phir Kya Karein?" I am reminded here of another similar depressing TV report on the people braving it out in the cold, and one child was quoted as saying that he wanted President Musharraf to spend one night in that chill to know what the people were undergoing.
As I write this column, the TV is on and the Geo news is showing a film report on the devastation that the Hazara University has suffered. It appears to be symbolic of how paralysed life has become in the quake affected areas. It is two months now since that horror descended.
Let me return to the panel discussion on Aaj TV, which made one wonder about the extent to which relief and reconstruction stories being projected in the media (print and electronic) are accurate. Or rather how accurate? It appears to be a very grim and terrifying experience that the quake affected population is undergoing. A population, not all of which was rockbottom, in terms of economics.
There were shown, in this programme well to do people whose quality of life nose-dived into virtual poverty and societal dependence. One person after another said that the Rs 25000 per family was not enough at all for rebuilding the home. Another said they were waiting for clearance from the experts whether it was safe to rebuild and reinvest in the same place. Another person revealed that they had been stopped supply of daily lunch because the authorities and the NGOs wanted them to earn a living, and pay for their meal. The question was where would means of livelihood be available in an environment previously backward economically, and now knocked out. Many questions are still waiting for answers.
The questions appear to be growing. Anchor person Khalid Jameel was moved himself by the "what should we do" which the little girl kept asking. He, understandably, said that there was a need for all of us to do more in the foreseeable future. I kept thinking of the child's agonising question, even after the programme was over.
An AFP story datelined 4th December London, carried the headline saying "Libya 'jammed' media satellites". It is reported that Britain and the United States have complained to Libya after two international satellites were illegally jammed, knocking off air TV, Radio and other communication channels, The Guardian reported. "The news report said that digital broadcasts, including those by the CNN International, BBC World, US sports channels, 23 radio stations and US military, diplomatic and FBI channels were affected.
It was further stated that the Foreign Office in London confirmed that British officials in Tripoli had raised the issue with the Libyan government and British Telecoms regulator Ofcom was also considering a complaint to the International Telecoms Union, it added.
The jamming is reported to have started on September 19 after a small British and Arab owned commercial radio station began broadcasting from London to Libya on human rights and freedom of speech issues. The report said that the transponder carrying the station was jammed for 50 minutes, 10 minutes after the station - initially known as Sout Libya - went on air. The interference ceased when the station stopped broadcasting.
Then Sout Libya renamed itself Sowt Alamel, said The Guardian, and as a precaution broadcast via the United States and the Telestar 12 satellite, making it impossible for its signal to be jammed from anywhere except America. Its output was not affected but other stations carried by the satellite were. An anonymous email was then sent to a company associated with the station, stating that the problems were caused by the Alamel channel on the satellite, said the Guardian. The email further said that "this channel broadcasts terrorist propaganda, intended to spread terrorist ideas amongst the listeners' minds."
Another news report from AFP focuses on the point that the US military news stories were 'paid advertisements'. And it makes one wonder about the TV channels also. Where does the "paid advertisement" appear in the television that we see in this country, for example. With the growing number of Television channels there is occasion to wonder about where exactly do these channels come from? Now take a look at what this AFP story has to say.
It reads: "The US military has confirmed that it paid to place stories in Iraqi newspapers, going through third parties to reduce the risk to publishers.
But the US led Multinational Force-Iraq insisted that such information operations, were 'an essential tool for commanders to ensure the Iraqi population has current, truthful and reliable information." This is what a statement further said: As part of our operations, we have offered articles for publication to Iraqi newspapers, and in some cases articles have been accepted and published as function of buying advertising and opinion/editorial space, as is customary in Iraq.
It was further explained that the procedures had undergone policy and legal review to ensure they complied with law and regulation. The US military said that it was reviewing allegations raised in news reports about the programme, and will investigate any improprieties. The disclosure of the practice of paying to plant favourable stories in the Iraqi press has been widely criticised here as a blow to US credibility and to the independence of the Iraq media-US senator John Warner, after being briefed by the US defence officials, said that the Pentagon was still gathering information on the extent of the secret programme, and whether Iraqi journalists were paid by the military to write favourable stories.
And senior Pentagon officials confirmed that that a private firm, the Lincoln group, was contracted to pay Iraqi news organisations to run military produced stories as paid advertisements. The Senator was quoted as saying that "Now it's been discovered in some areas, there's an omission of that reference that it's been paid for. And they are looking into that." It is further disclosed that all such stories were put together by a group working directly under Lieutenant General John Vines, the second ranking commander in Iraq.
They were reviewed by a flag officer and cleared by the military legal advisors before being turned over to the Lincoln group. He further said that the material produced by the military was represented as originating with the coalition military. "The Lincoln group is authorised to provide payment for placement of this material in Iraqi newspapers, similar to the way in which any advertiser, marketeer, or public relations firm would place advertisements."
Waziristan is an on-going theme in the news and current affairs context of PTV and private television channels. It is a very significant dimension to the war against terror that Pakistan has been committed to particularly in the last three years plus. And from time to time, with a certain intermittent regularity there come stories and backgrounders, and panel discussions on this very strategic, sensitive theme.
And sometimes TV channels play a pivotal role in the communication process. One news story that the channels focused on was about a "trade fire" in a tribal area of South Waziristan near the Afghanistan border.
The Director General of the Inter-Services Public Relations, Major General Shaukat Sultan told a private TV channel that a soldier and a suspect were killed on Sunday in the Shakai valley of South Waziristan, some 60km south-west of Miran Shah. The ISPR spokesman was quoted as saying that the soldiers traded fire with miscreants during a search operation which had been launched after an improvised explosive device exploded in the area.
He added that small groups of militants in the tribal area has been reported and a military operation cannot be ruled out to weed out terrorists from the area. Major General Sultan was quoted as saying that according to government information, some foreign terrorists were still hiding in small groups and a vigilant eye was being kept on their movement.
Here I would like to focus on the high profile that was attached to the reports that the Egyptian head of al Qaeda operations in Pakistan, Hamza Rabia had been killed. I saw the ARYOne news bulletin at 10pm on the evening this story had surfaced, and it carried both sides to the story. After saying that the man had been killed, according to Pakistani sources, it was stated that he wasn't, which is what was claimed by the al Qaeda sources.
US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley was quoted as saying that Washington was looking into reports that that Rabia had been killed, but could not confirm his death. He said that Rabia had taken over as "head of operations for al Qaeda after the May capture in Pakistan of Abu Faraj Al Libbi, described as a number three al Qaeda leader after Osama Bin Laden and his top lieutenant Ayman Zawahiri. And the TV channels showed President Pervez Musharraf as saying in Kuwait that Hamza Rabia had been killed. He said: "Yesterday I said that (his death) was 200 percent was confirmed. Now I say that it is 500 percent confirmed.
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