The article adds that in exchange for the assistance provided by the scientists, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has been assured by Washington that his government would not have to hand them over Dr. Qadeer, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, in order to face questioning about his alleged role in selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Hersh further adds in his report that President Bush has already gone and signed " a series of top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia." Including Pakistan?

By defining these operations as military and not intelligence one, Hersh states it helps the U.S. administration to get around the legal restrictions imposed on the CIA's covert activities overseas.

http://www.newyorker.com/

Well, what the Tamil language has achieved in South-East Asia, Punjabi is on the way of acquiring in Canada where it is already the sixth largest spoken language. In fact, in the two important Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario, it is the third largest spoken language! If you happen to fly by Air Canada, you won't miss odd instructions in Punjabi. And in British Columbia, where Punjabis constitute about eight per cent of the province's population of about four million, efforts are under way to seek 'Canadian' status for this language.

Punjabis have been in Canada for more than 100 years now. "If we are accepted as part and parcel of this society, why not our language?" asks Balwant Sanghera, who is also a winner of Order of British Columbia and a community leader.

English and French are the two official languages in Canada, a country of 32 million. And other major spoken tongues such as Punjabi, Chinese, Japanese, German and Spanish are termed 'foreign' languages. "If we are not foreigners in this country, why should our languages be deemed 'foreign' in our country?" he argues.

In British Columbia, Punjabi was recognized as a second language in public schools in 1994. "Which means it can be taught as an full subject from Grade 5 to 12," adds Vinning, whose book No More Watno Dur was the first bilingual poetry collection published in Canada.

In the city of Surrey, which is the largest municipality in Canada and where Punjabis constitute about 30 per cent of the 400,000-strong population, it is taught in many schools.

Vancouver-based world-famous University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University are the two Canadian universities offering Punjabi courses.

In the University College of Fraser Valley, Punjabi is taught as a credit course. Amazingly, there are about a dozen Punjabi language weeklies and three radio stations in Vancouver.

City halls, transport, hospitals, offices and banks issue instructions in Punjabi as well as in other five languages.

Curiously, there are over 100 Punjabi writers, poets and authors in this province. "Many of them write not only in Punjabi but also in Hindi and English. They are members of the Writers Union of Canada that has writers like Margaret Atwood as its members. Which has helped spread awareness about Punjabi in the mainstream society," says Ajmer Rode of the Punjabi Writers' Forum.

In Toronto, Punjabi comes after English and Italian as the third largest spoken language. "We have 10 Punjabi weeklies and as many radio stations," says Kuldip Deepak who in 1977 started Canada's first Punjabi radio program Punjab Di Gunj which raised $37,000 for tsunami relief in just two hours last week.

"With the UN recognizing Punjabi among the top 11 languages with 150 million speakers in 120 countries, there is no reason why we shouldn't seek Punjabi the status it deserves in Canada," says Balwant Sanghera.


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