Egyptian painting fetches record $2.43m

A work by Egyptian master Mahmud Said sold for $2.43 million at an auction in Dubai, a record for a modern painting by a Middle Eastern artist, auction house Christie’s said.

The painting, ‘Les Chadoufs’, portrays Egyptian peasants drawing water from the Nile. Christie’s, which organised Tuesday night’s auction at a luxury hotel in Dubai, had estimated its value at between 150,000 and $200,000. The identity of the buyer was not revealed. The British auction house said the price was a “record for any modern painting by any Middle Eastern artist.” The auction was attended by dozens of buyers, with others participating by telephone or online.

A statement by Christie’s said the sale netted a total of $15.1 million s - more than double the $6.7 million raised during its auction last October in Dubai, which was hard hit by the global financial crisis.

The painting by Said, an Egyptian artist who died in 1964 aged 67, belonged to former mayor of the Saudi city of Jeddah, Mohammed Said Farsi. It was auctioned along with 25 other works from Farsi’s private collection at a total price of $8.7 million. afp

Taliban cash in on Pakistan’s untapped gem wealth

In the narrow lanes of a market in Pakistan's northwest capital Peshawar, dealers squat on carpets and spread out a rainbow of precious gems on the floor for potential buyers.

Chunks of bright blue lapis lazuli, and rough rocks studded with flashes of light and colour clutter window displays, but no one is buying in a city hit by a wave of deadly bombings blamed on Taliban militia.

A treasure trove of precious stones is locked in the rocks of Pakistan's rugged northwest. Violence, legal tussles and state mismanagement have deterred investors but allowed the Taliban to cash in on the bounty, dealers say.

‘God has given us enormous wealth in terms of emeralds from Swat, rubies, pink topaz, beautiful tourmaline,’ said Ilyas Ali Shah, a gemologist with the government-run Pakistan Gems and Jewellery Development Company.

Shah said that if Pakistan properly mines these deposits the impoverished country could reverse its hefty foreign debt: ‘But we need peace.’

In February this year, militants waging a bloody insurgency to expand control opened three shuttered emerald mines in the northwest Swat valley around the main town Mingora and invited villagers to blast away.

The military says it has reclaimed all Swat mines from the Taliban during a fierce offensive, but for at least three months proceeds from emerald sales lined the militants' coffers and helped bankroll their insurgency.

‘They would collect the emeralds and there would be an open tender every Sunday,’ said Azhar ul Islam, a 44-year-old gem trader from Swat. ‘The profits were divided up — two-thirds for the miner and one-third for the Taliban.’

Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan are believed to hold up to 30-40 per cent of the world's emerald deposits, Shah says, with the precious stone fetching up to 2,000 dollars per carat depending on quality.

Azhar told AFP the Taliban earned about four million rupees a week from Mingora's main mine — shuttered since 1995 because of a legal battle — money he said was spent on ‘buying explosives, making weapons.’

‘I was frightened what would happen if the government re-established control, so I didn't buy those emeralds from the mines, but most of my friends bought these emeralds from the Taliban,’ he said.

At the Namak Mandi market in Peshawar, another dealer from Swat who did not want to be named estimated that the militants made between five and six million rupees a week from the stones.

No one in the market would admit buying Swat emeralds from the Taliban, but one dealer said he procures green garnet from a Taliban-owned mine over the border in Afghanistan, where the militants are also waging an insurgency.

‘We don't like the Taliban, we don't buy it because we want to help them, but we want the stones,’ 30-year-old Ali Akbar told AFP.

He says his business has been crushed by spiralling insecurity in Pakistan since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States thrust the country into the heart of the ‘war on terror’.

‘For five months I had no customers,’ he said.

Shah says Pakistan's gem-industry profits have plunged up to 50 per cent in one year because of the instability, with foreign investors staying away.

Most of the country's gems, including emeralds, garnet, pink topaz, spinel and tourmaline are located underground in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), the heartland of the Taliban insurgency.

Experts say the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) — a mountainous area largely outside government control along the Afghan border and stronghold of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud — hides deposits of rare quartz and precious stones.

‘I think we have explored three per cent of the whole of NWFP. We have large areas of Fata that are not under control, so we have a lot of precious material untapped which needs to be explored and exploited,’ Shah said.

Pervez Elahi Malik, former chairman of the main gem exporters' association, blames the local NWFP government for not sorting out legal tussles and getting potentially lucrative mines up and running under state control years ago.

At the moment, local villagers and tribesmen blast away at the rocks and transport their haul to Namak Mandi — a damaging mining process that experts say can destroy 80 per cent of the stones.

‘We are lacking in technical knowledge, we are lacking stability in the country,’ said Shah. ‘Our mining is not technically sound and safe — we are destroying our wealth.’ — AFP

Wasim tips Pakistan, India for World T20

KARACHI: Famed Pakistani paceman Wasim Akram tipped India and Pakistan on Wednesday as joint favourites to win the World Twenty20, saying the sub-continental giants have the talent and passion to triumph.

Pakistan will defend their title in the third edition of the World Twenty20, which starts in the West Indies on Friday. India won the first edition held in South Africa in 2007.

Wasim said both India and Pakistan are eager to win. “Pakistan have been starved of cricket, so they have the thirst to win the title again,” Wasim told AFP before leaving for New Delhi where he is booked as an expert television commentator the World Twenty20. Wasim said Pakistan have a leader in Shahid Afridi. “You need someone like Afridi as captain in Twenty20 cricket. He has aggression needed in a leader and in a short Twenty20 match he will always sparkle,” said Wasim, a member of Pakistan’s 1992 World Cup winning team.

He said Pakistan can rise to the occasion despite being short on international cricket. “Pakistan has played very limited international cricket and their players were not in the Indian league, then they have off-field problems resulting in bans, but whenever there is a World Cup Pakistani players rise to the occasion.“Look at the available talent, Afridi can single-handedly win a Twenty20 match as he is equally lethal with bat and ball, and then the depth in bowling makes Pakistan favourites.”

Wasim said India was also eager to win.

“What I have seen is a remarkable passion in the Indian players as well as in the public to win this title, and they too have a very good team,” he said. The famous left-arm paceman, who has never played a Twenty20 international as the format started after his 2003 retirement, took 414 Test and 502 one-day wickets, and also played for Lancashire county with distinction.

“You cannot rule out an Indo-Pak final, which will do a world of good for international cricket.”Pakistan is placed in Group A alongwith Bangladesh and Australia, while India is in Group C with South Africa and Afghanistan. Two teams from each of four groups will qualify for Super Eight Stages. Wasim said Australia and South Africa were also strong. Australia and South Africa are also capable of winning but the nature of the West Indies pitches make Pakistan and India favourites, because they will help sub-continent spinners,” said Wasim.

“But to win a Twenty20 match you need to play good cricket for three and a half hours because the match can swing with one good performance, so teams on their toes all the time have good chances,” said Wasim.

T20 world cup: Teams from the subcontinent start favourites

A Going by past record alone, Pakistan are the firm favourites to lift the ICC World Twenty20 (if there can be anything called favourites in a format as fickle as this). They won the tournament last year, were the finalist in 2007, and have a much better overall record in 20-over cricket than any other side.

South Africa come closest to them, and in fact have a better win-loss ratio in the World Twenty20, but they've lost out in crucial games - to India in 2007, and to Pakistan in the 2009 edition. Australia, on the other hand, have a good record overall but a very poor one in World Cups. India, after a closely fought win over Pakistan in the 2007 final, have not had a very good time in the Twenty20 format. They have won just five and lost seven of the 12 games played since their victory. Sri Lanka, the finalists in 2009, are the only other team with a win-loss ratio of more than two in World Cups.

Performance of teams in T20 matches played Matches won Matches lost win-loss ratio T20 World Cup matches played Matches won Matches lost Win-loss ratio
Pakistan 30 22 7 3.14 14 10 3 3.33
South Africa 26 17 9 1.88 11 9 2 4.50
Australia 29 15 12 1.25 8 3 5 0.60
Sri Lanka 25 15 10 1.50 12 9 3 3.00
New Zealand 33 13 17 0.76 11 5 6 0.83
England 25 10 14 0.71 10 3 7 0.42
India 20 10 8 1.25 12 6 4 1.50
West Indies 21 8 11 0.72 8 3 5 0.60
Bangladesh 14 3 11 0.27 7 1 6 0.16
ZImbabwe 8 3 4 0.75 2 1 1 1.00

Madhuri the spy!

Madhuri Gupta, the 53-year-old second secretary at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad who has been arrested on charges of allegedly spying for Pakistan, was hoping for a plum diplomatic posting in either London or Washington.

"I should get London or Washington," a confident Gupta had told PTI a few months ago. Gupta had earlier served in the Indian mission in Baghdad and admitted that she was looking forward to another good posting sometime later this year.

Gupta made friends easily and could make great small talk. She could talk about clothes, hair styles or Pakistan's Urdu press -- 'where the real news was' -- with equal ease.

"English newspapers are boring. They always pick up news a day late. If you want to read real news, real gossip, read Urdu newspapers," she told PTI.

Gupta learnt Urdu in New Delhi shortly before she was posted to Pakistan in late 2007. She hired a Muslim woman as a private tutor to teach her.

"She taught me from scratch. I didn't even know my alif-bays," said Gupta, who had earlier learnt another foreign language at Jawaharlal Nehru [ Images ] University's school of languages.

Gupta spoke perfect Urdu and could have easily passed off as a Pakistani because of her accent. Like locals, she was always well dressed, her make-up was in place and her hair was coloured

"I bought this in Lajpat Nagar on my last trip to India [ Images ]," she said when friends recently praised her stylish new coat.

Gupta sometimes came across as brash and fearless, especially when she regaled friends with tales of driving to India via the Islamabad-Lahore motorway, often at breakneck speed.

"I did the Lahore motorway in three-and-a-half hours," she would tell friends, most of whom admired her guts for driving to and fro alone.

Most Indian diplomats travel in groups or with their families on such drives to the Indian border.

The small Indian community of diplomats and staffers of the High Commission in Islamabad would also bank on Gupta for getting them firecrackers or Holi colours during her trips to India.

"I will get natural colours, they won't harm your skin," she announced before a planned Holi celebration to those who didn't want to play with colours.

On a picnic to the picturesque Pir Sohawa viewpoint overlooking Islamabad sometime ago, she decided to be the spokeswoman for a group of Indian women, when a Pakistani woman entered their bus in the parking lot and asked if they had a cassette of 'bhajans'.

While most of the women were wondering how the Pakistani lady had figured out that they were Indians, Gupta dealt with her politely but firmly, ensuring that she got off the vehicle. "You give us your address and we will send you a cassette," Gupta said, taking the woman's address.

When she returned from her last trip to India, she told friends, "I am so tired. There is so much to do when you are in India. There is no time to relax. I feel I am back home now."

Gupta was quick to notice the expression on her friends' faces following her remark. "Home is where you live. Good or bad, this is home," she laughed out loud.

The new tobacco

Remember the Gold Leaf man? Suavely strolling through museum exhibits in his fine suit and riding thoroughbreds in his jodhpurs, as if a cigarette bestowed the gift of dandyism. Unfortunately for Mr. Dandy Cigarette-Smoking Man, cigarette ads in Pakistan went the way of the British and were kicked off the airwaves in 2003. I hear he’s currently looking for a job as Bilawal Zardari’s butler.

But a ‘new tobacco’ is on the block. It’s called junk food and its suffusing children’s programming like the second-hand smoke of four-pack-a-dayers in a small room. According to a consumer protection NGO, 50 to 70 per cent of ads on channels for children in Pakistan are about food – candies, toffees, jellies, ready-made cakes, cookies, noodles, juices and flavoured milk. It’s a cocktail high on salt, sugar, fats, artificial flavours, colours and preservatives.

You could argue that it’s the parents’ job to give their children the healthier option. I’ve seen a six-year-old sucking coke out of a milk bottle and a toddler wailing for his Fanta-filled sippy cup, and I’ve been properly horrified each time. In fact, 73 per cent of Pakistani children perceive soft drinks to be healthy for frequent consumption. But as every parent knows all too well to their dismay, beyond a certain point, the media, peers and society can easily override years of training. What do you do when all the kids are drinking soft drinks at a birthday party and you insist your little angel has the milk? That’s just uncool.

My daughter was not allowed to watch television until she turned two. Her intake of soft drinks is limited to the occasional Fanta or Seven-Up as a treat perhaps twice a month. Even then, if she insists on market-bought drinks, my husband and I prefer to give her the flavoured milk over the fizzy drink. I did not allow her chocolates or candies either until she turned two, and lollipops were proscribed until she was three. Even now, she watches about two hours of television a day, more on weekends and when she’s sick.

But like jihadi outfits that refuse to go away, junk food has better propaganda than evil, draconian mommy. The irresistible tug of advertising with its annoyingly catchy jingles, elaborate story lines lifted from animated movies and cute cartoon characters gets them like years of a controlling diet never be able to. It’s Willy Wonka’s world of chocolate rivers and never-ending gobstoppers, a hallucinogenic world of rainbow colours and sugar highs.

Take an ad for flavoured milk: plain white milk morphs into a lumbering monster which is eventually conquered by sipping packaged milk full of artificial flavours and sugar. Another shows that sucking lollipops is a substitute for thumb-sucking – candy triumphs over queer oral fixation! This particular one should be banned on more than one ground.

Only there is no regulation in Pakistan. Guidelines for advertising tend to look at vulgarity rather than nutritional claims or benefits. Studies have shown a correlation between increased consumption of junk food and media messages on television. The World Health Organisation (WHO) – which has collaborated with the Pakistani government on regulating tobacco – has “issued white papers in several … countries documenting the relationship between food advertising and childhood obesity.” Several EU countries have as a result placed restrictions on food advertising. The answer is not regulation, but self-regulation, as several advertising associations and food companies have done in the US, Canada and the UK. Pakistan needs to have the equivalent of an Advertising Standards Authority, an international watchdog body, whose functions include the monitoring of ethical advertising. Junk food advertising – with its dubious nutritional claims and free toys – needs to be curtailed. Bad food habits lead to obesity, certain forms of diabetes, malnutrition and rotting teeth.

Meanwhile, what can parents do? They could write to consumer rights groups like The Network or WHO in Pakistan so they can campaign about this issue. They can control what their children watch and eat. They can contact their children’s schools and volunteer time for a media literacy workshop so that children become responsible and informed consumers. There’s a great The Network or WHO in Pakistan so they can campaign about this issue. They can control what their children watch and eat. They can contact their children’s schools and volunteer time for a media literacy workshop so that children become responsible and informed consumers. There’s a great website that provides games and ready-made tools for kids, parents and teachers on media literacy.

Consumer rights groups, elected representatives and parents groups have managed to make a difference in other countries, why not in Pakistan?

AFRIDI

Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi’s roller-coaster international career has reflected the fortunes of his team — brilliant, baffling and controversial.

From the time in 1996 when he hit the fastest one-day century off 37 balls against Sri Lanka in Nairobi, Afridi has never been far from the headlines.

A big-match player, the 30-year-old was the player of the tournament for the inaugural edition of the World Twenty20 in 2007 and last year led Pakistan to the title with match-winning performances in the semi-final and final.

“Pakistan are a team in the making at the moment and Shahid Afridi is quite a force in the shorter form of cricket,” said Pakistan Test legend Mushtaq Mohammad.

“He won us the Twenty20 last summer. He is a very positive cricketer and we need somebody to lead Pakistan from the front.”

Afridi, who gave up Test cricket in 2006, inherited the T20 captaincy after former skippers, and star batsmen, Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf were banned by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) after the disastrous tour of Australia ended without a single international win for the visitors.

Even Afridi didn’t escape censure.

He was fined 35,000 dollars by the PCB for ball-tampering in a one-day match against Australia in Perth in February, although he appealed saying it was unfair to punish him twice after he was hit with a two-game ban by the International Cricket Council.

Afridi has played 27 Twenty20 internationals, scoring 475 runs with a highest score of 54 not out. He has also taken 37 wickets with a best of 4-11 and a miserly average of 16.32.

Afridi believes his team, who are in Group A for the first round with Bangladesh as well as old rivals Australia in the Caribbean, have the right balance to retain their title.

“I have a well balanced team in batting and bowling, and we have to further lift the standard of fielding. Fielding is crucial in this fastest version of the game and a lot of hard work was done to raise the standard,” said the captain.

“But we have got a lot of firepower in our batting — Misbah-ul-Haq, Abdul Razzaq, Umar Akmal, Khalid Latif and Salman Butt. As we expect spinning tracks, we have good options in Saeed Ajmal, Mohammad Hafeez and myself. In the pace department we have Mohammad Aamer, Mohammad Sami, Mohammad Asif and Abdul Razzaq.”

Pakistan enters the world of alternative sports

Red Bull Street Style, an alternative sports world cup featuring soccer tricks mixed with freestyle dance moves, recently held its national finals in Karachi. Showcasing the best of freestyle soccer tricks from Lahore, Karachi & Islamabad. Co-sponsored for Pakistan by Djuice, the national finals included 16 of the top freestylers selected from regional qualifiers. 18 year old Areeb Iqbal, from Karachi, won the competition by consistently displaying his talent through multiple knock-out rounds and will go on to represent Pakistan at the World Finals of Red Bull Street Style in Cape Town, South Africa.

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Bad habits that can age you by 12 years!

Four common bad habits combined — smoking, drinking too much, inactivity and poor diet — can age you by 12 years, sobering new research suggests.The findings are from a study that tracked nearly 5,000 British adults for 20 years, and they highlight yet another reason to adopt a healthier lifestyle.

Overall, 314 people studied had all four unhealthy behaviors. Among them, 91 died during the study, or 29 percent. Among the 387 healthiest people with none of the four habits, only 32 died, or about 8 percent.

The risky behaviors were: smoking tobacco; downing more than three alcoholic drinks per day for men and more than two daily for women; getting less than two hours of physical activity per week; and eating fruits and vegetables fewer than three times daily.

These habits combined substantially increased the risk of death and made people who engaged in them seem 12 years older than people in the healthiest group, said lead researcher Elisabeth Kvaavik of the University of Oslo.