Hamid Mir

Hamid Mir (born July 23 1966 in Lahore) is a Pakistani journalist . He is known for his Urdu columns and talk show on Geo TV. He is considered by some for being a controversial journalist in Pakistan.

Career

Gained a M.A in Mass Communications from the University of Punjab, Lahore in 1989. He joined Daily Jang Lahore in 1987 and worked there as Sub-Editor, Reporter, Feature Writer and Edition in charge. In 1994 he broke the submarines purchase scandle in Daily Jang. Some close friends of Asif Zardari (husband of then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto) were involved in that scandle along with some Navy officials. Hamid Mir lost his job the day his article was published. In 1996 he became the editor of Daily Pakistan Islamabad making him the youngest editor of any national Urdu newspaper in the history of Pakistani journalism. He lost his job again in 1997 when he wrote an article in Daily Pakistan about the alleged curruption of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. In 1997 he joined Daily Ausaf Islamabad as Founding Editor. He spent ten days in the Eastern part of Afghanistan and investigated the great escape of Osama bin Ladin from Tora Bora mountains in December 2001. He joined GEO TV as Editor Northern Region in 2002 and has hosted Capital Talk (a twice a week political talk show in which all the top Pakistani politicians from the government and opposition have appeared) from November 2002 onwards.

He is Currently performing duties in Geo TV as Bureau Chief of Islamabad and Editor Northern Region and is writing a biography of Osama bin Ladin as well as a weekly column in Daily Jang and The News.

Comments to CFP

Mir recently claimed--in an interview with independent online news source CanadianFreePress.com--that Al-Qaeda has acquired three so called "suitcase nukes" from Russia and have successfully smuggled them to Europe. Mr. Mir claims that they have possessed these weapons since long before the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington and that they were originally intended to be targeted against London, Paris and Los Angeles.

Mr. Mir also claims that Al-Qaeda has 23 sleeper agents inside the United States (minus the 19 who died carrying out the 9/11 attacks) and that these terrorists already have enough radioactive material for six "dirty bombs."

Notable Articles and awards

• Contributed weekly column for ”The Friday Times” from 2000 to 2002 and for weekly “The Independent” from 2002 to 2003.

• Contributed columns for “The Times of India”, “Outlook, Delhi” “The Week, India”, “Dainik Bhaskar”(Biggest Hindi Newspaper of India) and “Rediff.com”.

• Got All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) award for best columnist (Urdu) for the years of 1996,1997,and 1998.

• Received Maharishi Samman Award for Excellence in Journalism announced by Trust for Media Studies in Jodhpur in March 2005

• Awarded Fatima Jinnah Gold Medal from the Ministry of Women Development, Government of Pakistan for writing and speaking for the women rights in August 2005.

• Interviewed Israeli Foreign Minister Shamon Peres in 1994 for Daily Jang in Switzerland. It was the first ever interview from any high Israeli official to any Pakistani Journalist.

• Interviewed Indian Prime Minister Narasema Rao in Columbia, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in New York and South African President Nelson Mandela in New Zealand in 1995. Interviewed Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Rangchi in Beijing 1999. Interviewed Indian Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani in 2001 In Delhi, interviewed him again in 2005 in Islamabad [1] and interviewed Indian foreign Minster Yashwant Senha in November 2003 in Delhi.Yashwant Senha broke the story that Vajpaee would participate in the SAARC Summit to be held in January 2004.

• Interviewed Osama Bin Ladin for Daily Pakistan in 1997,for Daily Ausaf in 1998 and for Daily Dawn in 2001 [2]. Third interview was the first one after 9/11 to any journalist and BBC and CNN declared it an international scoop. Monthly Herald announced that interview as the scoop of the year in its annual issue of December 2001. [3]

• Interviewed President General Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Ex Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, Mir Zafarullah Jamali, US Secretary of State Dr.Condoleezza Rice [4], Ex US Secretary of State Mr. Colin Powell [5] , General Richard B.Myers, US Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff [6], and Richard Armitage, US ex deputy Secretary of State, President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai and Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah for GEO TV.

• American newspaper Christian Science Monitor decalred him a hero of Pakistani masses after his coverage of October 8th 2005 earthquake.[7]

• Author of a book on the political philosophy of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto published in 1990 and still in print.

References

• Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmid Jalali was forced to resign

• Al-Qaeda's Hidden Arsenal and Sponsors: Interview With Hamid Mir