FRANCE

Dear America: My name is Khan. I'm not a terrorist

Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan is one of the most famous men on the planet [Reuters]

He is one of the most famous men on the planet. Adored  by millions. His films are almost always box office smashes. But when Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan travelled to the US on Thursday, he was detained by security for two hours while they checked out his "status".

Ironic, considering his biggest hit film was the story of a man determined to visit the US president and give him a very simple message: My Name is Khan and I'm not a terrorist. 

The film is a powerful look at what it means to be Muslim in the land of the free and the home of the brave.  I wonder if he told Homeland Security that he wasn't a terrorist. 

He says he feels angry and humiliated. I know how he feels. In the last three years I have travelled to the US six times. Each time, bar one, I was stopped. I was asked to go to a holding facility and my passport was taken. You are asked to sit down by a polite but hostile official. 

Don't use your mobile phone to call loved ones who might be waiting for you. Don't talk to the official who will studiously ignore you. Just wonder what you did to warrant such treatment.

I'm British Pakistani. I hold a British passport. I was born and brought up in the UK. I am not visibly Muslim. My religion or lack of it is my own affair and I don't have a criminal record. 

Yet I feel as though that's exactly what I am. A criminal. Each time I sat in this holding facility I looked around at the people sat with me. Tired children. Harrassed parents worrying about what is going on. One time I even saw a near blind old man in wheelchair. 

Occasionally I saw Europeans, but the vast majority of the time it was men between the ages of 18-45. I'm taking an educated guess with that figure. I didn't take a poll. They seemed to be of south Asian or Arab origin, and again I'm taking an educated guess.

Male. 18-45. Of south/central Asian or Arab origin. That's a massive demographic to tar with the same brush. Each time I was questioned by a Department of Homeland Security officer I was asked the same questions. What was I doing here? Who did I plan to visit?

Each time they would tell me that the procedure was routine, that they would get me out as soon as possible. From the Middle East, where I am based, to the US is a 14-hour flight. Every time I was tired, hungry and I could feel that I was about to get rattled. But shouting and getting angry would not have helped. These men are just doing the job.

It's the US that has a problem. It's simply in a tailspin when it comes to dealing with Muslims. In New York security cameras are pointed at mosques. 

Recently revealed American security files show that if a cafe had a television screening Al Jazeera, then it was worthy of further investigation.

America, and I have seen this in British Muslim communities, is scaring the very people it needs to help it. Good US citizens who pay their taxes, vote and who love the country are concerned about what's happening. 

I have a friend. There is nothing Muslim about her other than her name. She swears like docker and parties harder than Kanye West. She is Palestinian American. Even this young New Yorker, who is as American as it gets, right down to her Brooklyn accent, feels scared in the US. 

She often says to me "Drink now, you never know when they might arrest you." She’s joking, of course. But "in vino veritas, in wine, truth" so goes the old saying. 

Scared in your own country. Imagine what it feels like if you are a visitor and your first introduction to America is a welcome that says "We think you are a person worthy of further investigation". Imagine what it feels to not be able to call your loved ones who wait patiently outside the airport.

Shah Rukh Khan is one of the most famous men on the planet.  He had the power of the Indian embassy to get him out of detention. We ordinary mortals are left to our own devices. 

The US was brutally hurt by the events of September 11th 2001. But over a decade later it has not learned the lesson that its greatest asset is people.

If future attacks from a tiny but determined minority are to be stopped, then enlist the help and respect of those good people who share the name of the faith with the terrorists, but not their spirit.

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Ouverture de la frontière de Wagah

Une journée typique à la frontière de Wagah, se termine généralement par un spectacle de muscle.Géant, flandrin soldats enjamber un air de défi à la frontière séparant l'Inde du cérémonial du Pakistan. 

A chaque étape menaçante, ils s'affrontent, tandis que leurs citoyens chère depuis les tribunes. C'est une sorte de haka danse diplomatique joue devant des centaines, aboutissant finalement à des drapeaux des pays deux étant déployées et repliées. 

Aujourd'hui, Avril 13, c'est différent.

Au lieu d'une performance hyper nationaliste, il ya une bouffée d'espoir - et oui, même la paix - dans l'air.Et ce qui porte ce changement est une bonne affaire à l'ancienne.

Il a fallu des années de lobbying et de réunions interminables, pour le bizarrement nommé "Check Post intégré" qui sera inauguré aujourd'hui. En d'autres termes, les commerçants indiens et pakistanais peuvent enfin faire des affaires officiellement par la route et de meilleures installations.

«Auparavant, on nous a demandé beaucoup de questions et ont dû passer par les contrôles de sécurité multiples. Maintenant, j'espère que son différent," dit Subhash Chandra, un camionneur affable qui fèves de soja ferries à destination du Pakistan. 

Et il semble qu'il sera. Le poste de contrôle intégré dispose d'installations de classe mondiale. Il existe des terminaux dédiés pour le fret et les passagers. Sa propagation plus d'une centaine d'acres, et parmi les installations, il ya scanners à rayons X, les bâtiments des douanes et de l'espace supplémentaire pour les camions se déplacer à travers.

Plus tôt, la seule façon de les commerçants pourraient vendre leurs produits au Pakistan était en leur envoyant à travers un parcours pénible impliquant les hautes mers et des routes poussiéreuses.

Grâce à leur relation à rude épreuve, l'Inde et le Pakistan a interdit certains éléments d'être exporté par la route. Donc, du côté indien, les marchandises seraient d'abord atteindre les rives de Mumbai, d'où ils seraient prises pour les ports de Dubaï, et enfin, ils arrivent sur les marchés surpassant de Karachi ou Lahore à Islamabad ou.

Non seulement ce cher, il a également donné lieu à un marché noir florissant valeur est estimée à 10 milliards de dollars.

L'histoire Fracture

Avec une frontière poreuse et à long s'étend sur des milliers de kilomètres, traversant par les états de Gujarat, du Rajasthan et du Punjab du côté indien, par le biais du Sindh et du Punjab au Pakistan, vous ne le pensez en utilisant les routes est l'approche la plus naturelle au commerce.

Mais les deux pays partagent une histoire fracturée. Depuis qu'ils ont rompu avec l'autre, divisé par les dirigeants britanniques, puis en 1947, leur présent a été façonnée par son passé.

Ils ont mené des guerres sur le territoire contesté du Cachemire, où les deux parties revendiquent comme leur.

Ajouter à la liste, un désaccord intense sur le partage des eaux dans le Rann de Kutch, ainsi que d'autres différends frontaliers, et vous avez deux voisins qui tout simplement ne peux pas s'entendre avec les uns des autres.

Il ya aussi des groupes d'intérêts vastes qui ne veulent pas à marcher sur ce chemin de la paix. Différents groupes de pression en Inde, comme le droit politiciens d'extrême qui veulent un État hindou, et même idéologiquement placé groupes au Pakistan, dont l'existence même est basée sur la destruction de l'Inde, sont quelques-uns d'entre eux.

Les attentats de Bombay en 2008 de manière efficace aussi arrêté tout processus de paix avec l'Inde accusant le fondateur du groupe interdit Lashkar e Toiba, pour ces attaques. 

Donc, demander aux opposants, avec un tel bagage politique lourde quelle sera l'ouverture d'un tout changement poste-frontière?

D'affaires sur la politique?

L'histoire a montré où la politique a échoué, les entreprises ont prospéré. La Chine et Taïwan ont depuis fort longtemps des liens d'affaires, en dépit de leur animosité politique.

L'Inde et la Chine pour cette question ont également réussi à faire beaucoup d'argent en dépit d'être rivaux intenses en Asie du Sud. Le commerce avec la Chine en tête 74bn $ l'an dernier et il est prédit que d'ici 2015, ce chiffre passera à 100 milliards de dollars.

Les partisans de cette théorie la diplomatie des affaires dire que le commerce sera l'adhésif, ce qui porte l'Inde et le Pakistan de plus près sur la route de la paix. La plus grande interdépendance que vous avez pour les uns des autres marchandises, moins il est probable que vous aller faire la guerre.

Soumya Kanti Ghosh de la Fédération de la Chambre des Indiens d'actions Commerce et d'Industrie ce point de vue. 

"Si vous regardez les relations politiques entre l'Inde et la Chine qui n'a pas été exactement excellente au fil des décennies. Mais toujours la Chine est l'un des partners.In Inde commercial le plus important de la même veine, si je dis que les relations Inde et le Pakistan aussi la relation politique peut ne pas avoir été bonhomie tant dans les deux dernières décennies. Je pense contraintes économiques exigent que les deux pays devraient s'engager dans un libre-échange entre eux.

Et si un jour de la négociation se termine. Le dernier des camions quittent pour leurs pays d'origine. Et ils emportent avec eux un peu de chaque autre poussière. Le chemin de la paix ne peut pas être si simple, mais il ya peu de doute, les premières mesures ont été prises.

Central & South Asia India-Pakistan border post opens for business Historic checkpoint reopens to commercial traffic in bid to boost trade between antagonistic neighbours.

Central & South Asia

India-Pakistan border post opens for business

Historic checkpoint reopens to commercial traffic in bid to boost trade between antagonistic neighbours.

Pour la première fois depuis 2007, l'Inde et le Pakistan sont mis à ouvrir une frontière historique de passage pour le trafic commercial en passant entre les deux nations. Le "poste de contrôle intégré», comme on le sait, à proximité de Wagah, la seule route de passage entre la antagoniste voisins, est le premier des 13 postes frontaliers prévus après des années de négociations entre les deux côtés. L'ouverture du passage à niveau Attari le vendredi pourrait voir le nombre de camions entrant augmentation du Pakistan de 150 à 800 par jour, grandement stimuler les entreprises des deux côtés de la frontière. Al Jazeera Prerna rapports Suri de la frontière de Wagah.

UN team ready for Syria deployment

Middle East

UN team ready for Syria deployment

Peacekeepers awaiting Security Council approval to oversee ceasefire that appears to have lasted into its second day.

A United Nations team of 30 unarmed military observers is ready to deploy to Syria to begin a monitoring mission as soon as the Security Council approves its mission, which may be as soon as Friday, a spokesman for special envoy Kofi Annan has said. The team is "standing by" to begin overseeing a tenuous but apparently stable ceasefire, said Ahmad Fawzi, a spokesman for the joint UN-Arab League envoy. Protests in the wake of that ceasefire have broken out across the country, and government forces have responded by firing into the air, reportedly killing one protester, activists claimed. "With every cessation of hostilities there will be skirmishes, this is not unusual, sometimes the parties test each other," he said. "There may continue to be skirmishes for hours or even days, but the fact of the matter remains that heavy shelling ... has died down." The continued presence of government troops and armoured vehicles in cities and other civilian areas, a violation of one of the six key points in Annan's peace plan, was "extremely" concerning, Fawzi said, but more important was a halt to the killing. "The most important thing is that the guns remain silent," he said. "Wherever their positions, we hope they should and will remain silent." Protests to test ceasefire In what promised to be a test of the ceasefire, regular Friday demonstrations began across the country in the afternoon, and Syrian forces tightened security in public squares and outside mosques. At least one protester was killed when a demonstration tried to reach central Hama, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Other activists said two people had been shot dead at an army checkpoint. Activist video posted on YouTube apparently showed protesters throwing rocks at security forces in Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city, and gunfire could be heard. An activist in a town near the Turkish border told Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught, reporting from Turkey, that pro-government armed groups known as shabiha had personally threatened to kill residents who protested on Friday. Burhan Ghalioun, the exiled head of the Syrian National Council, said on Thursday he did not trust the authorities who had their "hand on the trigger". "While we call on the Syrian people to protest strongly... we ask them to be cautious because the regime will not respect the ceasefire and will shoot." President Bashar al-Assad's regime has cracked down on such rallies in the past and suggested it would not allow them to resume on Friday, insisting protesters need to seek permission first. Heavy gunfire The worst reported violence since the ceasefire came into effect early on Thursday seemed to break out in the town of Khirbet al-Jouz, near the Turkish border, around midday, when residents reported two hours of sustained heavy gunfire. A rebel commander in the area told Al Jazeera that government tanks had opened fire to provide cover to soldiers who wanted to take down five rebel flags. The opposition fighters withdrew, having pledged to honour the ceasefire and not engage the government, he said. Syria's SANA state news agency on Thursday reported a bomb attack on a military bus in the northern city of Aleppo. "An armed terrorist group used an explosive device to target a bus transporting officers and non-commissioned officers to their unit in Aleppo," it said. "It killed a lieutenant colonel and wounded 24 other people." Colonel Kassem Saadeddine, a spokesman for the opposition Free Syrian Army, denied any involvement in the attack. Bashar Jaafari, Syria's UN ambassador, said Damascus already had complied with calls to withdraw troops from towns and called on its opponents to honour the ceasefire, saying there had been eight violations by armed groups on Thursday morning. South Africa's UN Ambassador Baso Sangqu said discussions on the text of a UN resolution authorising the deployment would begin on Thursday afternoon, and diplomats said it could be adopted as early as Friday. The UN says more than 9,000 people have been killed since anti-government protests began in March, 2011. Authorities say about 2,500 security forces and police have been killed.