Pro Cycling Calendar 2025

This covers the races we feel passionate about. The focus remains on the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España, but there is so much more happening in 2025.

Please click on the links underneath for more information.

Click below to...

The Ordeal Of John Suitcase

“What an ordeal! File a complaint, do something—what’s your name Miss——?”

John implores while attempting to read the name tag of the young woman behind the desk at the Lost and Found Luggage office of the airport.

“I'm Miss Trolley Bag", replies the young woman, placing special emphasis on her marital status.

"John Suitcase is my name. I'm on four wheels and twice as useful as a human being on two legs", explains John.

Click below to...

Under My 42-Inch Umbrella With Vintage Speedlights

In this article I will show you how to create a key light source for indoor portraiture with not one but three vintage speedlights and a 42-inch umbrella.

Triggering slavery like a coloniser

I found lying about at home:

1) Two Made-in-Japan Popular 606 speedlights from the 1970s/80s. These worked not only on batteries but on A.C power as well. To save the planet, I used the latter option to say goodbye to batteries. These units could only be fired at full output because there was no output control on them.

2) One Nikon SB-15 vintage speedlight from the 1980s. This unit could only be powered by four AA batteries—sorry mother Earth.

Initially I fired it at full MANUAL output power but later preferred using its A2 BLUE setting, which provided lesser light but enough to trigger the optical slave units attached to the Popular speedlights.

3) One Godox 3-in-1 Reemix-II receiver mounted on the Nikon SB-15 so that when I fired the camera’s shutter, the SB-15 speedlight fired too, and whose light would in turn fire the optical slaves attached to the Popular 606s. Elementary, my dear Dr. Watsons!

4) One Godox 3-in-1 Reemix-II mounted on the Nikon D-750 DSLR which transmitted a radio signal to fire the SB-15 speedlight to which the Reemix-II radio receiver was attached.

5) Two optical slaves attached to the Popular speedlights which fired when the Nikon SB-15’s light hit their sensors.

Mounting the horses

An adjustable speedlight/umbrella adapter came in handy and on this I mounted the Nikon SB-15 speedlight.

The Popular 606s were mounted on the left and the right sides of a flat-plate multiple-speedlight bracket. The adjustable speedlight/umbrella adapter was mounted in the middle.

All this hardware was attached to a microphone boom stand. Because the weight of the attached devices tended to topple the mic stand, a large pipe-wrench was hung from the boom arm’s end to act as ballast weight.

To prevent the boom-arm from dropping down, I locked it to the vertical shaft with a carabiner (a quick-release lock used for mountaineering).

A 42” silver umbrella was mounted inside the adjustable speedlight/umbrella adapter.

Output in Watts

If you think that mounting three speedlights in this manner provided three times the wattage or light output, you are wrong. One could work out the light output with a formula but using a flash meter is more convenient.

With a subject-to-light distance of 2.13m (7’), the flash meter allowed me to dial in very useful aperture settings of f/8 and f/11 at ISO 100, with 1/125 sec shutter speed.

The 3-speedlight key light was complimented with a background speedlight (read my article: Filter Holder For Speedlights).

Butterflies in the stomach

I tested the entire set up using 1/200 sec shutter speed instead. The idea was to experiment with lighting that cast a dramatic butterfly-like shadow under the nose.

This single point source light was positioned head-on and tilted down 45° at the subject. This provided Hollywood-fame ‘butterfly lighting’ or ‘Paramount lighting’—the latter named after the movie studio: Paramount Pictures.

I read somewhere that such was the power and overall effect of this kind of lighting that famed British actress Audrey Hepburn specifically mentioned in her contract with Paramount Pictures that she ‘only be photographed using butterfly lighting’. Only social butterflies can afford such luxuries.

With nobody around who even closely resembled the petite stylish British actress, I took comfort in butterfly lighting family members for informal portraits in the master bedroom.

Final words

The results were very reassuring. Because simple butterfly setups did not always provide solutions for all shooting situations, I sank a fair amount of money into buying expensive studio strobes and soft-boxes.

The experiment worked well. I got nice deep shadows on the faces with the silver umbrella. Expensive Fresnel lenses would give even better results, whereas white umbrellas tend to produce softer shadows.

Right after I shot some portraits, I ordered a massive parabolic silver umbrella (165cm or 5’-5” diameter) which still lies unused. Please stay tuned for a follow-up article on that piece of equipment.

So, get your digital camera out of the camera-bag and shoot away before it de-values enough to make you invest more in another toy which again would spend most of its life in yet another camera case.

©Tahir Gul Hasan, 2024

Read my other photography articles:

1) TGH Photography Exhibition (DAWN article) A Professional's Touch

By Mahnaz Hasan

2) Pictures In My Mind

My own views about the first solo exhibition

3) Yashica Electro-35: Making Your Own Battery

How to make this impossible-to-find battery for a vintage camera yourself

4) In Pursuit Of Photography

Launching my portrait photography studio

5) Filter Holder For Speedlights

Reference: Butterfly Lighting: A One-Strobe Setup for Amazing Portraits! (digital-photography-school.com)

Filter Holder For Speedlights

In this article, I will show you how to use coloured filters and honeycomb grid on a home-made holder that you can attach to a speedlight to improve your flash photography.

Birds in hand

The idea of having a filter and grid holder had been simmering in my mind for some time. I searched on the internet but found no cheap and useful accessory.

Lying unused, I had five round plastic coloured filters: red, green, blue and yellow. All filters and the grid (honeycomb-pattern) were 11.8 cm or 4.65" in diameter.

Since I already had a professional-level lighting setup in the photography studio, I needed a compact secondary setup for quick and informal indoor shoots.

I was in no mood to buy another light-stand. A spare microphone stand came in handy for conversion to a light stand. It was height-adjustable, had a heavy round base and could be extended up to 178 cm (5'-10").

Over its top end, I screwed a metal adapter to convert the larger diameter male male 3/8" thread to a smaller diameter male 1/4" thread.

On this adapter, I mounted an optical slave unit with an ISO hot-shoe. The use of such slaves has fallen out of favour these days as everyone fancies radio-controlled, battery-dependant, menu-driven and expensive triggers. 

On my poor slave unit's hot-shoe, I mounted a swivel adapter to enable the fixed-head speedlight to be angled in any direction.

No trouble at all

Enthusiasts and hobbyists usually end up falling in love with some or all of the equipment they use.

I took all the trouble for the sake of my vintage Yashica Pro 50-DX that I loved using because apart from having the ability to be powered by three AA batteries, it could also run on 220V A.C.

On modern speedlights, I miss the ability of vintage models to fire either using battery power or 220V A.C. 

Most people do realise now that the manufacturers do not want us to have flexibility and useful options without paying dearly for them

Shoes, hot and cold

The swivel adapter used here had a cold-shoe (without electrical contacts) on top for the speedlight. To get a proper hot-shoe connection (with electrical contacts), the speedlight's male PC sync plug was connected to the swivel adapter's female PC sync terminal.

Finally, I mounted the old speedlight on top.

SoN philosophy

Put simply, I practise making something out of nothing: that is SoN.

Instead of jumping to buy expensive accessories, I always first try to use unused but useful items lying about at home.

Looking around, I found plastic covers of the terminals of four UPS batteries purchased earlier. Two such two covers were glued together in a u-shape and then secured with several zip-ties.

Additional zip ties were used to create a 1 cm wide gap in the middle of this gizmo to facilitate installation and removal of the filters and the grid.

Result

With this filter holder, I can now use two light modifiers simultaneously: a coloured filter and a honeycomb-pattern grid. Are you asking yourself, what is the use?

When any coloured filter (red, green, blue or yellow) is used, a white background can be made to look unique and colourful.

If you use the grid (with or without a coloured filter), you will get a focussed beam (meaning, the light beam will be narrower). By playing around with the distance and angle of the speedlight from the background, you can come up with novel lighting effects.

For portraiture, I can now light up in various colours the background separately from the front KEY light.

My secondary setup's KEY light is another bit of ingenuity. I am using multiple vintage A.C-powered speedlights mounted together inside an umbrella. These I trigger via a DSLR-mounted radio slave unit.

In a future article, I will show you how I made this key light out of vintage gems.

Endnotes

Inflation be damned, to complete this project I spent no money to buy any parts. Everything was already available at home, I was able to do what I wanted and above all, I achieved great satisfaction.

I encourage you to pick up your tools, speedily re-connect your brain with your heart and be a handyman (or a handywoman) DIYer.

QUIZ

Can you guess the brand and model of the wristwatch I have used in the photos? Please leave your answer in the comments section.

©Tahir Gul Hasan, 2024

All photos by the author

In Pursuit Of Photography

After sitting on my plans for a long time, in the spring of 2024 I sprang into action to launch my photography thing if not an Arab Spring from Egypt. If the birds and the bees could do it, I too could.

My rear lawn

Starting from one’s own garage has somehow been the preferred method for several entrepreneurs who are now billionaires. The sad part is that no photographer became a billionaire this way, sadder is the fact that no billionaire ever had the time to become a great photographer.

COVID—the 9/11 of health—changed our life patterns. Baking, education, food catering, almost everything switched to the online work-from-home business model.

This method has its drawbacks if the space is limited and if one is to refrain from creating nuisance for immediate neighbours in a residential area.

Renting expensive properties for commercial use is getting out of reach for most businesses considering the rising utility rates, inflated bills, the cost of hiring good help and deadly taxes.

Who to shoot?

I resolved to avoid the monotony of wedding shoots and fashion photography and instead focused on family, friends and acquaintances.

By the way, it was in spring of 2005 that I had my photographs displayed for the first time at a solo exhibition.

Read more here:

1. TGH Photography Exhibition (DAWN article) A Professional’s Touch
2. Pictures In My Mind

The videos of my interviews were aired repeatedly by television channels. What I was asked by the interviewers and what I replied is a topic for another article.

Briefly, the exhibition enabled me to sell a few framed prints but then I just rested on my laurels and did not prepare for another show despite getting a sponsorship.

Family reunion

What woke up this sleeping giant was a family reunion lunch. With several faces available, I lined them up to say cheese.

As a backdrop, a large piece of painted muslin (backdrop) was suspended from a support system designed for photographers.

The difficult part was arranging restless relatives in a tight group, having them look at the camera with genuine Mona Lisa smiles, and ensuring that they did not blink just when I pressed the camera’s shutter button.

The equipment

I used a Nikon D-800 high-resolution camera with a Nikkor 24-70 f2/8E ED VR lens on it. 

The light sources were two Elinchrom strobes (studio flash units) fitted inside 120cm wide parabolic soft-boxes to soften the lighting.

Another Elinchrom strobe acted as a hair-light to give some definition to the hair. Finally, a speedlight (flash) was placed right behind the subjects’ heads to create a halo effect much like that seen in the paintings of Christian saints’ of the classical period.

Other details

With no two faces being the same, several details needed to considered, such as: how lights cast shadows on the faces, highlights, lighting ratios, posing and facial expressions.

My camera was tethered to a laptop with appropriate software installed. This enabled me to autofocus the lens and operate both the camera and its menus with clicks of a mouse—the preferred method for professional shoots. For greater stability, I mounted the camera on a sturdy tripod.

While several parameters (aperture, shutter speed, white balance etc.) of the shoots were being digitally recorded by the software, I noted other details on paper to make repeatability easier later—note-taking being an old habit

Although the light intensities of the strobes were controlled via a camera-mounted remote, I still ended up running around to make other adjustments. Within ninety minutes I shot over six small groups; in fifteen days I photographed sixteen people.

With the relatives and friends awe-struck by the superb results, the Apollo-13 of my passion for photography was headed for a moon-landing.

Prints anyone?

For each person or group, I shot twenty to forty images at the highest possible resolution in lossless RAW format instead of the inferior JPEG which people generally use just to save storage space on their computer hard disks.

After rejecting technically imperfect shots, I selected the ones whose enlargements were to be ordered at a professional photo lab.

It was the mistake of my life to expect that relatives would want to pay for the prints. They all assumed, just as they feasted on free food, that the enlargements would be home-delivered for free. Considering that the entire nation continued to survive on IMF loans, I was not in a charitable mood.

A few seemed uninterested in enlargements and which made me feel as if I had wasted my precious time. Included in this unresponsive group were cousins whom I had photographed over forty years ago when they were very young ladies. My intention was to let them have that old group-photo along with the new one but the whole idea came crashing down. The rest of the appreciative souls were informed about the printing cost which they readily paid in advance.

I did a few headshots of some schoolmates but unfortunately could not gather all under one roof for a memorable group photo. There was not much I could do for people glued to their cell phones.

To the photo-lab

I did toy with the idea of finding someone with a large printer which many professional photographers use for printing. These printers cost a small fortune but their prints’ archival quality remains questionable while the running cost makes printing costly. The safest thing to do was to head for my favourite photo lab, located at the far end of the town.

Things had changed since I last had any prints made, which was many moons ago. Essentially, the colour paper and the chemicals used by these large machines were not from Fuji but rather Chinese sources. The latter produced results less pleasing to the eye than those obtained with the former.

The very first enlargement that emerged from the machine strengthened my resolve to look for a lab that could produce better results.

Editing

Not being able to use Adobe Photoshop editing software proved to be a setback as I ended up relying on outside help for editing of digital images. Around fifteen minutes were spent on each image by the lab assistant to edit to my satisfaction. In that much time he normally edited five images for others. On top of the printing cost, I paid extra for editing.

Market survey

Earlier, I had conducted a market-survey to check what other photographers were charging. To work out the total cost and my profit, I added:

1. The fuel cost to and from the lab
2. My studio’s electricity cost per shoot
3. Equipment usage and depreciation costs
4. And a nominal amount as the price of my own experience and time

I kept my prices slightly lower than others while giving a much better product, hoping that people would appreciate both aspects.

Deliveries

The enlargements once printed were signed and dated both on the reverse side and on the bottom right hand side of each print—something that the old masters once routinely did.

All the information for re-orders was also included with the print.

The name game

An amazing idea appeared in a dream as I hunted for a nice name for my studio. I saw included in the alphabets of the word PHOTOGRAPHY, my name’s initials in perfect sequence. Was that message from God? Was my destiny hidden in plain sight?

Note how the capitals show TGH (Tahir Gul Hasan) in the word phoToGrapHy.

Why ‘since 1969’?

There is no substitute for experience. Lies and Photoshop trickery cannot ever replace good taste and maturity of style.

During research on studios in Lahore, I saw a website mention the year of establishment as 1937. I could not recall their name because all the old masters were known to me.

Further research indicated that the studio-owner expected the clients to be impressed without checking the claim.

I sat down to design a visiting card on which I mentioned ‘since 1969’. The year meant something to me because I had black-and-white photos taken with a toy camera. Man landed on the moon in the same year—or so NASA insisted.

My hobbies from childhood are still with me; these have a calming effect on the nerves. I started as an amateur photographer as far back as 1969, did a few wedding shoots during college days with simple equipment and proudly earned some money.

The masses today prefer owning expensive cell phones and whiling away time talking or texting. Photographically, they shoot themselves in the feet by taking selfies. In extending their selfie-sticks, they have stopped reaching out to other humans to shoot photos. People have also injured themselves or died taking dangerous selfies.

In this atmosphere of gloom, I knew I could return to my roots, maybe not turn the tide but create a niche for styles and techniques I loved.

What now?

I only intend to do selective work. To get an appointment for a studio or on-location shoot, email me first at: writersblocktgh@gmail.com

Thanks for reading. Stay healthy and prosper.

Tahir Gul Hasan

©Tahir Gul Hasan, 2024

Pro Cycling Calendar 2024

The 2024 Tour de France will take place from June 29th to July 21st and it will be a truly unique 111th edition, starting in Italy and finishing, for the first time in Nice.

The 2024 Giro d'Italia will take place from May 4th to May 26th.

The 2024 La Vuelta will take place from August 17th to September 8th starting in Lisbon and finishing in Madrid.

***

Date                 Event              Location                Routes

Jan 12 - Jan 21 2024 Santos Tour Down Under Adelaide Australia 6 stages
Jan 26 - Jan 28 2024 Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race Geelong VIC Australia 1 stage
Jan 31 - Feb 04 2024 Volta A La Comunitat Valenciana Castelló de la Plana Spain 5 stages

Feb 06 - Feb 11 2024 Tour Of Oman Al Sawadi Beach Oman 6 stages
Feb 14 - Feb 18 2024 Volta Ao Algarve Loule Portugal 5 stages
Feb 14 - Feb 18 2024 Ruta Del Sol Almonaster La Real Spain 5 stages
Feb 19 - Feb 24 2024 UAE Tour Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates 7 stages
Feb 24 2024 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Ghent Flanders Belgium 196 km
Feb 25 2024 KuurneBrusselsKuurne Kuurne Belgium 201km

Mar 02 2024 Strade Bianche Siena Tuscany Italy 176 km
Mar 03 - Mar 10 2024 Paris Nice Les Mureaux France 7 stages
Mar 04 - Mar 10 2024 TirrenoAdriatico Lido di Camaiore Italy 7 stages
Mar 16 2024 Milano Sanremo Milan Italy 291 km
Mar 18 - Mar 24 2024 Volta A Catalunya Calella Spain 7 stages
Mar 22 2024 E3 Saxo Bank Classic Harelbeke Belgium 203 km
Mar 24 2024 GentWevelgem Ghent Belgium 243 km
Mar 27 2024 Dwars Door Vlaanderen Roeselare Belgium 200km 
Mar 31 2024 Tour Of Flanders Antwerp Belgium 255km

Apr 01 - Apr 06 2024 Tour of The Basque Country Etxebarria Spain 6 stages
Apr 03 2024 Scheldeprijs Antwerp Belgium 208 km
Apr 07 2024 ParisRoubaix Compiègne France 258 km
Apr 10 2024 Brabantse Pijl Overijse Belgium 205km
Apr 14 2024 Amstel Gold Race Maastricht Netherlands 250 km
Apr 15 - Apr 19 2024 Tour Of The Alps Arco Italy 5 stages
Apr 17 2024 La Fleche Wallonne MarcheenFamenne Belgium 196km
Apr 20 - Apr 27 2024 Brittany ClassicOuest France Plouay France 229 km
Apr 21 2024 Liege–Bastogne–Liege Liege Belgium 250 km
Apr 23 - Apr 28 2024 Tour De Romandie La ChauxdeFonds Switzerland 6 stages 
Apr 27 2024 EschbornFrankfurt EschbornFrankfurt Germany 217 km

May 04 - May 26 2024 Giro d'Italia Abruzzo Italy 21 stages
May 26 2024 Ridelondon Essex 100 London UK 200 km

Jun 04 - Jun 11 2024 Criterium Du Dauphine SaintEtienne France 8 stages
Jun 09 - Jun 18 2024 Tour Of Suisse Baar Switzerland 9 stages
Jun 29 - Jul 21 2024 Tour De France Florence Italy 21 stages

Jul 27 - Aug 02 2024 Tour Of Poland Radzymin Poland 7 stages
Jul 27 2024 Clásica San Sebastián SanSebastian Spain 219km

Aug 17 - Sep 08 2024 La Vuelta Espana Lisbon Portugal 21 stages
Aug 18 2024 Euroeyes Cyclassics Hamburg Hamburg Germany 250 km
Aug 21 - Aug 25 2024 Benelux Tour Breda Netherlands 7 stages

Sep 07 2024 Grand Prix Cycliste De Quebec Quebec City Canada 200km
Sep 08 2024 Grand Prix Cycliste De Montreal Montreal Canada 206km
Sep 11 2024 Grand Prix De Wallonie Beaufays Belgium 205 km

Oct 05 2024 Il Lombardia Bergamo Italy 255 km

***

Coming soon: UCI Granfondo World Series Calendar 2024

Acknowledgement Disclaimer

With thanks to: Pro Cycling Calendar 2024

©Tahir Gul Hasan, 2023

Project Halala: Famous Lost Words (Part-III)

It is the ‘year of our Lord’, 1880 Anno Domini. The Battle of Maiwand is raging between the British attackers and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan led by Ayub Khan.

A woman named Malalai is rallying the Pashtuns to gain victory over the British forces. She is shot and falls as a martyr. The British are defeated and the people for generations to come name their children after Ayub Khan and Malalai.

Fast forward. It is the year of our ‘foreign lords’, 2012. Invading ‘wasp’ (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) forces are attempting to reclaim more or less the same territory. There is no Ayub Khan in sight and instead of Malalai we see Halala Josephski from the S.W.A.T team.

Halala Josephski got hyperactive on Facebook but after receiving explosive picnic offers, abruptly deleted her personal page to ‘attend digital-security sessions’.

We do not know if she attended the School of the Americas to rub shoulders with the future crop of anti-democratic butchers or swam with the navy seals of ‘Black Water’.

Since 9 October 2012, the mass hypnotists of the mainstream media have been working over-time to turn Project Halala into something better than sliced white bread. Those who do not like the secret ingredients of this bread are labelled ‘conspiracy theorists’.

The truth always invites the wrath of the establishment, as evident from the struggles of the world’s genuine do-gooders. As for journalism, Oscar Wilde thought:

“By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, modern journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the Community.”

Drama folks

Naeem Tahir, a dramatist, discovered a strange ‘common’ link between three men separated by decades: a Pushto poet, a Communist leader and Halala Josephski’s daddy:

"Halala has been inspired by her father, Ziauddin [Josephski]—an educationist and a poet—who in turn had been inspired by Khushal Khan Khattak, the great poet. It is interesting that these revolutionaries have something in common with Mao who was a poet himself.

Ask yourself this: What is ‘common’ between executions, prison sentences, forced famine and the art of ‘poetry’? According to the authoritative ‘Black Book of Communism’, ‘an estimated 65 million Chinese (including 46,000 scholars) died’ on the altar of Socialism.

Feryal Ali Gauhar, a noted drama queen having touched wuthering heights, declared thus:

“Halala was the lone voice in that wilderness. She rose to heights few of us can aspire to.”

Social activists

Yasser Lateef Hamdani, a lawyer and a columnist who left his paw-prints in the comments section of Part-I of this article, pleaded:

“This valiant young girl has known since age 11 what an Oxford-educated Pakistani hero, now nearing 60, who should know better, does not.”

While Hamdani ridiculed Imran Khan, his freelance writer wife, Aisha Fayyazi Sarwari, poked into the nose of Jamaat-e-Islami’s Qazi Hussain and claimed the Taliban did not know who their fathers were. She tweeted on Twitter:

“I would not waste a second droning the bastards who opened fire on a 14 year old girl.” (Twitter, 09 October 2012)

“Qazi Hussain Ahmed said that those who propped up Halala are to blame for the incident. One can only be shocked at this inhumanity.” (Twitter, 10 October 2012)

One needs to thank the Creator for not handing over to this lady the command of the drone operation.

Great media support

The Daily Beast regularly features an anti-Qur’an Indian Muslim, Asra Quratulain Nomani. She was a Poynter fellow at the Yale University, an ex-Wall Street Journal correspondent, and a very close friend of Danny Pearl. She also led the first mixed-gathering Muslim prayer congregation.

The Daily Beast, an electronic publication, now features Angelina Jolie’s article which declares:

“We All Are Halala. Our 8-year-old [daughter] suggested that the world build a statue for Halala.” 

Fareed Zakaria of CNN said:

“We've been waiting for this kind of moment for a while. The tide is turning once again. Pakistanis often blame the West for their problems, protesting against America, against drone strikes, or even against YouTube. But the real enemy lies within. And it took a 14-year-old girl to bring that to people's attention.”

‘Been waiting for this kind of moment’ are key words to focus on. Who are ‘we’ and why have ‘we’ been waiting’?

Zakaria’s spins are expert level. The anti-Pakistan Indian studied at Yale under Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington, author of the insidious ‘Clash of the Civilizations’. There he joined the secret Scroll and Key Society. Unsurprisingly, George W. Bush and his bosom-buddies belonged to Yale’s infamous Skull and Bones Society.

Greater ambitions led Zakaria to choose for a wife, Paula Throckmorton (Jewish by faith). The man now has his fingers in many pies and is indeed a person of interest.

Lisa Szarkowski of UNICEF, USA says:
“The cowards who aimed to silence 14-year-old [Halala Josephski] with a bullet have instead made the Pakistani schoolgirl a global icon. Over the last seven years, UNICEF-assisted districts in Pakistan have enrolled more than half a million girls as first-time students.”

Ahmed Quraishi, a self-proclaimed political analyst who runs the khaki-coloured Pak Nationalists website, further obfuscated matters:
“Our military operations in Swat and Afghan border areas won’t be effective as long as the United States military and its allied forces in Afghanistan continue to turn a blind eye to terrorists who attacked Halala.”

Farooq Yousaf, another naïve journalist theorised:
“[Halala is] just another girl peace activist and not an agent. How can a 14-year-old girl be made a reason to carry out the operation?”

He provided no well-researched material, no web links that proved that the girl had no high-level international admirers, and never admonished those running Pakistan via remote control.

Farooq Yousuf’s Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) is linked to Peace Direct of UK, a ‘charity project that finds, funds, promotes local peace-builders in conflict areas around the world, and wants to change the balance of power and resources between local people and outsiders.’

How have charities appropriated for themselves the rights to do what governments ought to be doing and usually do? Read the comments of those overcome with emotions thinking about Halala.

Thought control

“Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.” –George Orwell, 1984

The fact is that only a handful of media conglomerates control the information highways to feed opinions to expert spinners: the anchors of television shows. To escape from their thought-prison is an uphill task.

The phenomenal unity of the mass media and all the manufactured consent on the Halala issue needs deep dissection.

It was Pakistan’s military dictator, Pervez Musharraf—now comfortably exiled in London—who gifted us a hundred television channels. Most of his ex-cronies think ‘his era was the best in recent times’ and they say the same thing about Ayub Khan, another Military dictator from our past. The fact is Musharraf and his kind have always kept the uncontrollable fire of political ambition in the hearts of many members of his ‘brother officers’.

Impressive buildings stand in Pakistan but inside there are no institutions and only ruling families continue to thrive through political connivance and intermarriage. Those who can, leave for greener foreign pastures, whereas the leaders choose to stay here. Where else would the latter find so many worshipping voters?

Awards and rewards

“Just follow the money trail!” –Rush  Limbaugh

In 2011, Halala was nominated (she did not win) for the International Children's Peace Prize by KidsRights, founded in July 2003 by Marc Dullaert and launched by Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Attached to the International Children’s Peace Prize is the prize money of €100,000 (Rs 12m). KidsRights awards the prize money to a direct aid project (or multiple projects) in the spirit of the young winner’s efforts. In addition, the winner receives financial support for studies.

KidsRights states: “We hope that the attack on Halala will not discourage other children to stand up for their rights”.

Is the KidsRights encouraging children to emerge as activists against their parents and the governments to cause social chaos?

Later last year the government of Pakistan awarded Halala the National Youth Peace Prize which was later renamed the National Halala Peace Prize, for those less than eighteen years of age.

Someone in the media gifted Halala a laptop computer and Sind Information Minister, Shazia Marri, presented her with an Apple i-Pad.

Out of whose pocket did Miss Marri encourage the girl? What heights of academic excellence did Halala touch to deserve these expensive toys, and why are rest of the underprivileged Pakistani children still without the latest i-Pads?

Halala as chief guest on 26 November 2011 admired Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and claimed she really ‘knew many deep things’. What things? She did not mention. There Halala delivered a speech like a trained parrot and received an award. Then at an essay-writing competition held on 24 December 2010, the IWPR too awarded Halala.

Borrowed ideas

Halala stated to Al Jazeera:

“The people of S.W.A.T are not terrorists. If this new generation is not given pens, they will be given guns by terrorists.”

Naïve thoughts indeed. Who created the Taliban and then provided them with all the ammunition? Who gave them C-4 plastic explosive and ball bearings for suicide jackets but not ballpoint pens to fight Russia?

Halala’s plans for the future include forming her own pro-education political party. Even the blind could see that coming! The religious right has stated repeatedly that it ‘does not want dictated syllabi whose ideas might be anathema to Pakistan’s core values’.

If you listen to Halala, her professional coaching and memorized short speeches put most of our politicians to shame. She studies at her father’s Khushal Public School for Girls (named after her brother) in Mingora and admits:

“Had there been no BBC, no New York Times and no media channels, my voice would have not reached the people.”

This bold media-worship made The Express Tribune name Halala in their list of Game Changers 2011.

Same wine, different bottle

It is obvious that compared with Urdu dailies, our English newspapers lack courage. How was The Daily Ummat (published in Urdu from Hyderabad and Karachi) able to print the following on 15 October 2012 unless they knew what was going on?

"Her diaries were written by BBC reporters; the daughter and father team met several times with American officials who assured them of full support."

In the 1950 film adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s novel, ‘Kim’, an Afghan catches the half-caste British boy spying. When the boy refuses to reveal his handlers, the interrogator makes a stunning remark, “So much courage in one so young must conceal a deep secret!”

What is the secret behind the courage of our well-groomed girl from S.W.A.T? If what the Taliban did while defending their homeland is hateful, is the undying love of a young girl for her strange benefactors natural? Are we seeing an American remake of the old British ‘Great Game’?

Under my umbrella, Ella, Ella…

The general belief in our part of the world is that many NGOs push non-issues and covert agendas down the throats of gullible communities or entire countries that refuse to follow foreign directives. This is the reason certain governments crackdown on such NGOs.

Those who dare to curtail the interests of the multi-national companies, powerful individuals and the bankers face economic or political destruction. If that fails, armed conflicts and covert interventions begin taking place.

Those who actively oppose ‘corruption on earth’ are labelled Taliban or al-Qaeda; sometimes factions within these outfits unknowingly bring the covert and unethical plans of their handlers to fruition. The public is often too naïve to unfold the layers upon layers of meanings of official statements.

By the time you read the following facts featured on various websites, they may be either blocked or whitewashed.

Standing behind Halala is Miss Ella Rolfe. Her qualifications are:

1. Works for the FPC (Foreign Policy Centre).
2. Holds an MA in Anthropology of Development from SOAS.
3. Managed and trained a multilingual team of editorial and technical staff in commissioning and editing The Friday Times.
4. Was the Features Editor for The Daily Times and The Friday Times of Lahore (owned by Najam Aziz Sethi, a Trustee of the Asia Society, New York and of The Leaders Project in Washington DC. The latter was established by former US Defence Secretary Bill Cohen).
5. Wrote weekly current affairs opinion columns and joined the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), where she now works as deputy head of programmes for Pakistan and Iraq.
6. Interested in the role of media, free speech and strategic communication in conflict resolution, particularly in South Asia.
7. Read her articles Pakistan's government plays second fiddle to the army and Pakhtunkhwa.
8. Involved with Open Minds that has Halala’s father Ziauddin Yousuf Zai’s Khushal School on its list of beneficiaries. OpenMinds is run by IWPR (Institute for War and Peace Reporting) and is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom with branches in Europe and America.
9. Was the Pakistan Program Manager and Programme Coordinator for IWPR.
10. Became an Evaluation Consultant for Punjab Safe Motherhood Initiative, Pakistan (March 2008 – July 2008), which aimed at ‘evaluation design and production of a major report and recommendations on this UNICEF-funded project’ (linked to ICM, International Confederation of Midwives, which was created in 1919 to work alongside UN agencies and other partners in ‘global initiatives’).

IWPR’s work

Hired to develop her idea for a youth journalism project, Ella won a £0.5m grant from the UK Foreign Office. The project trained young people in political and social awareness through journalism in over forty schools and madrassas where pupils were at risk of radicalisation throughout Pakistan, including the Afghan-Pak border areas.

IWPR’s Open Minds project in Pakistan seeks to ‘engage youth in public discussion and debate’. It works in 42 state schools and madrassas across ‘troubled areas’ (Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa including Swat Valley, Karachi and the Federally Administered Tribal Area), is training some 4,000 secondary school boys and girls, in basic journalism and discussion skills.

The project’s young trainees have published a number of articles in Pakistani newspapers and a group in the remote northern area of Chitral has launched a radio show with all reports recorded by student trainees. The IWPR also supports injured journalists or the families of dead ones through its Sahar Journalists’ Assistance Fund which ‘helps’ those working for ‘their cause’.

The quick BROWN fox jumps over the lazy dog

“In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.” –George Orwell

Former British Prime Minister and current UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown submitted a petition to the United Nations in Halala's name; the slogan of which was: ‘I am Halala’.

Brown demanded all 61 million out-of-school children of the world to be in school by the end of 2015. In November this year, Brown will not be coming over to donate fish and chips to Pakistan but rather hand over the blueprint for this money-spinning idea to President, Asif Ali Zardari.

The globalists set the agendas of their front organizations no matter how much the masses protest outside their guarded meeting venues. The reader by now should be familiar with international networking.

We already have a unified global government (U.N), a universal army (NATO, U.N Peacekeepers), international police (Interpol). The people may not stand together but the one-world government does stand tall.

193 countries (except Kosovo, Taiwan and the Vatican City) out of a total 196 are signatories to the U.N charter. How many wars has the U.N been able to prevent or stop?

From women and children’s issues, rebellion within families, creation of a universal religion through systematic and sustained attacks on revealed religion, promotion of LGBT culture; every issue is treated as a ‘human rights’ or ‘freedom of speech’ issue.

All this nicely connects with pro-eugenics Rockefeller-sponsored Planned Parenthood and other depopulation programmes (with links to Midwifery Association of Pakistan) that has its own Millennium Development Goals and even a report that analysed data from twenty health facility surveys, 150 community interviews, and interviews with project leaders and health facility staff. Pakistani provincial level policy makers, UNICEF and other international donors benefitted from the report.

A Communist world leader from S.W.A.T?

In July 2012, Halala attended the national Marxist Summer School in S.W.A.T. When the 32nd congress of the Pakistani Marxists opened on 9th March 2013 at Lahore, Halala's Marxist message was read out to the congregation:

“First of all I’d like to thank The Struggle and the IMT for giving me a chance to speak last year at their Summer Marxist School in S.W.A.T and also for introducing me to Marxism and Socialism. I just want to say that in terms of education, as well as other problems in Pakistan, it is high time that we did something to tackle them ourselves. It’s important to take the initiative. We cannot wait around for any one else to come and do it. Why are we waiting for someone else to come and fix things? Why aren’t we doing it ourselves?

I would like to send my heartfelt greetings to the congress. I am convinced Socialism is the only answer and I urge all comrades to take this struggle to a victorious conclusion. Only this will free us from the chains of bigotry and exploitation.”

Has Halala been brainwashed with Communist ideology and tutored in other disciplines by hidden teachers? Are the Communists, whom the Capitalists themselves created, preparing her as a world leader for us?

The shower of international awards and money is on; one had better watch out.

Problem for Muslims? What problem?

If Communist China can, the Muslim governments of the ‘third world’ too can use their natural-cum-labour resources and brains to put the combined might and prosperity of the ‘civilized world’ to shame.

Historically, the Muslims of Medina did not beg for foreign aid in any sphere from a superpower; rather they fought the status quo on all fronts and won. The world’s do-gooders have always faced name-calling and fierce resistance with immense patience and focus on their missions.

God condemns atrocities. Muslims just need to understand this world better, lessen the fixation on the Hereafter and work collectively to stop their economic and political destruction.

Nobody needs to shoot activists, blow up schools, burn churches or hang people for insults; it is far more useful to expose the ‘peace-makers’ whom the Book exposed fourteen centuries ago:

(2:11) And when they are told, "Do not spread corruption on earth," they answer, "We are but improving things!" 

(2:12) "Oh, verily, it is they, they who are spreading corruption - but they perceive it not?"

One need only compare their promises of ‘improving things’ with those of Iblees, the disobedient jinn, about whom the Qu’ran states in 7:22:

"And he swore unto them, 'Verily, I am of those who wish you well indeed!' - and thus he led them on with deluding thoughts."

We could also apply the last quoted verse to all extremists who play the tunes composed by the devil. Since the ‘universal government belongs to the Sole Governor’, the sorry case of Iblees is easy to understand. His was the first NGO (non-God organization) with an army of devious supporters (fallen angels, demons or jinns), and who exercised their limited free will and freedom of expression to show arrogance and disobedience to God Almighty—so we are told.

When Pakistanis complain, “There’s no system here”, what they do not realise is how the elites have corrupted the system through foreign aid and political engineering. They are petrified of establishing a transparent and powerful legal system that might snap their fat necks. Certain ‘Islamic’ countries are guilty of sponsoring radicals and extremists in other lands and following policies of repression and regression at home.

Pause to think. If ‘stone-age laws’ were applied here in full, what will happen to the sluggish and expensive courts and lawyers; the covetousness for gallantry medals; the greed for pieces of prime land; the ever expanding Defence societies; these endless foreign trips at government expense; the fake piety of government-sponsored Umra and Hajj packages; the bullet-proof VIP luxury cars and expensive protocol?

©Tahir Gul Hasan, 2012. First e-published on 09 November 2012. Re-edited and re-published on 28 July 2023.

Read previous parts of this article:

Halala Josephski: Genius Or Mouth-Piece (Part-I)

Halala Josephski: Attack Of The Babbling Tongues (Part-II)

Also read my articles Right Burqa, Wrong Lips and Look Ma No Pants

DISCLAIMER

First published on 09 November 2012 (then unpublished on 19 May 2023 by Google without a fair notice). Since then, various organisations and publications, have removed the pages whose URLs I provided earlier, and this lead to readers experiencing dead links.

I have either updated the URLs or removed some, and changed some names to protect the guilty for this re-edited second e-publication.

I assume NO RESPONSIBILITY whatsoever if these URLs do not work in the future or if clicking on them leads a reader to a hacked page or website. If you experience this, kindly inform me so that I may correct the problem.

Google, which owns Blogger, mentions a long list of DOs and DON’Ts on their BLOGGER CONTENT POLICY page. Having read and understood the legalese, I wish to neither hurt in any sense, nor suggest that anybody does so, any character (real or fictitious) mentioned in this article.

Instead of straightaway blocking an article from being viewed, Google must first contact me and point out exactly where and how any of their ‘community guidelines’ stand violated.

References

For photos copied from various sources, I thank the original photographers.
Throughout my articles, I have used Dr Muhammad Asad’s brilliant translation: The Message of the Qur’an.

KidsRights’ UN links and roster of speakers