"Pakistan fury at president's PLAY BOY son 'using killer floods to boost political career' " - *Daily Mail UK* - Must Read

By GLEN OWEN and AMANDA PERTHEN
Last updated at 11:06 AM on 8th August 2010

• 
  Oxford graduate denies exploiting his father's UK visit to launch himself
• Shoe thrown at Pakistani president during Birmingham speech
• Meanwhile back home, 4 million flood-affected people need food aid

The playboy son of Pakistan’s president yesterday faced damaging claims that he was exploiting his country’s devastating floods to boost his political career.
Oxford graduate Bilawal Zardari, 21, angrily described as a ‘lie’ the accusation that the five-day visit to the UK by his father, Asif Zardari, was a springboard for his own ambitions.
Bilawal’s outburst, made as he launched an appeal for flood aid, is the latest controversy to overshadow a visit already hit by a diplomatic row over Islamabad’s alleged links to terrorism and growing outrage at the President’s absence during one of the country’s worst-ever disasters.

More than 1,500 people have died and 13 million have been affected, with more rain expected.
Bilawal’s mother was the former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated at a political rally soon after her return from exile in 2007.

Bilawal became co-chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), now the ruling party, which has always been led by a Bhutto or Zardari.
However, Bilawal is yet to take an active part in politics. He was expected to accept sole party chairmanship when he joined his father at a rally of British Pakistanis in Birmingham yesterday, but it is thought the plan was aborted at the last minute as advisers realised it could fan anger back home.
Asked if he was using his father’s visit to launch his career, Bilawal said: ‘This is not the time to play politics. We need to do whatever is necessary to help our brothers and sisters in Pakistan.’

He then denied he ever intended to appear at the rally, shouting: ‘That’s a lie.’

He added: ‘I was never going to the rally in Birmingham. I am going to complete my education as my mother wished me to. That is all I am going to do. My father’s doing all he can to raise aid for the people of Pakistan.

'He’s already received £20 million from the British. If he thought he could be more use in Pakistan he’d be there.’
However, giant banners at the rally read ‘Welcome Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’ alongside his portrait, suggesting he was expected.
One listener called President Zardari’s hour-long speech at the rally ‘a coronation speech without the person due to be crowned’.

An elderly man who heckled the president and threw a shoe in his direction was manhandled out of the hall shouting: ‘Zardari is a thief’. He was taken away by police.
Audience member Kadeer Arif, from Birmingham, left in disgust. He said: ‘The speech was pathetic. The people in Pakistan need leadership at this difficult time. What on earth is he doing here?’

Muslims participate in a demonstration against the Pakistan government outside Birmingham's National Indoor Arena where President Zardari was appearing yesterday

Bilawal graduated from Christ Church College, Oxford, this summer, having earned a playboy reputation there.
Social networking websites show pictures of him with his arms around attractive women, and record conversations in which he refers to the joys of ‘free alcohol’ and a girl called ‘Boozie Suzie’.
There is no proof that Bilawal drinks alcohol, which is forbidden for Muslims in Pakistan, where relations between men and women are also carefully controlled.

But he threw himself into college social life, including the annual Cardinals’ Cocktails event, where students drink as many cocktails as they can for £10. Only a few students can join the society and are initiated by ‘downing’ a bottle of port and eight pints of beer.
One picture, taken during his first year, shows him with two girls, Julia Caterina Hartley and Kirini Kopcke, described as being ‘engaged’ to each other.

Pakistani army gives relief supplies to flood-affected people in the north-west district of Nowshera

The origin of other internet images seeming to show him in a clinch with a girl is less certain: some claim they were mocked up to discredit him. A Zardari spokesman was yesterday silent on the matter.
Meanwhile, Pakistanis are grappling with skyrocketing fruit and vegetable prices Sunday caused by floods that have destroyed more than 1 million acres of crops and left at least 4 million people in need of food assistance in the coming months.

The rising prices threaten to amplify misery in a country where many residents were already struggling with poverty and food insecurity before the worst flooding in Pakistan's history struck about two weeks ago, killing 1,500 people and leaving millions more begging for help.

The prices of basic items such as tomatoes, onions, potatoes and squash have in some cases quadrupled in recent days, putting them out of reach for many Pakistanis who struggled to get by even before the floods hit.

'It is like a fire erupted in the market,' said Mohammad Siddiq as he purchased vegetables in the city of Lahore. 'Floods and rains have made these things unaffordable.' 

Pakistan has worked with international partners to rescue more than 100,000 people and provide food and shelter to thousands more. But the government has struggled to cope with the scale of a disaster that it estimates has affected 13 million people, and could get worse as heavy rains lashed Pakistan again on Sunday.
Many flood victims have complained they have not received aid quickly enough or at all, and this anger could increase as rising food prices across the country affect many more people in this nation of 180 million.
'The floods have destroyed the agricultural fields and washed away vegetable crops ready for harvest,' said Zahid Gardezi, a farmer in the central Pakistani city of Multan. 
'Whatever farmers stored they cannot transport because roads have washed away and communication links are down.'
At least 1.4 million acres of crops were destroyed in the central province of Punjab, the breadbasket for the rest of Pakistan, said the U.N.

Widespread flood damage is visible in this aerial handout photograph taken over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Many more crops were devastated in the northwest, where destruction from the floods has been most severe and many residents were still trying to recover from intense battles between the Taliban and the army last year.
'The flooding has caused massive damage to crops and also to the reserve that people had at their houses,' said Amjad Jamal, spokesman for the World Food Programme, which has provided food to more than 265,000 people in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
'Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was a food insecure province even before the floods, and a lot of areas are such that people can't afford even one meal a day,' said Jamal.
At least 4 million people will need food assistance across Pakistan for the next three months at a cost of nearly $100 million, said Jamal.
The number of people needing assistance could increase as heavy rains continued to hit many areas of Pakistan on Sunday, swelling rivers and hampering relief work.
The Indus river overflowed its banks near the city of Sukkur in southern Sindh province on Sunday, submerging the nearby village of Mor Khan Jatoi with chest-high water and destroying many of its 1,500 mud homes.

'We were strengthening the embankment ourselves to save the village but failed and it was breached this morning and water inundated the village,' said one of the affected villagers, Dadal Morai, who complained they have not received any government help.
Many foreign countries have stepped in to help the government, including the U.S., which has pledged millions of dollars and provided six military helicopters to help evacuate victims from the northwest and deliver much needed food and water. About 85 U.S. soldiers are involved, though ongoing rain has limited their flights.
But the government has also had competition from hard-line Islamist charities that have provided victims with food and shelter, including one organization allegedly linked to the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for deadly attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008 that killed more than 160 people.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani asked for more help from the international community Sunday, saying the government couldn't cope with the disaster on its own.
'We will exhaust our resources to rescue, provide food, medicine and shelter, but it is beyond our capacity, so we will appeal to the world,' said Gilani during a visit to Sukkur.


source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz0wRs2GEBN