The Pakistani Blog

Rationalizing Americans' Will to Attack America: Economistan

2010-06-03T12:29:00.000-07:00

America is all abuzz these days with the Times Square bombing plot by the US national Faisal Shahzad with Pakistan increasingly coming under fire for the reason that Faisal went to Pakistan to get explosives training. What the US has failed to recognize is that not all terror incidents can be traced to Pakistan. What about the case of the American born US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan who killed 13 US Army personnel and ended up wounding 30 people before he was finally shot down? The only major similarity of interest between Faisal and Nidal was that both of these US nationals were living a privileged life in the US or what the US people are programmed to call as the so called "American Dream". Now we have to find out exactly how this "American Dream" turned out to be an " American Nightmare". Is it because Muslims are unfairly victimized in the US or discriminated against or is it because Muslims find themselves under severe scrutiny along with harassment through a constant barrage of anti-Muslim comments or sentiments from the general public? Is the US media playing a major role in alienating the American Muslim population or the fault lies with the right wing extremist Christians omnipresent in the continental United States? Do these right wing Christian extremists consider this war on terror as another crusade against Islam or a war which is against all acts of terror including those by their fellow Christians like Timothy McVeigh and those by the IRA and the Basque separatist movement in Spain where all are equally....

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Rationalizing Americans' Will to Attack America: Economistan

War or peace on the Indus?: Business Recorder

2010-04-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

JOHN BRISCOE
ARTICLE (April 15 2010): Anyone foolish enough to write on war or peace in the Indus needs to first banish a set of immediate suspicions. I am neither Indian nor Pakistani. I am a South African who has worked on water issues in the subcontinent for 35 years and who has lived in Bangladesh (in the 1970s) and Delhi (in the 2000s).

In 2006 I published, with fine Indian colleagues, an Oxford University Press book titled India's Water Economy: Facing a Turbulent Future and, with fine Pakistani colleagues, one titled Pakistan's Water Economy: Running Dry. I was the Senior Water Advisor for the World Bank who dealt with the appointment of the Neutral Expert on the Baglihar case.

My last assignment at the World Bank (relevant, as described later) was as Country Director for Brazil. I am now a mere university professor, and speak in the name of no one but myself. I have deep affection for the people of both India and Pakistan, and am dismayed by what I see as a looming train wreck on the Indus, with disastrous consequences for both countries.

I will outline why there is no objective conflict of interests between the countries over the waters of the Indus Basin, make some observations of the need for a change in public discourse, and suggest how the drivers of the train can put on the brakes before it is too late.

Is there an inherent conflict between India and Pakistan? The simple answer is no. The Indus Waters Treaty allocates the water of the three western rivers to Pakistan, but allows India to tap the considerable hydropower potential of the Chenab and Jhelum before the rivers enter Pakistan.

The qualification is that this use of hydropower is not to affect either the quantity of water reaching Pakistan or to interfere with the natural timing of those flows. Since hydropower does not consume water, the only issue is timing. And timing is a very big issue, because agriculture in the Pakistani plains depends not only on how much water comes, but that it comes in critical periods during the planting season. The reality is that India could tap virtually all of the available power without negatively affecting the timing of flows to which Pakistan is entitled.

Is the Indus Treaty a stable basis for co-operation? If Pakistan and India had normal, trustful relations, there would be a mutually-verified monitoring process which would assure that there is no change in the flows going into Pakistan. (In an even more ideal world, India could increase low-flows during the critical planting season, with significant benefit to Pakistani farmers and with very small impacts on power generation in India).

Because the relationship was not normal when the treaty was negotiated, Pakistan would agree only if limitations on India's capacity to manipulate the timing of flows was hardwired into the treaty. This was done by limiting the amount of "live storage" (the storage that matters for changing the timing of flows) in each and every hydropower dam that India would construct on the two rivers.

While this made sense given knowledge in 1960, over time it became clear that this restriction gave rise to a major problem. The physical restrictions meant that gates for flushing silt out of the dams could not be built, thus ensuring that any dam in India would rapidly fill with the silt pouring off the young Himalayas.

This was a critical issue at stake in the Baglihar case. Pakistan (reasonably) said that the gates being installed were in violation of the specifications of the treaty. India (equally reasonably) argued that it would be wrong to build a dam knowing it would soon fill with silt.

The finding of the Neutral Expert was essentially a reinterpretation of the Treaty, saying that the physical limitations no longer made sense. While the finding was reasonable in the case of Baglihar, it left Pakistan without the mechanism - limited live storage - which was its only (albeit weak) protection against upstream manipulation of flows in India.

This vulnerability was driven home when India chose to fill Baglihar exactly at the time when it would impose maximum harm on farmers in downstream Pakistan. If Baglihar was the only dam being built by India on the Chenab and Jhelum, this would be a limited problem. But following Baglihar is a veritable caravan of Indian projects - Kishanganga, Sawalkot, Pakuldul, Bursar, Dal Huste, Gyspa... The cumulative live storage will be large, giving India an unquestioned capacity to have major impact on the timing of flows into Pakistan. (Using Baglihar as a reference, simple back-of-the-envelope calculations, suggest that once it has constructed all of the planned hydropower plants on the Chenab, India will have an ability to effect major damage on Pakistan.

First, there is the one-time effect of filling the new dams. If done during the wet season this would have little effect on Pakistan. But if done during the critical low-flow period, there would be a large one-time effect (as was the case when India filled Baglihar).

Second, there is the permanent threat which would be a consequence of substantial cumulative live storage which could store about one month's worth of low-season flow on the Chenab. If, God forbid, India so chose, it could use this cumulative live storage to impose major reductions on water availability in Pakistan during the critical planting season.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: War or peace on the Indus?: Business Recorder

KSE 100-share index recomposed: Dawn

2010-04-01T13:48:00.000-07:00

KARACHI: The Karachi Stock Exchange (Guarantee) Limited has recomposed KSE 100-Index, effective from April 1, 2010.

According to KSE 11 companies, namely Security Papers Ltd, Pakistan Cables, TRG Pakistan, Murree Brewery Company, PEL, Grays of Cambridge, Shifa International, PACE Pakistan, NetSol Technologies, Pakistan Telephone Cables and Clariant Pakistan have been included in the Index.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: KSE 100-share index recomposed: Dawn

Renexus of Malaysia ready to invest US$ 500m in Pakistan: APP

2010-04-01T13:46:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD, April 1 (APP): Renexus, a renowned Malaysian company is willing to invest around US$500 million in Pakistan for building water treatment plants on Built, Own and Operate (BOO) basis.This was stated by John Klerr, Executive Chairman of Renexus during his meeting with Acting High Commissioner for Pakistan in Malaysia, Dr. Imtiaz Ahmad Kazi in Kuala Lumpur today.

Renexus deals in water treatment plants, construction infrastructure development and information and communication technology, says a press release received here today from Malaysia.
While giving detaild of the investment proposal, Klerr said that the Renexus was ready to build water treatment plants at various locations in Pakistan, specially in the province of Punjab aimed at providing potable water for public as well for industrial use.
According to the proposal, he said that Renexus will arrange all the required funding to built, own and operate the water plants and sell the water in bulk to the government-related agencies, who in their turn, would effect the distribution to the end user and collect utility charges.
The Acting High Commissioner suggested Klerr to increase the scape of their investment to other areas in the country like Province of Balochistan, Sindh and NWFP and Industrial city of Karachi which are also facing shortage of safe and clean water.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Renexus of Malaysia ready to invest US$ 500m in Pakistan: APP

Japan gives $260m loan for power sector: Dawn

2010-04-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD: Japan has extended a soft loan of $260 million (23.3 billion yen) to Pakistan for the National Transmission Lines and Grid Stations Strengthening Project, which will cost Rs29.339 billion.

This is the first Japanese loan under the Official Development Assistance (ODA) based on the Pakistan Donors’ Conference hosted by Japanese government in April 2009 where a maximum of $1 billion in aid was pledged over a period of next two years.

Notes to this effect were signed and exchanged between Ambassador of Japan Chihiro Atsumi and Secretary Economic Affairs Division Sibtain Fazal Halim here on Wednesday.

The exchange of notes was followed by the signing of the loan agreement by EAD Additional Secretary Hassan Nawaz Tarar and the Chief Representative of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Pakistan, Tomoharu Otake.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Japan gives $260m loan for power sector: Dawn

Taking care of circular debt once and for all: Govt to float Rs 100 billion Sukuk bonds in May: Daily Times

2010-03-30T21:47:00.000-07:00

By Sajid Chaudhry

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Finance is planning to float Rs 100 billion Islamic Sukuk Bond in May 2010 to meet its growing financial needs as well as to retire the mounted circular debts before June 30, 2010, official sources informed on Tuesday.

Pakistan Investment Bonds (PIBs) and Sukuk Bonds are in permanent debt and this time the government wants to raise money from Islamic banking system to finance power sector circular debts once and for all, the sources added.

In the initial proposal the Ministry of Finance suggested floating Islamic paper with one-year maturity period. However, now they are considering other options because the central bank is already floating treasury bills with one-year maturity. The non-interest bearing bond launch on the pattern of PIBs and Islamic banks acts as a primary dealer. The cut-off yield of upcoming Sukuk Bond will be equal or slightly above the average 12.7 percent yield of PIBs.

The investment made in the Islamic Bonds (Sukuk) would enable the investors to get a good return on their investment upon completion of the term to be fixed under the scheme.

The government of Pakistan is a sovereign guarantor of upcoming Islamic paper. Finance Ministry official informed a local newspaper that “it’s a reserve backing paper and Islamic banks can keep this paper to fulfil State Bank statutory liquidity requirement.” Islamic banking system has very limited options of interest-free investment. The official sources informed that the circular debt position as of February 2010 was that Pakistan State Oil (PSO) receivables stood at Rs 109 billion and its total liabilities were estimated at Rs 112.52 billion.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Taking care of circular debt once and for all: Govt to float Rs 100 billion Sukuk bonds in May: Daily Times

Why Insurgency in Balochistan Cannot Succeed: FPJ

2010-03-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

by Shahid R. Siddiqi

Balochistan, Pakistan’s south western province, has evoked much interest among players of regional politics. The US, India, former Soviet Union and even Afghanistan have toyed with the idea of Balochistan becoming an independent state in their geo-strategic interests.

Located very close to the oil lanes of the Persian Gulf and having a common border with Iran and Afghanistan, Balochistan is strategically very important. Commanding almost the entire coast of the country – 470 miles of the Arabian Sea, and boasting of a deep sea port recently completed with Chinese assistance at Gawadar, Balochistan comprises 43% of Pakistan’s total area but is home to just over 5% of the population, 50% of whom are ethnic Pashtuns.

A tribal society, Afghanistan has always been ruled autocratically by sardars (tribal chiefs), some 250 of them, who have kept their people backward, illiterate and deprived. Mainly three sardars of Bugti, Marri and Mengal tribes have been in revolt against the federation from time to time in their bid to maintain the status quo by blocking the federal government’s efforts of development or democratization. Although they held positions of power as chief ministers of their province from time to time, they neither did anything significant for their people nor did they remain part of the political process. To perpetuate their despotic rule, they decided to part ways with the federation. Other moderate sardars either chose to side with the federation or stayed neutral.

Reluctance of successive federal governments to promote genuine federalism for fear of compromising national unity in the belief that ‘a strong center would guarantee a strong federation’ proved a fallacy. The dissidents used this to inflame nationalist sentiments and demands for greater provincial autonomy and control over the province’s natural resources turned into a demand for independence.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Why Insurgency in Balochistan Cannot Succeed: FPJ

Foreign portfolio investment : KSE hits $100m mark in March: Daily Times

2010-03-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

By Tanveer Ahmed

KARACHI: The foreign portfolio investment (FPI) hit $100 million mark in March, which is the highest monthly inflow in the current financial year.

Despite political and security concerns, the Karachi Stock Exchange attracted net buying of $100 million so far during the current month. Currently the foreigners have flooded the local stock market in recent weeks.

“The abnormal flows, is the result of renewed interest of fund managers in frontier and emerging markets,” Topline Securities analyst Farhan Mahmood said and added that the increasing role of foreign trade can be judged from the fact that their share in the total volumes in March 2010 was 15 percent as compared to the average 9 percent in 2009.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Foreign portfolio investment : KSE hits $100m mark in March: Daily Times

IMF holds back cash to Pakistan: Asia Times

2010-03-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

By Syed Fazl-e-Haider

KARACHI - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has deferred for an indefinite period disbursement of the fifth, US$1.2 billion, installment of funds to be paid to Pakistan under their $11.3 billion standby agreement. This came after the government failed to meet the condition of tabling draft value-added tax (VAT) legislation in the four provincial assemblies.

Critics say the proposed VAT will increase inflation, erode consumers' purchasing power and dampen demand. The government has left the issue with legislators who will adopt, reject or amend the VAT bill. Local business communities have strongly opposed the imposition of VAT, saying it will harm every sector of the economy. However, the rupee "will come under pressure if the IMF money is delayed for more than a month", The News quoted Sayem Ali, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank, as saying. That would drive up the cost of imports.

The Washington-based IMF has postponed its scheduled March 31 executive board meeting, which was to review Pakistan's economy and approve payment of the fifth tranche.

The legislative bottleneck is the presentation of a draft law on VAT to the Punjab assembly, according to Dawn. The government has already submitted the draft law to the National Assembly and to the provincial assemblies of Sindh, North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: IMF holds back cash to Pakistan: Asia Times

SBP Quarterly Report on State of Pakistan’s Economy: The News

2010-03-30T21:39:00.000-07:00

By Saad Hasan

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has raised the fiscal deficit forecast for the current financial year 2009/10 (July-June) to between 5.0 and 5.5 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) from the targeted 4.9 per cent in the wake of high defence spending and low revenue collection.

The SBP in its Second Quarterly Report on the State of Pakistan Economy maintained its GDP forecast for FY10 at between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent, but lowered its projection for the current account deficit to 3.2 to 3.8 per cent from the previous estimates of 3.7 to 4.7 per cent.

“The fiscal outlook appears especially challenging,” the SBP said in its Second Quarterly Report (October-December) for FY10 on the State of Pakistan’s Economy. “Existing rigidities in current expenditures have been exacerbated in FY10 by the strong build-up in domestic and external debt, and rising military spending on anti-terrorist operations.”

The growing energy sector circular debt and the government’s controversial policy of paying higher-than-market price to farmers for certain commodities also contributed to widening of the fiscal deficit, the bank said.

Analysts say that keeping the fiscal deficit target at 4.9 per cent remains one of the key conditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under its $11.3 billion Standby Agreement with Pakistan.

Hamad Aslam, head of research at BMA Capital Management, however, said that the widening of fiscal deficit would have little impact on the Standby Agreement with the IMF. “In practice these numbers have been shared with IMF officials so it won’t0 be much of a problem for the governmentÖ But, the rising current expenditure on the large government machinery should be bothering the IMF.”

For more on this article, please click on the following link: SBP Quarterly Report on State of Pakistan’s Economy: The News

Pakistan Railways losing Rs 3m every hour: BilourStaff Report: Daily Times

2010-03-30T21:37:00.000-07:00

LAHORE: The Pakistan Railways is incurring losses of almost Rs 3 million per hour, Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour said on Monday.

Talking to journalists at the Railways Headquarters, he said that eight or nine freight rails were currently operating from Karachi. “It is because the department lacks locomotives...otherwise nearly 30 freight rails would be operating,” he said. He said that everyone compares the Pakistan Railways with the Indian railways system, but few mention the comparative budgetary spending on the railways in both countries. He said that a requisition of Rs 28 billion was sent to the government, but it released only Rs 14 billion, and that too in two instalments. “On the other hand, the budget of the Indian Railways is Rs 282 billion,” he said.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan Railways losing Rs 3m every hour: BilourStaff Report: Daily Times

UN delays Benazir murder report at Zardari’s request: The News

2010-03-30T21:35:00.000-07:00

UNITED NATIONS: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday accepted a request from President Asif Zardari to delay the release of a report on the assassination of his wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, until April 15.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky made the announcement just two hours before a three-member UN commission that investigated Benazir’s death was scheduled to hold a press conference to discuss the report’s findings. Nesirky said he did not know why President Asif Ali Zardari made the request, which was received at the UN overnight.

But presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the country had requested the delay so the commission could attempt to question two heads of state who, he said, had called Benazirbefore her death warning her of “serious threats to her life.”

He declined to say which heads of state he was referring to, saying it would be unethical. It was unclear why the commission had not spoken to them. “This can make the report more credible,” he told the AP in Islamabad.

Nesirky said the commission informed Ban that “all relevant facts and circumstances have been explored and the report is now complete and ready to be delivered.” The three-member commission is led by Chile’s UN Ambassador Heraldo Munoz. The other members are former Indonesian attorney general Marzuki Darusman, now a member of the National Commission of Human Rights, and Ireland’s former deputy police commissioner Peter Fitzgerald, who headed the initial UN inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: UN delays Benazir murder report at Zardari’s request: The News

Pakistan Arrests a Top Crime Official: NYT

2010-03-30T21:30:00.000-07:00

By JANE PERLEZ

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Supreme Court ordered the arrest of a senior white-collar crime official on Tuesday, and threatened to send the nation’s top anticorruption official to jail if he did not swiftly seek the reopening of corruption cases in Switzerland against President Asif Ali Zardari.

The dramatic arrest in the magisterial courtroom renewed the confrontation between the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and the civilian government. The battle has simmered since last December when the court effectively restored corruption cases, many stemming from the 1990s, against thousands of politicians, including Mr. Zardari, and asked the government to inform the Swiss judiciary that Pakistan wanted to continue to pursue cases against the president.

As president, Mr. Zardari is granted immunity from prosecution under the Constitution. But Mr. Chaudhry appeared to question the inviolability of the president’s immunity during Tuesday’s hearing, saying that Mr. Zardari or his legal representative had yet to claim immunity before the court.

Mr. Zardari served 11 years in jail on charges of corruption that he and his lawyers have always insisted were politically motivated, noting that he was never convicted of anything. His supporters and others have accused Mr. Chaudhry of waging a campaign against the president and using the bench to meddle in politics.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan Arrests a Top Crime Official: NYT

India and Pakistan Feud Over Indus Waters: WSJ

2010-03-30T20:52:00.000-07:00

By AMOL SHARMA in New Delhi and TOM WRIGHT in Lahore

A feud over water between India and Pakistan is threatening to derail peace talks between the two neighbors.

The countries have harmoniously shared the waters of the Indus River for decades. A 50-year-old treaty regulating access to water from the river and its tributaries has been viewed as a bright spot for India and Pakistan, which have gone to war three times since 1947.

Now, the Pakistanis complain that India is hogging water upstream, which is hurting Pakistani farmers downstream. Pakistani officials say they will soon begin formal arbitration over a proposed Indian dam. At a meeting that started Sunday, Pakistan raised objections to new Indian dam projects on the Indus River and asked for satellite monitoring of river flows.

"Water I see emerging as a very serious source of tension between Pakistan and India," said Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan's foreign minister, in an interview Friday. He said he has raised the issue with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

A senior Indian government official denied India is violating the treaty. He blamed Pakistan's water shortage on changing weather patterns and the country's poor water management. He called the strident rhetoric from Pakistani officials a "political gimmick…designed to place yet one more agenda item in our already complex relationship." Indian officials declined comment on the record.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: India and Pakistan Feud Over Indus Waters: WSJ

Karzai Talks to the Enemy, but Is the U.S. On Board?: Time

2010-03-29T11:12:00.000-07:00

For the past eight years, Afghan rebel leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has been a phantom presence on the edges of the Afghan insurgency. His Hezb-i-Islami militia — said to number between 2,000 and 3,000 fighters, and which operates independently of the Taliban — has carried out scores of ambushes on coalition forces in the northeastern mountains of Afghanistan and has claimed credit for two attempts on the life of President Hamid Karzai.

But now, it seems, the veteran warlord wants to come in from the cold — as a peace broker between Karzai and the Taliban. Hekmatyar last week dispatched a 10-man delegation to Kabul to name an offer: If NATO agreed to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan starting by this summer, Hezb-i-Islami would cease hostilities and urge the Taliban to do the same. The mid-2010 withdrawal demand is flexible, according to delegation spokesman Mohammad Daoud Abedi, who told journalists in Kabul that the deadline "is a start. This is not the word of the Koran that we cannot change it." (See pictures of medical-evacuation teams in Afghanistan.)

During President Barack Obama's surprise visit to Kabul on Sunday, he was briefed by Karzai on his efforts to bring insurgents like Hekmatyar into truce talks. The White House says it favors "reintegration" of mid-level commanders but has expressed doubt over Karzai's offer to extend a peace accord to senior leaders of the insurgency.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Karzai Talks to the Enemy, but Is the U.S. On Board?: Time

China keen to replace India in Peace Pipeline deal: Press TV

2010-03-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

China is showing keen interest in investing $2.5 billion in Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project in order to meet the country's energy demands.

Islamabad has started negotiations with Beijing over the purchase of technical equipment to be used for extending the gas pipeline to China, Mehr News Agency quoted informed sources in Pakistan's oil ministry as saying.

China's interest in the extension of the pipeline came after Islamabad's reluctance to cooperate with New Delhi on the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) project allegedly due to India's delay in developing the Peace Pipeline project.

Based on the incoming reports, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said it was possible to change the name of the project from Iran-Pakistan-India to Iran-Pakistan-China project.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: China keen to replace India in Peace Pipeline deal: Press TV

Beijing’s $2.5 to extend Iran Pakistan pipeline to China: Rupee News

2010-03-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD (Online) – China has expressed keen interest in investing $2.5 billion in Pak-Iran gas pipeline project while Islamabad has also started talks with Beijing to purchase technical equipments to be used for laying down the pipeline.

According to sources within the Petroleum Ministry, China is interested to see the project is extended to its territory and a delegation would visit Pakistan in the second week of next month to discuss these matters. After inclusion of China, Pakistan would get an amount of $200 to $500 million annually as transit fee.

The sources maintained the talks were underway as Pakistan had raised no objection over inclusion of China in the gas pipeline project.

Rupee News has always supported the Iran-Pakistan-China pipeline over the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki seems to suggest that this is in the works. This development is a win-win situation for Pakistan, Iran and China.

Linking Iran, Pakistan and China via pipeline is natural process of hooking up the ECO allies with China. Expanding trade with China is a natural consequences of the deep military and economic relations between the two countries.

Exporting Iranian gas to China will aid energy starved China and help Pakistan get access to Iranian energy resources.

Pakistan should set up LNG plants in Lahore and Karachi and sell gas in cylinders in the open market as a commodity. If Delhi wants to buy the gas cylinders, it is up to Delhi. If it doesn’t, plenty of other countries will.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Beijing’s $2.5 to extend Iran Pakistan pipeline to China: Rupee News

Pakistani Scientists Express Concern Regarding Monsanto Deal

2010-03-29T07:53:00.000-07:00

By Shahid Husain

KARACHI: Pakistan’s top scientists on Saturday expressed concerns regarding government’s plans to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with giant American multinational Monsanto for the introduction of “insect-resistant” Bt-cotton, saying that it could harm the interest of growers.

“There is a need to get sound, critical and scientific input from experts in the country before signing such a deal,” Dr. Anwer Naseem, chairman National Commission on Biotechnology, told The News. “I have no idea whom the government has consulted.”

The government plans to sign a deal with Monsanto next month aimed at introducing Bt-Cotton and other advanced seed technologies in Pakistan.

Naseem, who has been the chairman of Biotechnology Commission for the last 28 years, said that the deal raises many questions, including the levels of resistance in these cotton varieties. “This has been reported from India as well... one needs to look at agreements reached and the way in which the issue has been examined by our experts.”

Dr Abid Azhar, deputy director general of AQ Khan Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, University of Karachi, also expressed concerns about the Monsanto deal.

“It has to be ensured that the interests of growers and farmers are not compromised in any deal that is to be agreed upon between the government and the multinational companies.”

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistani Scientists Express Concern Regarding Monsanto Deal

Prices of locally-assembled cars continue to rise: The News

2010-03-29T07:52:00.000-07:00

By Hina Mahgul Rind

KARACHI: At the beginning of every year the local auto assemblers tend to increase the car prices on pretext of rupee depreciation against yen and dollar, rise in steel prices and Complete Knock Down (CKD) and various other reason.

The year 2010 dawned with the popular Pak Suzuki revising its prices up by Rs10,000 to Rs25,000 on its various models in January. Indus Motor Company increased its prices by two per cent or Rs20,000 on the popular 1300cc XLi and Rs30,000 for the GLi in February 2010. Honda kept with the trend and upped the price tags by Rs20,000 to Rs35,000 on its various models.

Atif Zafar Auto Analyst at JS Research says that the rising prices of raw materials, utilities, and other inputs along with the weakening rupee has forced the auto assemblers to pass on the cost pressure to consumers.

He said that the price increase of local assemblers would not have much affect on the auto sales because Toyota and Honda cars are usually for people who can bear the price. However the increase in the prices of 800cc and 1000cc cars affects the middle-income groups.

The price rise follows demand for opening imports of used cars. All Pakistan Motors Dealers Association president H M Shahzad says that the price increase by local auto manufacturers is unjustified.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Prices of locally-assembled cars continue to rise: The News

World’s slums grow despite rapid economy growth: UN: The News

2010-03-29T07:50:00.000-07:00

RIO DE JANEIRO: Almost a quarter of a billion people moved out of slum conditions in the past decade, driven by rapid economic growth in emerging giants India and China, but the number of people living in them continues to rise, the United Nations housing agency said on Friday.

The number of people living in shantytowns increased by 55 million to 827.6 million as population growth and migration from the countryside outstripped the effect of upward mobility in cities, the UN’s biennial report on cities found.

“The situation has improved over 10 years, but alas over the same period, the net increase of the urban poor is 55 million,” Anna Tibaijuka, the executive director of the UN Habitat program, said in Rio de Janeiro.

The Brazilian city will next week host the World Urban Forum, a five-day UN conference on the state of the world’s cities, where more than half the global population now lives.

Some 227 million people escaped slum conditions from 2000 to 2010, meaning that countries easily surpassed their collective target under the UN Millennium Development target, the report said.

Tibaijuka played down the achievement of beating the Millennium goal of pulling 100 million people out of poverty, calling it “totally inadequate.” The Millennium goals include cutting extreme poverty, reducing child mortality and fighting epidemics by 2015.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: World’s slums grow despite rapid economy growth: UN: The News

Pak Suzuki increases prices: The News

2010-03-29T07:49:00.000-07:00

KARACHI: The Pak Suzuki Motor Company (PSMC) on Saturday again increased the prices of its various models by Rs10,000 to Rs15,000.

This is the second time within two months that the popular PSMC has increased its prices, which are applicable from March 29, 2010. Previously, the company had raised its prices by Rs10,000 to Rs15,000 on January 26.

According to auto analyst it is expected that in the near future prices will further rise. Shafiq Shaikh spokesperson PSMC said that under unavoidable circumstances the company has to pass on a minor production cost to the consumers owing to increase in prices of international steel sheets and increases in wages and utility prices.

He added that still the company is bearing most of the cost pressure despite the depreciating rupee and other inflationary conditions affecting the economy that have pushed up the CKD (complete knock down) and the local vendor parts costs.

The price tag on all Suzuki Mehran models have been raised by Rs10,000. Now Mehran VX, VXR, VX CNG, VXR CNG are tagged Rs4,29,000, Rs480,000, Rs474,000 and Rs524,000 respectively.

The 1000cc Alto prices have been increased by Rs12,000. Now Alto VXR will cost Rs6,25,000, Alto VXR CNG will cost Rs674,000. Similarly prices of all Alto models were also jacked up.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pak Suzuki increases prices: The News

Auto financing picks up, but banks remain cautious: The News

2010-03-29T07:48:00.001-07:00

By Hina Mahgul Rind

KARACHI: After a two-year gap, banks have started reviewing their policy on auto finance and have slightly increased auto financing with stringent conditions, said Atif Zafar, auto analyst at JS Research.

Car sales were improving and one of the reasons was that auto finance along with restoring economic confidence had reduced interest rates and seasonal effects, he added.

Auto finance was at its peak during 2006-2007 and its share in car sales was 70 per cent to 75per cent, however in the later years it was almost stooped due to higher interest rates, and most importantly, auto finance default rate was very high and recovery rate was very low which forced banks to do critical review of their auto finance product, he said.

After this some of the banks completely stopped auto financing and some opted very stringent policy, entertaining their reliable customers only. At present its share in the sales is 30 per cent.

The current market scenario of consumer car financing shows that only few of the banks are doing car financing and some of the key players are Meezan Bank, Dubai Islamic, Faysal Bank, MCB Bank, HBL and Bank Alfalah. On the other hand, Citibank, UBL Ameen and Standard Chartered Bank and leasing companies had completely stopped this product, said a market source.

At present, interest rates at which banks are extending auto finance ranges between 17 and 22per cent. Initially, minimum equity was 30 per cent but banks have reduced it to 20 per cent to attract more customers.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Auto financing picks up, but banks remain cautious: The News

NWFP traders reject VAT: The News

2010-03-29T07:43:00.000-07:00

By Riaz Khan Daudzai

PESHAWAR: The trade and business community of NWFP on Saturday rejected the Value Added Tax ordinance and set a 15-day deadline for the federal government to implement the relief package announced by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani for the militancy hit areas in the province.

Addressing a news conference the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) president and the representatives of the small traders spurned the revised the package of the prime minister.

SCCI president Riaz Arshad said that the SROs issued on March 10 regarding the incentives have added to the confusion surrounding the prime minister package.

He said that under the original package there was 100 per cent exemption from Federal Excise Duty in the most-affected areas whereas under the SROs the same has been exempted by 50 percent in district of Charsadda, Peshawar, DI Khan, Batagram, Lakki Marwat, Swabi and Mardan which remained most-affected areas. He said that package had also exempted of Sales Tax on electricity bills the manufacturing units, but the relief was taken back in the SRO issued on March 10. He said that even today the small traders received the power bills carrying all kinds of taxes exempted in the package.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: NWFP traders reject VAT: The News

Pakistan second Khushab reactor in initial operation stage: HT

2010-03-25T13:41:00.000-07:00

The second nuclear reactor at the Khusab is in its initial stage of operation, a leading US-think tank said today based on the latest Google imagery of the nuclear reactor of Pakistan.

"GoogleEarth recently posted satellite imagery from GeoEye featuring the Khushab nuclear site in Pakistan".

"Imagery dated December 31, 2009 shows what appears to be steam distorting the view of some of the cooling tower fan blades for the second plutonium production Khushab reactor," said Paul Brannan of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based think tank.

"This would indicate that the second Khushab reactor is at least at some state of initial operation," Brannan said in a press statement that also released the latest Google Earth pictures of the Khushab reactor.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan second Khushab reactor in initial operation stage: HT

CIA could face prosecution due to U.S. drone raids in Pakistan: Digital Journal

2010-03-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

Officers for the Central Intelligence Agency may face legal action from Pakistani authorities because of attacks by United States unmanned aerial vehicles.
Islamabad, Pakistan - Due to the U.S. government’s refusal to offer legal grounds for the CIA’s drone raids in Pakistan, many CIA officers may face prosecution for war crimes, according to AFP. Since the U.S. President was elected more than one year ago, military drone bombings have increased in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Many important officials in the international community are impatient with Washington ignoring the denouncement of the CIA’s bombing raids in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other parts of the world, reports Press TV.
U.S. State Department lawyers and members of other government agencies worry that the Obama administration has not stated a rationale for the drone strikes but Kenneth Anderson, a law professor at American University, told a congressional panel on Tuesday that drone attacks are legal under international law.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: CIA could face prosecution due to U.S. drone raids in Pakistan: Digital Journal

Pak-US strategic talks push Karachi stocks 183 points up: Daily Times

2010-03-25T13:38:00.000-07:00

KARACHI: The Karachi stock market witnessed a bullish trading session on Wednesday as investors went for across-the-board buying.

Analysts said the US-Pakistan strategic talks in Washington, which are expected to resolve the energy crisis in Pakistan and make agreements for export of Pakistani products to the US, did the trick.

The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100-share index gained 182.92 points or 1.84 percent to close at 10,146.27 points as compared to the previous session’s 9,936.35 points. The KSE 30-share index closed at 10,475.66 points with a gain of 207.20 points. The KMI 30 closed at 15,260.99 points with a rise of 247.68 points.

Analysts said the market opened in the green zone and remained in the buoyant momentum throughout the trading session amid intense foreign interest in oil and gas, bank and fertilizer sectors on strong valuations. Healthy volumes were traded during the session reflecting growing confidence among investors.

The market turnover went up by 117.91 percent and traded 160.30 million shares as compared with the previous session’s 73.56 million shares. The overall market capitalisation was up by 1.44 percent and traded Rs 2.876 trillion as against Rs 2.835 trillion. Out of total 411 companies, 239 closed in the positive zone, 152 in negative and 20 remained unchanged.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pak-US strategic talks push Karachi stocks 183 points up: Daily Times

Pakistan faces tough task rejuvenating battered Swat: Reuters

2010-03-25T13:36:00.000-07:00

Nearly a year after a Pakistani army offensive cleared the Taliban from Swat, government efforts to stabilize the region through economic rehabilitation have yielded limited results.

While small businesses are recovering from two years of fighting, massive state funding is needed to create jobs and industries in the former tourist hub where militants blew up hotels, houses and girls' schools and beheaded tribal elders.

Only that, officials say, will prevent the Taliban from returning to recruit residents disillusioned with a government widely perceived as corrupt and inefficient.

"This is by far the most important drive to keep the Taliban away," chief regional minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti told Reuters recently.

The first phase will require $1 billion, he said. It's a daunting task for the government, which will be hard-pressed to extract money from a sluggish economy battered by the steep cost of fighting Taliban insurgents.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan faces tough task rejuvenating battered Swat: Reuters

U.S. and Pakistan seek to reverse mistrust: Money Control

2010-03-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that United States wanted a new relationship with Pakistan but was realistic of the challenges ahead in reversing decades of mistrust.

"It is the start of something new," said Clinton at the beginning of two days of meetings. "Our countries have had our misunderstandings and disagreements in the past and there are sure to be more disagreements in the future as there are between any friends or family members."

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi also looked for improved ties with Washington, a close ally in fighting against militants as the United States battles the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: U.S. and Pakistan seek to reverse mistrust: Money Control

US says it is open to nuke deal with Pakistan: TOI

2010-03-25T13:31:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON: Amid reports of massive 16-20 hour power outages across Pakistan causing public unrest, the Barack Obama administration has indicated it is open to Islamabad's plea for a civilian nuclear deal akin to the US-India agreement, notwithstanding continued disquiet about Pakistan's bonafides on the nuclear front.

The first indication of a possible policy shift by US, which had till now rejected Pakistan's entreaties for a nuclear deal, came in an interview the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, gave to a Pakistani-American journal in which she said the two sides were going to have "working level talks" on the subject during a strategic dialogue on March 24.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: US says it is open to nuke deal with Pakistan: TOI

US Envoy In Pakistan Terms 'Silly' Indian Army Chief's Remark': RTT

2010-03-25T13:29:00.000-07:00

(RTTNews) - United States Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson has termed a recent remark of Indian Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor as 'silly' but did not elaborate the remark.

Patterson is reported to have made the comment in an interview with Pakistan-based newspaper "The Dawn," but the daily did not elaborate the remark of Gen Kapoor that came in for the U.S. envoy's rather harsh criticism.

The 'silly' remark of the U.S. envoy comes at a time when Pakistan is engaged in a strategic dialogue with the U.S. and as the former nudges India to resume the composite dialogue process, stalled in the wake of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.

It is being speculated that Patterson was referring to an old remark of Gen Kapoor wherein he had said (without naming Pakistan) that India should be ready with a plan to launch "highly-mobile 'battle groups'...adequately backed by air cover and artillery fire assaults, for rapid thrusts into enemy territory within 96 hours".

For more on this article, please click on the following link: US Envoy In Pakistan Terms 'Silly' Indian Army Chief's Remark': RTT

Pakistan rupee gains sharply to close at 4-mth high: Reuters

2010-03-25T13:27:00.000-07:00

KARACHI, March 25 (Reuters) - The Pakistani rupee gained sharply on Thursday to close at a near four-month high, thanks to increased dollar inflows and easing demand from importers, dealers said.

The rupee PKR closed at 83.67/72 to the dollar compared with 84.10/13 on Wednesday.

"There have been some good dollar inflows in recent days which have supported the rupee," said a dealer at a foreign bank.

Another dealer said the strengthening rupee had also forced exporters to sell dollars more aggressively in the interbank market, further improving supplies of the U.S. currency.

"Dollar supplies are currently more than the demand and the market is anticipating more inflows as well, and this has resulted in more dollar selling by exporters who fear losses in case the rupee gains further," said the dealers.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan rupee gains sharply to close at 4-mth high: Reuters

"Pakistan Has the Freest Press in the Developing World"

2010-03-16T23:42:00.000-07:00

Saad Sarwar

There are reports in the media, that the US has plans to reign in Pakistani Media by earmarking $50 million dollars for the year 2010 to be spent on different media outlets in Pakistan. The need was felt by the US after the Kerry Lugar aid bill was harshly criticized in the Pakistani media due to the tough conditions attached to it. The US thinks such criticism was unjustified and now thinks that bribing Pakistani media outlets with such handsome doling of cash would effectively gag the media about raising issues of Pakistani national security that may be averse to the US plans in the region.

One western diplomat in Islamabad is quoted as saying about the Pakistani media in a Financial Times article, “Whatever you might say otherwise, it is the case that Pakistan’s civil society, courts and the press are all among the freest in the developing world”. He further adds, “This is a strength which we may not like in this particular case because the islamists are using it to their advantage, but it is a strength”.

The US government is already using Voice of America to run its propaganda campaign in Pakistan using its alliance with a leading Pakistani channel GEO TV which airs such programs. It is also reported that Express TV is next in line for such kind of alliances with the US organization. The US champions itself as a promoter of freedom all around the world while at the same time taking steps to curtail the freedom of media all over. The situation in Pakistan is a case in point. This is not the first time the US has publicly taken steps to curtail the freedom of media in Pakistan to change the public opinion averse to the US. After the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the US told the then Pakistani President Musharraf to take action to stop people from criticizing the US to which Musharraf had no answer but to tell the US that it is not possible to do so.

Most countries around the world monitor foreign media takeovers or alliances to ensure that national security is not compromised by foreign indoctrination. In the US, no foreign national is allowed to own a TV network. This rule created difficulties for the Australian billionaire TV magnate Rupert Murdoch to start his famous right wing Fox TV Channel in the US. To bypass the rule the billionaire applied for a US citizenship which he got and brought the Fox Channel to the US. Even starting a homegrown channel for broadcast on cable is difficult in the US if it doesn’t conform to the mainstream American values. This can be adjudged from the story of the Muslim TV network called Bridges TV which had to find 10,000 cable customers willing to subscribe to it before such a channel could be aired.
Pakistan should also have some laws and regulations which limit and deny such foreign acquisitions/interference in critical areas like oil companies, essential mineral resources and more importantly the media, thereby ensuring Pakistani media is free of foreign interests and solely dedicated to the welfare of the Pakistani nation. It is also important that Pakistani Supreme Court take a suo moto notice of such dole-outs which are designed to curtail the freedom of media in Pakistan by the US government.

Not only the Pakistani media but the Pakistani judiciary is also under increasing fire from some elements in the US press. The article in the WSJ by US attorneys David Rivkin and Lee Casey also implies that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan should be under the Executive branch of Pakistan rather than the judiciary acting as an independent pillar of the State. They also fail to notice that unlike the US which has a presidential style of government, Pakistan is a parliamentary democracy with the Prime Minister holding the seat of power instead of the President of Pakistan which is mainly a ceremonial position, just like the Queen of England. These efforts to undermine the judiciary of Pakistan by these right wing elements in the US press are designed to curtail the hard won freedom of another important pillar of the Pakistani State namely the judiciary. Pakistan has struggled hard to gain the freedom of Media and Judiciary that it has attained to a degree today and many Pakistanis have paid a heavy price during the process. It is imperative now to preserve these two critical pillars of the state at all costs for the Pakistani society and nation to be seen as a beacon of freedom all over the world and the struggles of the media and judiciary through tough times they went through is not forgotten.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: In the Name of Freedom: United States of America Taming Pakistani Media: Economistan.com

In the Name of Freedom: United States of America Taming Pakistani Media: Economistan.com

2010-03-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

22 oil, gas discoveries made in 2 years, NA told: The News

2010-03-15T23:55:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Syed Naveed Qamar on Monday informed the National Assembly (NA) that a total 59 onshore and offshore exploration wells were drilled in the country from January 2008 onwards.

Responding to a question during the question hour session, he said 22 oil and gas discoveries were made during the period. Out of these 18 were under appraisal, whereas four discoveries had been initially appraised having a reserve of 3.27 million barrels of oil and 404 billion cubic feet of gas.

He said the government had granted 126 exploration licenses to different companies for exploration of petroleum in Pakistan. Present indigenous production of crude oil is 66,390 barrels per day (BPD) which is processed at local refineries in Pakistan, he added. Qamar said in order to meet the demand of petroleum products, Khlifa Coastal Oil Refinery Project with a capacity of 250,000 BPD and Byco Petroleum Pakistan limited Refinery project with capacity of 115,000 BPD are proposed to be set up near Hub, Balochistan.

To another question of Qudsia Arshad, the Minister said in order to ensure that the maximum benefit of the subsidy went to the low income consumers, it was decided to allow the lower price benefit of only two preceding slabs for any particular consumer. He said that in this way, the consumers falling in first three slabs were not affected by this mechanism whereas through economic measures high gas consumption was discouraged.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: 22 oil, gas discoveries made in 2 years, NA told: The News

Pakistan Returns Free Helicopters to US: AOLNews

2010-03-15T23:31:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (March 15) -- Less than a year ago, the United States rushed four Russian-built Mi-17 helicopters to Pakistan after an urgent request from the country's senior leadership. Now those helicopters, which were offered at no cost to the government of Pakistan, are being returned to the United States after a serious crash that resulted in at least one fatality.

A Pentagon spokesperson told AOL News that Pakistan has decided not to keep the helicopters. "Pakistan has recently informed us of its intent to return the helicopters in accordance with the lease agreement," the spokesperson said.

The helicopters, which were intended to bolster Pakistan's military in the country's restive North West Frontier province, were transferred from a U.S. training unit to Pakistan's military last year under what was technically deemed a lease agreement. However, Pakistan was not asked to pay for their use. Though the lease was for a fixed 11-month term, it was expected that Pakistan would likely extend the lease given its high demand for helicopters.

But in February one of the leased helicopters crashed as a result of a problem with the tail rotor, killing at least one person on board. That crash prompted Pakistan to request that the helicopters, at least one of which was more than two decades old, be returned to the United States.

A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department confirmed the request to return the helicopters was received but referred further queries to the Pentagon, which referred detailed questions on the issue to the government of Pakistan. A spokesman for Pakistan's Embassy in Washington did not respond to e-mail or phone messages requesting comment on the issue.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan Returns Free Helicopters to US: AOLNews

Death by debt: The News

2010-03-15T23:27:00.000-07:00

By Dr Ashfaque H Khan
This is my fourth article on this subject in the last seven months. What prompted me to write yet another article on the same subject in a short span are the numbers pertaining to external debt and liabilities (EDL) and public debt released by different government agencies for the first half (July – December) of the current fiscal year. These numbers are worrisome and need to be brought to the notice of the general public.

It is well-known that high and rising debt burden constitutes a serious threat to growth and development. It is a major impediment to macroeconomic stability and thus to growth, employment generation and poverty alleviation. It is also a discouragement to foreign investment because it creates uncertainty about the government's policy and thus generates a high risk environment for doing business in the country. High and rising debt burden also puts pressure on exchange rate, thus causing sharp depreciation with attendant difficulties for price stability. This also becomes a source of discouragement for government to undertake wide-ranging structural reforms in the various sectors of the economy.

Pakistan has witnessed serious debt crisis in the 1990s and accordingly experienced deterioration in the macroeconomic environment, leading to deceleration in investment and growth and the associated rise in unemployment and poverty. The last two years have taken Pakistan back to the decade of the 1990s. Faltering of growth, persistence of large fiscal and current account deficits and sharp depreciation of exchange rate have already produced unsustainable debt burden. Accordingly, Pakistan has become heavily dependent on external financial support from the IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank and bilateral sources. Its excessive reliance on external financial support has compelled Pakistan to compromise on its national security.

It took six/seven years of hard work to bring the economy out of the difficulties of the 1990s. Pakistan's public debt was brought down from over 100 per cent of GDP in 1998-99 to 55 per cent by end-June 2007, the external debt reduced from 66 per cent of GDP to 28.2 per cent, debt servicing which used to be over 72 per cent of our total revenue declined to 35 per cent and debt servicing and defence spending which was over 100 per cent of total revenue was brought down to 54 per cent during the same period.

In short, the country's debt burden was reduced to one-half in just six/seven years. The reduction in debt burden released resources to be spent on people and infrastructure. Consistent with empirical evidence, the decline in debt burden led to the acceleration in economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction. Pakistan emerged as one of the four fastest growing economies in the Asian region; it created 13 million jobs and reduced the poverty by one-half during the period.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Death by debt: The News

Alleged spymaster has StratCom ties: Omaha

2010-03-15T23:25:00.000-07:00

By Matthew Hansen
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

A military official who allegedly ran a secret spying network in Afghanistan and Pakistan has ties to the Bellevue-based U.S. Strategic Command.

Michael Furlong works as a civilian employee for the Joint Operations Warfare Center, a San Antonio-based center that reports to StratCom.

Furlong is now being criminally investigated by the Pentagon after he reportedly organized a group of private contractors who helped hunt for suspected militants on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

It’s unclear who, if anyone, coordinated or supervised Furlong’s work, which allegedly involved hiring ex-CIA agents and former Special Forces officers to gather intelligence on suspected militants.

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Furlong directed a defense contract to gather information about the region that could be shared with military units. After military officials suspected that he was using Defense Department money for an off-the-books spy operation, defense officials shut down that part of the contract, the official said.

The story was first reported by the New York Times, which quoted unidentified military and business sources as saying that Furlong hired subcontractors who had former U.S. intelligence and special forces operatives on their payrolls. The newspaper said some of the information collected by the contractors was used to track down and attack militants.

“The story makes some serious allegations and raises numerous unanswered questions that warrant further review by the department,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Monday.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Alleged spymaster has StratCom ties: Omaha

Pakistan 3G merger call: FT

2010-03-15T23:17:00.000-07:00

By Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad

Published: March 16 2010 02:00 | Last updated: March 16 2010 02:00

Pakistan's telecoms market will have to consolidate before the government can even consider a planned push into third-generation technology, according to the head of the only European operator in the country.

Telenor, the Norwegian telecoms group, said that there was not enough profit per phone user to justify having five mobile groups in Pakistan and operators would have to consider mergers or acquisitions in order to see significant growth.

Jon Eddy Abdullah, Telenor Pakistan's chief executive, told the Financial Times: "Most markets are [divided between] three players. Three seems a very good number. Five is too many."

Telenor entered Pakistan five years ago and is the second largest cellular phone operator after Mobilink, a subsidiary of Egypt's Orascom Telecom . Pakistan's other operators are Ufone, Warid Telecom and Zong.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan 3G merger call: FT

US Defence official hired freelance spies: The Australian

2010-03-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON: A US Defence Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to track and kill suspected Islamic militants, reports said yesterday.

The official, Michael Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former CIA and Special Forces members. These people gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected Islamic militants and the location of insurgent camps, a report said. The information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan for use in strikes.

The New York Times report said that while it has been widely reported that the CIA and the military were using unmanned drones to attack al-Qa'ida operatives, some US officials said they were troubled that Mr Furlong seemed to be running an off-the-books spy operation. They were not sure who supervised his work.

The paper noted it was considered illegal for the military to hire contractors to act as covert spies. It was also possible Mr Furlong's network had been improperly financed.

In Pakistan, the secret use of private contractors may be seen as an attempt to get around the government's prohibition on US military personnel operating in the country, the report said.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: US Defence official hired freelance spies: The Australian

Pakistan Mud Volcanoes: NASA

2010-03-15T07:05:00.000-07:00

Along the coast of Pakistan, the tectonic plate underlying the Arabian Sea is diving beneath the Eurasian continent. This process—subduction—typically creates volcanoes, but the volcanoes that rise from this arid landscape are not the typical kind. Instead of lava, ash, and sulfur dioxide, these volcanoes spew mud and methane. On rare occasions, the gas plumes spontaneously ignite, shooting flames high into the sky.

This natural-color image shows the most dramatic group of mud volcanoes in the area, known as the Changradup Complex. The tallest volcano, Changradup I, is about 100 meters (330 feet) high, and it has a 15-meter- (49-foot-) diameter mud lake in its crater that periodically overflows. Some of these overflows have darkened the northwestern flanks. A second crater emerges from the southern flanks of Changradup, but it is not currently active.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan Mud Volcanoes: NASA

Nordex interested in Pakistan's wind energy: EVWIND

2010-03-15T06:56:00.000-07:00

Nordex has shown interest in investing in energy sector in Pakistan to help overcome shortage of emergency in the country. A delegation of the company visited Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB).

The Nordex Modern Generation Limited, one of the ten top serial producers of the wind turbines in the world, has shown interest in investing in wind energy in Pakistan to help overcome shortage of emergency in the country.

A delegation of Nordex visited Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB) Headquarters to discuss investment opportunities in the Alternative/ Renewable Energy (ARE) Sector in Pakistan.

Mr. Arif Alauddin, Chief Executive Officer AEDB in a briefing to the delegation apprised them of the immense potential in the ARE Sector in Pakistan. He said that available ARE potential, the current energy shortages in the country and lucrative incentives that the Government of Pakistan offers, provide unique opportunities for investment in Pakistan.

He said that in the wind power sector alone, Pakistan possesses an estimated potential of generating 350,000 MW of electricity. Responding to questions relating to the national ARE policy, Mr. Alauddin said that the Short Term Policy, 2006 encompasses only three technologies i.e. wind farm, solar power and small hydro.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Nordex interested in Pakistan's wind energy: EVWIND

Afghanistan's new great game: The undeclared wars within the war: DW

2010-03-15T06:52:00.000-07:00

Author: Chris Kline
Editor: Rob Mudge

Conventional Western public opinion regards the war in Afghanistan as a struggle between NATO and extremist Islamic militants. Since assuming office Barack Obama has redefined the conflict by calling it the Af-Pak war.

The US president's redefinition is recognition that the Taliban's nerve center, as well as al Qaeda's safe haven are across Afghanistan's border in neighboring Pakistan. In the forbidding tribal territories, Waziristan especially, another dimension of the same fierce conflict is underway with more Pakistani troops thrown into the fray than the whole of NATO deploys on its side of the Northwest Frontier.

But unlike Afghanistan where NATO allows journalists free access to combat operations, the Pakistani military remains media-averse and highly secretive of its own internal counter-insurgency efforts. On the surface of things, however Pakistan is NATO's and particularly Washington's staunch ally in the regional and global campaign against terror. It's a role for which Islamabad in dire economic straits is rewarded handsomely with a massive combined US economic and military aid package it could not do without.

But as British author Moni Mohsin, a lifelong student of Pakistan points out "Pakistan is also the only US ally, America frequently bombs with drone missile strikes, which sometimes kill terrorists and just as often kill civilians."

And While Islamabad is at pains to denounce the Predator missile attacks and adamantly insists it does not authorize them, Mohsin told Deutsche Welle that there is tacit Pakistani government approval for the strikes. Yet when the attacks are publicized it only helps to feed the ever present anti-American propaganda in Pakistan's right wing media "which in turn becomes a pro-Talibanization as far as the public is concerned."

The prevalence of anti-US sentiment in popular culture is something the Pakistani army and the all powerful military intelligence service or ISI, seem to thrive on and encourage although they are ostensible allies of the West, in presumably the same struggle. The underpinning complexity of such duality is at the essence of what routine western analysis of South Asia often fails to pinpoint.

At the core of this double game, is Pakistan's traditional enmity with India, the dominance of the armed forces and its spymasters in Pakistan's national and political life and a long standing rapport with the Taliban and other radical groups which it has not only supported but also created in some cases.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Afghanistan's new great game: The undeclared wars within the war: DW

Local bourse breaches 10,000 points barrier: GEO

2010-03-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

KARACHI: Bulls grew further strong Friday leading the local equities market beyond the psychological barrier of 10,000 points – a level witnessed by the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) after a period of 19 months.

Upbeat activity continued at the share market right from the beginning of the first session and pushed through till the end of the second session on the last trading day of the week.

For more on this article, please click on the following: Local bourse breaches 10,000 points barrier: GEO

Pakistan Army Digs In on Turf of the Taliban: NYT

2010-03-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH

MAKEEN, Pakistan — From a forward base in the bare brown foothills of the soaring mountains of South Waziristan, Pakistani soldiers fired artillery at insurgents sheltering in scrub across the valley. Smoke blotted the sky as the soldiers set ablaze houses once used by the Taliban to hide caches of heavy weapons.

In the Makeen bazaar, where the former leader of the Pakistani militants, Baitullah Mehsud, was once king, the army has flattened the jerry-built stores, including the ice cream parlor, scotching any idea of easy return.

Here in the heartland of the Pakistani Taliban, the army has fought for five months to claw back territory from its indigenous enemy. A rare trip under military escort revealed that the battle had turned into a grinding test of wills with no neat resolution in sight.

The Pakistani Army has, at least for the moment, gained the upper hand by taking the war to the Taliban in these barren mountains rather than retreating behind successive peace deals, as it once did. But it is not claiming victory.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan Army Digs In on Turf of the Taliban: NYT

Saudi Arabia lifts ban on Pakistan seafood: The News

2010-03-13T10:02:00.000-08:00

KARACHI: Adviser to Sindh CM Sharmila Faruqui said that Saudi Arabia lifted a ban from import of Pakistani seafood.

Talking to a delegation of seafood exporters at her Sindh Secretariat Office on Friday, she maintained that matters related to export of Pakistani seafood had been finalized with Saudi government officials and Pakistan waters fish and other marine products were being exported to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

The adviser mentioned that several countries had issued health certificates to Pakistan regarding fish, prawn and other marine products. She added that Pakistani seafood were free from cholera microbe or any other epidemic disease while in the past a propaganda was launched that Pakistani seafood were contaminated with cholera microbe but later laboratory tests conducted by Gulf states and other countries had dispelled it and now export of Pakistani seafood was going on to these countries.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Saudi Arabia lifts ban on Pakistan seafood: The News

Pakistan navy test fires missiles, torpedoes: AFP

2010-03-13T09:48:00.000-08:00

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan on Friday successfully test fired new missiles and torpedoes from ships, submarines and aircraft in the Arabian Sea, the navy announced.

"Pakistan navy fleet today tested its fire power in the north Arabian Sea to assess lethality, precision and efficacy of its weapon system," it said.

The navy did not disclose range or technical details but said "this included successful firing of a variety of missiles and torpedoes from the ships."

The tests included anti-surface missiles from an F-22P frigate, acquired recently from China, air-to-surface missiles from P-3C aircraft and sub surface-to-surface missiles from Agosta 90B submarines that originate from France.

"While reassuring Pakistan navy's commitment of defending the motherland, this strike capability would also send a message of deterrence to anyone harbouring nefarious designs against Pakistan," the statement said.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan navy test fires missiles, torpedoes: AFP

How the CIA Uses Pakistan as a Launch Pad for Drones: Spiegel.de

2010-03-12T06:43:00.000-08:00

By Hasnain Kazim in Islamabad

Pakistan may be the epicenter of the CIA's drone war against the Taliban, but there is massive resistance to the campaign from the Pakistani population. The US is forcing Islamabad to perform a difficult balancing act.

As so often, the sky is a radiant blue over Mir Ali, a small Pakistani town in the province of North Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan. Alerted by a buzzing sound, a few people come out of their houses. Spotting a small aircraft a few hundred meters away, they panic, and those who can flee into the next village. The craft is a Predator drone, an unmanned plane launched from a secret airbase in Pakistan and controlled remotely by the CIA in Virginia back in the US. "We panic because we live in constant fear of being hit by a rocket," says Haji Gul, one of the inhabitants of Mir Ali.

Almost every day now, Pakistani television shows footage of houses destroyed and villages devastated by drone attacks. One such attack in mid-January killed three people in Mir Ali, all of them allegedly members of an extremist militia.

However the rockets fired by these remote-controlled mini-planes do not only kill terrorists. Drone strikes have an indirect -- and sometimes also direct -- impact on everyone who lives in the affected regions along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Some of the locals are worried, others are angry. They fear for their lives now that the CIA's drone war is taking on ever greater dimensions and using Pakistan as a launch pad.

For it is here, in hidden airfields in Pakistan, that the drones are primed and launched. And it is mainly here that they carry out attacks, especially in North and South Waziristan, two regions that border Afghanistan and which are a stronghold of an unknown number of militant groups.

Controversial Campaign

Despite its success against the Pakistani Taliban, the use of drones by the Americans remains controversial in Pakistan. According to a Gallup poll, only 9 percent of Pakistanis are in favor of them. Two-thirds reject them outright.

There are several reasons for this. People living along the border with Afghanistan, for example, regularly complain that the rockets also kill civilians who have nothing to do with the insurgents. What's more, the Pakistani government feels the US has put it in a tight spot. Islamabad doesn't like foreign military activity on its territory -- at least officially. It claims America's actions constitute a violation of Pakistani sovereignty.

In a November 2009 interview with SPIEGEL, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani went so far as to describe the drone attacks as "counterproductive." "The political and the military leadership have been very successful in isolating the militants from the local tribes. But once there is a drone attack in their home region, they get united again," he said. "This is a dangerous trend, and it is my concern and the concern of the army. It is also counterproductive in the sense that it is creating a lot of anti-American sentiment all over the country."

For more on this article, please click on the following link: How the CIA Uses Pakistan as a Launch Pad for Drones: Spiegel.de

Pakistan proved right in Regi case: The News

2010-03-02T09:41:00.000-08:00

By By Amir Mir
LAHORE: The arrest of the Jundallah chief Abdolmalek Regi by Iranian authorities hardly 24 hours after he had left an American military base in Afghanistan has vindicated Islamabad’s October 2009 stance that the anti-Shia renegade leader was no more hiding in Pakistan and was now operating from Afghanistan.

Regi, being Iran’s most wanted terrorist leader, had claimed responsibility for several major terrorist attacks carried out in Iran in the recent past, including the October 18 suicide bombing in Tehran. He was finally arrested along with his deputy after Iranian fighter planes intercepted a commercial flight over Persian Gulf which was travelling from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan and forced it to make an emergency landing at an unknown location. Informed circles in Islamabad say the most vital tip about the travel plans of Regi leading to his arrest actually came from Pakistan.

The Iranians have already recovered from him his Afghan passport, which according to Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi, had been supplied to him by the United States. The recovery of Afghan passport has also refuted the October 2009 Iranian claim that Abdolmalek Regi carries a Pakistani national identity card by the name of Saeed Ahmed, son of Ghulam Haider. Regi comes from the Regi tribe of the Baloch in Iran.

Jundallah, or “Army of God”, which is also known in Iran as the Regi group is a rebel anti-Shia Sunni militant group of Iranian Baloch, who claim to represent their minority’s rights in Iran’s southeast province of Sistan-Balochistan. The dedication of the Regi brothers to the cause of Jundallah can be gauged from the fact that one of them -- Abdolgafoor Regi - opted to sacrifice him by executing a suicide car bombing on December 28, 2008, against the headquarters of Iran’s joint police and anti-narcotics unit in the Saravan city. Before the arrest of the 30-year-old Regi, his hideout was believed to be cross-border, in the Pakistani Balochistan. In the wake of the October 18, 2009 suicide bombing in Tehran, Islamabad came under tremendous pressure from Tehran for the arrest and extradition of Regi. Addressing a press conference in Islamabad on March 20, 2009, the ambassador of Iran to Pakistan Mashallah Shakeri accused Pakistan of allowing its soil to be used against Iran and demanding concrete steps to contain its activities. Pakistan consequently maintained that its security agencies were making frantic efforts to dismantle the Jundallah network from Balochistan, adding Regi has already moved to Afghanistan after the June 15, 2008 extradition of his younger brother, Abdolhamid Regi (from Pakistan to Iran), who is now being tried by an Iranian court on terrorism charges.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan proved right in Regi case: The News

Americans Against Freedom of Judiciary in Pakistan: WSJ

2010-03-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

Judicial Coup in Pakistan: WSJ

By DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. AND LEE A. CASEY

When U.S. President Barack Obama sharply challenged a recent Supreme Court decision in his State of the Union address, prompting a soto voce rejoinder from Justice Samuel Alito, nobody was concerned that the contretemps would spark a blood feud between the judiciary and the executive. The notion that judges could or would work to undermine a sitting U.S. president is fundamentally alien to America's constitutional system and political culture. Unfortunately, this is not the case in Pakistan.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, the country's erstwhile hero, is the leading culprit in an unfolding constitutional drama. It was Mr. Chaudhry's dismissal by then-President Pervez Musharraf in 2007 that triggered street protests by lawyers and judges under the twin banners of democracy and judicial independence. This effort eventually led to Mr. Musharraf's resignation in 2008. Yet it is now Mr. Chaudhry himself who is violating those principles, having evidently embarked on a campaign to undermine and perhaps even oust President Asif Ali Zardari.

Any involvement in politics by a sitting judge, not to mention a chief justice, is utterly inconsistent with an independent judiciary's proper role. What is even worse, Chief Justice Chaudhry has been using the court to advance his anti-Zardari campaign. Two recent court actions are emblematic of this effort.

The first is a decision by the Supreme Court, announced and effective last December, to overturn the "National Reconciliation Ordinance." The NRO, which was decreed in October 2007, granted amnesty to more than 8,000 members from all political parties who had been accused of corruption in the media and some of whom had pending indictments.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Americans Against Freedom of Judiciary in Pakistan: WSJ

GORDON DUFF: PAKISTAN’S IMRAN KHAN; LOOKING FOR “AMERICA” IN THE STRANGEST PLACES: Veterans Today

2010-03-02T09:36:00.000-08:00

Traveling around Pakistan is a challenge for an American nowadays. It’s not the highways. It isn’t even that our second vehicle was “armed to the teeth” as we weaved through traffic and up and down superhighways and dusty back roads. The difficulty is the landscape itself, a land, at times, very American in appearance and yet strange and wondrous too. It was the similarities that scared us.

We were there as Americans for a series of lectures and meetings to discuss economics and regional politics at universities and “think tanks.” Pakistan, a country of poverty and wealth, a nation threatened like no other was much like looking in a mirror, perhaps a mirror into America’s future.

A couple of nights ago, author and economist Jeff Gates and I along with Editor Raja Mujtaba of Opinion Maker, the controversial open forum where academics, military leaders and political dissidents from that region fight it out daily on the internet, met with Pakistani political leader, Imran Khan.

Meeting Khan was important to us because he is the only political figure in Pakistan that is widely respected in Afghanistan, a nation that could, potentially, bog American down for years in a bizarre and indefinable combination of “counter-terrorism” and traditional tribal warfare. Only Khan is respected on both sides of the border, Khan and General Aslam Beg, former Army Chief of Staff in Pakistan.

That there is suspicion between Pakistan and Afghanistan is an understatement. Millions of Afghanis and Pakistanis are, not only ethnically identical, but members of the same tribes, even families. Today, up to 4 million refugees from Afghanistan live in Pakistan’s tribal areas. These refugees combined with elements of a Pakistani Taliban have created a drain on Pakistan’s resources, a breeding ground for religious extremism and provided safe havens for Taliban sects that are clearly extremist, terrorist and criminal in nature.

With as many as 50 million people considering themselves “Taliban,” most non-extremist, differentiating between good and bad “Taliban” has been difficult and, in the case of American efforts, something approached with questionable intent.

Not that many years ago, the United States and Pakistan trained and armed the Mujahedeen, both Afghan and foreign fighters to overthrow Soviet dominance in Afghanistan. A generation later, our failure to demilitarize and rehabilitate these elements and the region has led to untold instability, world terrorism and a war against Pakistan supported by terrorist elements aided by massive funding and sophisticated weaponry and training whose origin can be traced with little difficulty to India and Israel.

Man or legend.

If a man describes “controversy” it is Imran Khan. Few people define the hopes of Islamic moderates as does Khan. This “Khan’s” empire, a “superstar” athlete of the cricket world, a sport unknown to most Americans, consists of that huge portion of the world our maps used to color pink, the regions we used to call the British Empire, a region covering 40% of the globe. When the British conquered the world they took their most beloved sport with them, cricket.

What if an American baseball pitcher won 30 games a year with an ERA of 2.0 and batted .400? Then surround him with controversy, a Muslim with a Jewish ex-wife, looks and charm and a reputed “way with the ladies” that keeps the tabloids stalking him and, oh, I forgot to mention this, make him the head of a political party. You will now begin to understand the enigma of Imran Khan

It gets worse.

He is Pashtu, a Pashtun, one of the same ethnic group Americans know as the Taliban, a group well out of the mainstream in Pakistani politics. In a country ruled by the “Europeanized” Punjabi and Sindh, a Pashtu political leader makes Barak Hussein Obama seem “mainstream.”

It gets worse still.

Khan is not only a controversial celebrity, but an outspoken reformer fighting government corruption. Khan is a friend of Americans but strong enemy of American influence in Pakistan and very critical for the west for its mistrust of Islam. He believes the west doesn’t know the difference between a Taliban extremist and a moderate Sufi cleric but can pick out a Methodist from a Lutheran in seconds.

Imagine an American sports hero who is an Oxford trained economist, sponsored the nation’s largest cancer center and is now building a university for those who would never otherwise see a higher education.

We had to meet this guy.

His political offices were moderate. We had visited political parties in Pakistan that looked more like Ivy League campuses. Khan’s party was used furniture, peeling paint and the sound of work, footsteps up and down stairs and a lot of noise. It was an election night in Rawalpindi. A seat in the national assembly was up for grabs and charges of election fraud had charged the air.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: GORDON DUFF: PAKISTAN’S IMRAN KHAN; LOOKING FOR “AMERICA” IN THE STRANGEST PLACES: Veterans Today

Pakistan’s nuclear profile: Sun2Surf

2010-03-02T09:25:00.000-08:00

Ziad Haider

PAKISTAN encapsulates some of the key security challenges facing the international community. The presence of al-Qaeda and nuclear weapons on its soil under the overhang of conflict-prone ties with India remain critical geo-political concerns.

Although media coverage related to Pakistan has emphasised the militancy issue in light of the violence in Pakistan and the conflict in Afghanistan, analysing the full dimensions of Pakistan’s nuclear programme is essential to understanding its security profile. Pakistan’s nuclear engagement began in 1955 as part of the Atoms for Peace programme launched by the US. Thirty-seven Pakistani scientists trained at US atomic facilities and a small research facility was established in Pakistan with US assistance.

Yet following Pakistan’s defeat in the 1971 war with India, its nuclear ambitions were weaponised.

In 1972, President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto declared, “if India builds the Bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry. But we will get one of our own.”

Two decades later in May 1998, in a series of tit-for-tat nuclear tests, India and Pakistan officially joined the nuclear club. Estimates suggest Pakistan has enough material for sixty to hundred bombs deliverable by attack aircraft and missiles.

To ensure proper command and control over this arsenal, in February 2002, the National Command Authority (NCA) was set up to formulate policy and exercise employment and development control over all strategic nuclear forces and organisations.

Under a presidential ordinance passed by Gen Musharraf in 2007, the president was to chair the NCA that was to include the prime minister as vice-chairman and senior cabinet and military officials. Last November, President Zardari handed his powers in the NCA to the prime minister though real control remains with the military.

Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine is geared toward ensuring a “credible minimum deterrent” against India. As a result of India’s conventional military superiority, Pakistan has refrained from adopting a no-first-use doctrine, ie it retains the right to use nuclear weapons in a conflict even if it has not been attacked with them. Pakistan has not articulated a formal nuclear doctrine; however, in January 2002, Gen Khalid Kidwai who chairs the NCA’s secretariat outlined general conditions of use: if India attacks Pakistan and conquers a large part of its territory; destroys a large part either of its land or air forces; proceeds to the economic strangling of Pakistan; or pushes Pakistan into political destabilisation or creates a large scale internal subversion.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan’s nuclear profile: Sun2Surf

Pakistan court blocks Baradar extradition: FT

2010-03-02T08:47:00.000-08:00

By Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad

A Pakistani provincial high court yesterday blocked the extradition of captured Afghan Taliban leaders including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in an unexpected twist that threatens to undermine Islamabad’s commitment to hunt down islamist militants

Mullah Baradar, the Taliban military chief in Afghanistan, was captured by Pakistan’s intelligence agents assisted by the CIA, from the southern port city of Karachi earlier this month. On Thursday, a statement from the office of Afghan president Hamid Karzai announced an agreement with Pakistan for Mullah Baradar to be handed over to Afganistan.

The government - which has come under intense western pressure, especially from the US, to crackdown on Taliban militants in the country - could appeal to the supreme court to have the decision overturned.

Khalid Khawaja, a pro-islamist campaigner who has actively opposed Pakistan forging closer ties with the US and who filed the petition to the court said; “I feel encouraged as we can’t hand over our people to the US, Afghanistan or any other country”.

Judge Khawaja Mohammad Sharif issued his order in Lahore saying: “They [the Taliban] should not be handed over to any other country” and set March 15 as the next date for hearing the case.

In addition to Mullah Baradar, other Taliban militants named by Mr Khawaja among those arrested recently include Mullah Abdus Salaam, Mullah Kabir, Mullah Mohammad and Mullah Amir Muawiya.

Analysts said, Friday’s development underlined a tendency among islamists to use Pakistan’s increasingly robust civil society, the media and the courts to press their case.

“Whatever you might say otherwise, it is the case that Pakistan’s civil society, courts and the press are all among the freest in the developing world” said one western diplomat in Islamabad. “This is a strength which we may not like in this particular case because the islamists are using it to their advantage, but it is a strength”.

Lieutenant General (retired) Abdul Qayyum, a former Pakistani military commander, warned that handing over Taliban militants to a foreign country would provoke a backlash. “If these people are sent to Afghanistan, it is as good as sending them to America. We can’t hand over these people to an outside power. That will annoy Pakistanis even more so than before” he said.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan court blocks Baradar extradition: FT

US to spend $50 million on media in Pakistan: Examiner

2010-03-02T08:13:00.000-08:00

Ibrahim Sajid Malick

The Obama administration plans to spend nearly $50 million on Pakistani media this year to reverse anti-American sentiments and raise awareness of projects aimed at improving quality of life, confirms a Washington insider.

After the Kerry-Lugar Bill debacle, the Obama administration had struggled with the idea of ‘branding’ aid and many within the State department and the USAID had argued that identifying projects may backfire.

“By announcing that a school was built and is being maintained – partly because of the aid received from America – you can alienate people,” said someone who had proposed not ‘branding’ the aid.

The US Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke believes that a substantial amount of monies spent on media- especially private TV channels will reduce tension and may even bring Pakistan-US relations back on the right path.

Senator John Kerry, the main architect of Kerry-Lugar bill also supports the idea of claiming credit for all “the good work being done to improve infrastructure, energy and education,” said a source in Senator’s office.

Reuters today reported that the Obama administration has sent lawmakers a plan for funding water, energy and other projects. Report said the US intends to spend $1.45 billion of earmarked for the Kerry-Lugar bill in fiscal 2010.

The trust deficit had surged after a well intended aid package focused to uplift Pakistan’s civilian society was trashed by a section of Pakistani media. Interviews with diplomatic sources in Washington, D.C. and media coverage of the KLB debacle had demonstrated growing frustration of the Obama administration.

Although American officials publicly praise military operation in South Waziristan, in private they sing a different tune; their assessment of ”alignment” is rather pessimistic. Stories leaked to media consistently allege that al-Qaeda leadership is still enjoying safe haven in Pakistan.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: US to spend $50 million on media in Pakistan: Examiner

Indian Army Chief’s outrageous admission of Armoured debacle stuns the world: Daily Mail

2010-01-16T01:05:00.000-08:00

By Makhdoom Babar
(Additional reporting by Ajay Mehta in New Delhi & Hina Kayani in Rawalpindi)

While the Indians celebrate 62nd Army Day, country’s Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor, just after a couple of weeks of announcing a new war doctrine of Indian army to eliminate Pakistan and China in matter of hours even if it has to fight on simultaneous fronts, outrageously admitted Indian Army’s Armoured debacle and expressed concern about the force's 'night blindness' in the area of Armoured Corps and mechanised infantry. 'My major concern is that night blindness of the army is removed so we are able to fight in the night as in the day,' Kapoor said at New Delhi Yesterday, an admission that stunned the world in the back drop of his two weeks old remarks. The situation also forced Indian Defence Minister Antony to chew his own buts as he had been endorsing and projecting General Kapoor’s announcement regarding the new war doctrine for Pakistan and China Earlier, when his attention was brought to the fact that the Indian Army's tanks have a night vision capability of 20 percent, Pakistan's have 80 percent while China has 100 percent, General Deepak Kapoor admitted this outrageous military debacle by saying: 'You are right.'
'Projects are already in the pipeline to ensure that we have the night vision capability that our adversaries have. It may take three-four years,' Kapoor added. The lack of night vision capability of the Indian Army has affected its fighting capability during the night. The deficiency has been persistent since the Kargil conflict.
On a query about the obsolete artillery of the Indian Army, the army chief said that successive bans have delayed acquisition of new guns for long. 'Artillery is a cause for concern. We need to have better guns. Trials for towed guns are underway. Because of bans the process got delayed. We are now acquiring (ultra light) guns through FMS (Foreign Military Sales) route (from the US),' Kapoor added.

The Daily mail’s investigations into the matter reveal that despite a numerical strength of tanks over Pakistan, Indian army otherwise armoured and infantry capabilities are even below average if compared with Pakistan Army. According to these findings, Indian armoured corps comprises around 4, 059 tanks with a backup of 1, 133 as reserve while Pakistan Army’s Tank strength is 2,401 with a backup of 270 as reserves. However this numerical supremacy of Indian army is outraged with the fact that Indian armoured corps relies mainly on its Main Battle Tank (MBT) Arjun which emerged as a big failure while Pakistan Army’s armoured corps’ main strength has become Al-Khalid MBT which is a great success story, endorsed across the world. But the latest admission of Indian Army Chief about failure of its armoured corps to fight a battle in the night time is an additional and a rather huge disadvantage to the Indian Army and crystal clearly negates the claims of Indian Army Chief regarding smooth victory in case Indian army has to fight a war with Pakistan or China or even both at the same time.
The Daily Mail’s findings further disclose that India’s MBT Arjun is more flab than brawn. More a heavyweight than a performer. A potpourri really, with a French engine, and German seals fitted into an Indian hull and turret. And transporting this heavyweight is going to be another problem, which could limit its operational performance.
These findings further indicate that Arjun has indeed suffered throughout its development, from confusion and inexplicable delays and by imbalances between the Army, the DRDO and the bureaucracy. Pakistan by contrast, has drawn a lesson from the Indian experience and avoided the trap of over lasting her R&D’s indigenous know-how in the development of its MBT Al-Khalid.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Indian Army Chief’s outrageous admission of Armoured debacle stuns the world: Daily Mail

Try Pakistan’s M2 motorway: The Gazette

2009-12-21T11:33:00.000-08:00

ISLAMABAD - If you want a slice of peace and stability in a country with a reputation for violence and chaos, try Pakistan’s M2 motorway.

At times foreign reporters need to a give a nation a rest from their instinctive cynicism. I feel like that with Pakistan each time I whizz along the M2 between Islamabad and Lahore, the only motorway I know that inspires me to write.

Now, if the M2 conjures images of bland, spotless tarmac interspersed with gas stations and fast food outlets, you would be right. But this is South Asia, land of potholes, reckless driving and the occasional invasion of livestock.

And this is Pakistan, for many a "failed state". Here, blandness can inspire almost heady optimism.

Built in the 1990s at a cost of around $1 billion, the 228-mile (367-km) motorway -- which continues to Peshawar as the M1 -- is like a six-lane highway to paradise in a country that usually makes headlines for suicide bombers, army offensives and political mayhem.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Try Pakistan’s M2 motorway: The Gazette

Pakistan has Given Reverse Aid to the US Worth $5.1 Billion Since 2006: Economistan

2009-10-27T03:00:00.000-07:00

Much hue and cry has been made out of the Aid US has given to Pakistan over the years. However, all this Aid amounts to pittance when we realize that US has given Pakistan over a period of 60 years only $8.9 billion dollars in economic assistance. This amount is less than even the remittances that Pakistanis would send this year which would amount to a little more than $9 billion dollars. The military aid that the US has given to Pakistan over the past 62 years amounts to $14.7 billion, which includes $5 billion dollars which were given to Pakistan during the Zia years to drive the Soviets back from Afghanistan thus signaling the end of the Cold War. In short, Pakistan won the war for the US for just $5 billion which speaks volumes about the efficiency and determination of Pakistan Armed Forces.

This $5 billion not only covered the cost of arming and training Afghan fighters and the supply of stinger missiles which were instrumental in bringing down Russian air power but also helicopters and other weapons and fuel needed to defeat the Soviets. It was a war in which many Pakistani fighter pilots also laid down their lives in an effort to drive the Russians away from Afghanistan.
The US basically used Pakistan to win its war against Russia and dubbed the Foreign Direct Investment in this Cold War as US Aid. Paying another country to fight its own war should not be called as Aid but wages for fighting the war. Again during so the called “War on Terror”, the US has enrolled its old and forgotten partner to do all the work for it and given Pakistan a little more than $ 9 billion as Coalition Support Funds (or “Military Aid”) to win the war.

A major portion of these Coalition Support Funds however, also includes the cost of fuel that Pakistan supplies to the US forces based in Afghanistan. In effect the US calls the money it gives to Pakistan for the fuel that the US itself uses in Afghanistan as “Military Aid”. There are also reports that Pakistan is supplying the fuel to the US below cost. The Coalition Support Funds and Security Assistance almost entirely are composed of fuel plus the military hardware costs that the US has supplied to Pakistan. Given below is a complete breakdown of the so called “Military Aid” since 911 to Pakistan,

“Military Aid” to Pakistan since 911
Coalition Support Funds	$5.6 b
Security Assistance	$1.8 b
Budget Support	$1.6 b
Development	$0.9 b

The breakdown of the total aid given to Pakistan by the US is as follows,

Total US Aid to Pakistan in past 62 years($ millions)
	Military	Economic
1950-1964	700	2500
1965-1979	26	2550
1979-1990	5000	0
1991-2000	5	429
2001-2009	9000	3500
Total	$14.731 billion	$8.979 billion

Ken Stier writes in an article on aid to Pakistan writes,

“Currently, 70 to 80 cents of every dollar allocated in aid comes back to the U.S. instead of staying in the country it is meant to benefit because of USAID's dependence on contractors.”

The US is using US companies and contractors to channel this so called “Aid” which is used to support US companies presently operating in Pakistan against Chinese firms along with the construction of infrastructure projects like the building and expansion of the $One billion dollar US Embassy in Pakistan. Under the same token if Pakistan spends some money from its exchequer to build part of its embassy in the US, would that also be termed as Pakistan’s aid to the US? or for that matter if Pakistan purchased any military hardware from the US would it be termed as Pakistan’s aid to the US? Under the current US definition of “aid” it would. If so then it would not be wrong to say that Pakistan has given the US aid worth $5.1 billion since 2006 because of the money it spent for the purchase of F-16s from the US. Well the logic behind the Kerry-Lugar bill is the same. This so called aid is not really aid at all instead it is US Foreign Direct Investment in Pakistan to accomplish its nefarious designs such as expansion of US military infrastructure in Pakistan through use of private military contractors and blacklisted companies like Black Water and stationing of US marines and hardware in Pakistan through overt and covert means.

The funny thing is that this so called US Aid is spread over many years comes with harsh conditions. The US just playing with terminologies and fooling the people of Pakistan into thinking that the money US is using in supporting US companies in Pakistan and building its own embassy is aid. It is about time for Pakistan to wake up and aggressively address the issues of the sovereignty in Pakistan and excessive US interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs in the garb of this so called aid. Pakistan would also be well served to reject this so called aid and closely scrutinize all of this “Foreign Direct Investment” from the US which it calls aid to Pakistan. Pakistan should require the US to give a detailed list of each and every item that is purchased through this money in Pakistan and which US companies, contractors and concerns are the beneficiaries of the so called “aid”.

Pakistan's Aid to the US since 2006
Item 1: 36 New F-16 Block 50/52s – $3 billion	$ 3 billion
Item 2: Weapons for the New F-16s – $650 Million	$ 650 million
Item 3: F-16A/B Mid-Life Update Modification Kits – $1.3 billion	$ 1.3 billion
Item 4: F-16A/B Engine Modifications & UP/STAR – $151 Million	$ 151 million

Thanks to the billions of dollars that overseas Pakistanis have sent to Pakistan just this year($ 9 billion), the current account deficit of the current financial year for Pakistan has reduced to a mere $462 million dollars which bodes well for Pakistan. Pakistan’s stock market is also in recovery mode and rose by 2.4% to 9,374 points since Sept 24. It is about time Pakistan reconsidered its partnership with the US and called the US military aid or foreign direct investment in Pakistan “US military expense” and the US economic assistance to Pakistan over the last 62 years of $ 8.9 billion dollars what it is, a “Pittance”.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan has Given Reverse Aid to the US Worth $5.1 Billion Since 2006: Economistan

About Those Billions: Newsweek

2009-10-21T23:56:00.000-07:00

By Katie Paul

It was with the best of intentions that the U.S. funneled nearly $5.3 billion to Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. After all, that money helped strike down a Cold War adversary. But there were unintended consequences too—namely, the Taliban. Since 9/11, the U.S. has turned on the spigot again, sending more than $15 billion in assistance to Pakistan. President Barack Obama just approved another $7.5 billion this month, which triples aid while committing to another five years of funding. It also bolsters development efforts, which, according to bill coauthor Sen. John Kerry, will "build a relationship with the people [of Pakistan] to show that what we want is a relationship that meets their interests and needs."

But how effective will this round of money be? Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad have alleged that Pakistan misspent some 70 percent of the U.S. funds that paid the Pakistani military to run missions in the unwieldy provinces along the Afghan border. U.S. officials accuse Pakistan of running a double game with the money, keeping the Taliban at bay just enough to persuade American benefactors to keep their wallets open, thereby ensuring a lifeline for the country's mangled economy. All of which raises the question: will any amount of money produce results?

A big part of that answer lies in determining how much bang the United States has gotten for its buck so far—whether or not some of the money was siphoned off along the way to fund Army generals' new houses or Taliban elements. Here's an accounting of aid sent over from the United States to Pakistan in recent decades, divided into eras based on the ebbs and flows of assistance. (Figures are in historical dollars.)

1950-1964: As the Cold War heated up, a 1954 security agreement prompted the United States to provide nearly $2.5 billion in economic aid and $700 million in military aid to Pakistan.

1965-1979: With the Indo-Pakistani hostilities in the late 1960s, the United States retreated. Between 1965 and 1971, the U.S. sent only $26 million in military aid, which was cut back even further to $2.9 million through the end of the decade. Meanwhile, economic aid kept flowing, totaling $2.55 billion over the 15 years. Everything came to a halt in 1979, however, when the Carter administration cut off all but food aid after discovering a uranium-enrichment facility in Pakistan. Pakistani leader Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq refused $400 million, split for economic and military aid from President Jimmy Carter, calling it "peanuts." The following year, he was rewarded with a much more attractive offer.

1979-1990: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan changed everything. Pakistan's ISI security apparatus became the primary means of funneling covert U.S. assistance to anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan. From 1980 to 1990, the United States ramped up its contributions for both development and military purposes, sending more than $5 billion over the course of the decade.

1991-2000: But even while Pakistan was serving a strategic Cold War purpose, concerns persisted about the country's nuclear ambitions. That gave President George H.W. Bush an easy out from the massive funding commitments in 1990, after the fall of the Soviet Union. Aid over the next decade withered to $429 million in economic assistance and $5.2 million in military assistance, a drop-off Pakistanis still cite bitterly, accusing the United States of leaving them high and dry during the decade.

2001-2009: Since 9/11, the United States has once again bolstered its funding commitments, sending nearly $9 billion in military assistance both to aid and reimburse Pakistan for its operations in the unwieldy border regions with Afghanistan. Another $3.6 billion has funded economic and diplomatic initiatives. But U.S. officials and journalists' accounts have raised concerns that such funds are not being used as intended, and not just because of the typical concerns about corruption. Documented military and civilian government deals with Taliban elements, like a 2004 agreement with Waziri militant leader Nek Mohammed, have confirmed that money intended to fight the Taliban is, in many cases, being used instead to pay them off. (Islamabad is currently battling Taliban fighters in Waziristan.) When the deals fall through, as rapidly shifting alliances in Pakistan's tribal regions often do, that money ultimately ends up funding the insurgency. U.S. officials have expressed particular concerns about the Pakistani government's links to the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, which reportedly has ties to Al Qaeda. At the same time, former president Pervez Musharraf has recently admitted to using U.S. military funding to strengthen defenses against India.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: About Those Billions: Newsweek

Pakistan's July-Sept c/a narrows to $462 mln: Reuters

2009-10-21T23:39:00.000-07:00

KARACHI, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Pakistan's current account deficit in the first three months of the 2009/10 fiscal year was a provisional $462 million compared with a deficit of $4.26 billion in the same period last year, the central bank said.

Pakistan recorded a provisional current account surplus of $174 million in September, compared with a revised current account deficit of $19 million the previous month, the bank said.

"The reason for the narrowing of the deficit is a combination of a lower trade deficit and higher remittances," said Khalid Iqbal Siddiqui, director of research at Invest & Finance Securities Ltd.

The trade deficit narrowed to $897 million in September compared with $2.03 billion in September last year. The deficit was $1.04 billion in August. [ID:nISL21660]

Pakistan entered a $7.6 billion emergency International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme last November to avert a balance of payments crisis. The loan was increased to $11.3 billion in July, of which the IMF has disbursed more than $5 billion.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan's July-Sept c/a narrows to $462 mln: Reuters

Kerry-Lugar Bill: the army’s objections —Shaukat Qadir: Daily Times

2009-10-21T23:37:00.000-07:00

Does no one understand that they can only be strong if they enjoy the support of the people of Pakistan and, if they do, no army can ‘subvert the judicial and political processes’ in Pakistan?

Many analysts in Pakistan find nothing wrong with the Kerry-Lugar (K-L) Bill. Some feel that Pakistan is so desperately in need of assistance that the bill should be accepted at any cost — preconditions or consequences notwithstanding. The President is firmly behind it; the Prime Minister expressed concerned initially, but soon fell in line behind the president. The opposition seems to consider this a golden opportunity to take on the government on its continued submission to the United States at the cost of our sovereignty, and while prepared to tear the government apart on the issue, is carefully refraining from criticising the US.

However, surprisingly, the army, which has been at pains to establish the principle of civilian supremacy, has not only discussed the subject in its annual corps commanders’ conference, but has thereafter issued a public statement to the effect that it “has concerns...the details of which will be conveyed to the government...Pakistan is a sovereign state and has all the rights to analyse and respond to the threat in accordance with its own national interests...in the considered opinion of the forum, it is parliament that would deliberate on the issue to enable the government to develop a national response.”

What does this statement by the army imply?

Obviously, it has reservations about the government’s unconditional acceptance of the bill. It is almost certain that, having conveyed its concerns to General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, during his visit, the army must also have conveyed these to the government, but was dissatisfied with its response and, consequently, decided to express these publicly, without specifying the ‘concerns’.

Moreover, it has publicly implied its dissatisfaction with government policy on this issue and, while announcing its acceptance of the supremacy of parliament, it seeks a ‘national consensus’.

From a totally apolitical, democratic army chief, who has ensured so far that the army visibly stays out of politics and has attempted to erase the view that the army will always have political clout in Pakistan, this is a most unusual and unexpected move. In effect, he has reasserted the army’s political role; knowing him, as I do, there must have been very compelling reasons for him to do so.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Kerry-Lugar Bill: the army’s objections —Shaukat Qadir: Daily Times

Pakistan's Sept trade deficit narrows to $897 mln: Reuters

2009-10-13T06:08:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Pakistan's trade deficit narrowed to $897 million in September compared with $2.03 billion in September last year, the Federal Bureau of Statistics said.

The deficit was $1.04 billion in August.

Exports stood at $1.52 billion in September, against $1.77 billion in the same month last year. Imports were worth $2.41 billion in September compared with $3.80 billion in the same month last year, the bureau said on its web site.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan's Sept trade deficit narrows to $897 mln: Reuters

Australia doubles aid package for Pakistan: Brisbane Times

2009-10-13T06:05:00.000-07:00

MATT WADE

ISLAMABAD: Like the US, Australia is about to ramp up its aid to Pakistan, but questions are being raised about how it will ensure the money is well spent.

Australia will double its development assistance to Pakistan to almost $60 million, in addition to the $23 million in emergency assistance recently provided to families displaced by fighting in the north-west.

Most of the money will be directed to basic education and maternal and child health, and a large slice of the cash will fund scholarships for Pakistanis to study in Australia.

When asked if Australia had put any conditions on its aid, the Government agency AusAID said only that the aid program ''is conditional upon annual budget deliberations by the Australian Government''.

Australian aid to Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan is set to keep rising. The Government has pledged $650 million for development assistance over the next four years in the two countries, on top of military spending and assistance.

Last month the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said Australia was doubling its military training to the Pakistani Army.

Much of Australia's aid is channelled through organisations such as the World Food Program, partnerships with other donor governments and non-government organisations.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Australia doubles aid package for Pakistan: Brisbane Times

Strings may force Pakistan to reject US aid: Peninsula

2009-10-12T09:18:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD: The debate on stringent conditions attached by the Obama Administration to the Kerry-Lugar Bill of aid is giving an option to Pakistan’s economic managers from barring the US to provide its aid in such a way where major chunk on the development projects — in the range of 50 to 60 percent of the $1.5bn per annum — is being spent and sent back to US in the name of consultancy and intermediatory costs.

All kinds of tough conditions have been incorporated in the Kerry-Lugar Bill to ensure strict audit in the name of transparency but it never touches the spending of money by the United States on consultancy, salaries and other intermediately costs to run the USAID funded projects inside Pakistan.

A relevant authority having knowledge on Pakistan’s economy is of the view that the US wanted to spend major chunk of the aid in its own bureaucratic way which in some cases rose to 65 to 70 per cent and certain projects currently being executed by USAID could be cited on this count.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Strings may force Pakistan to reject US aid: Peninsula

Are Development Dollars in Pakistan Being Well Spent?: Time

2009-10-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

By Ken Stier

To development experts who have long called for a shift in strategy in the Muslim world, it would seem like cause for celebration. After years of devoting the bulk of U.S. aid to Pakistan to military assistance, Washington is about to shift that equation. Under legislation approved by the Senate last week and by the House on Wednesday, Pakistan can expect to receive $1.5 billion of non-military (or civilian) aid for each of the next five years, which triples previous levels and will roughly balance out the amount of military aid the U.S. gives to Pakistan.

But getting the money is only half the battle; how well it works — and whether it helps to change strong anti-American sentiment — depends on getting it to the right people and projects on the ground. That job principally falls to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and many critics say its performance isn't very encouraging. "When you are spending large amounts of money at arm's length, operating in hostile environments, it is very easy for money to get spent corruptly and/or badly, and that is what I have seen in our health programs," says Roger Bates of the American Enterprise Institute, a trenchant USAID critic.

One early effort in education already appears to be a cautionary tale. Improving schooling in the country has been a key focus of U.S. development efforts, both to undermine the need for and appeal of religious schools (or madrasahs) and to advance literacy, which is 43% among adults; two-thirds of Pakistani women cannot read or write. In long, jargon-filled reports, the principal USAID contractor on an $83 million, five-year education-sector reform project, North Carolina–headquartered RTI (also known as Research Triangle Institute), claims to have "positively impacted" more than 400,000 students (out of 70 million school-age kids) through strengthening policy and planning, teacher and school-administrator training, and youth and adult literacy. But when USAID's inspector general sent a team over in August 2007 to check on the progress, it could not validate the claims because the USAID mission in Islamabad "did not require RTI to adhere to reporting requirements critical to monitoring the program performance." The problem was serious enough for RTI, which derived close to 40% of its $710 million in revenues last year from USAID, to be disqualified from follow-on contracts on this particular project.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Are Development Dollars in Pakistan Being Well Spent?: Time

Pakistan army anger over $1.5bn US aid deal: Times

2009-10-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

By Saeed Shah in Islamabad

The row pits the Pakistan's powerful armed forces against the fragile civilian government of the Pakistan Peoples Party, which championed the US assistance deal.

The military is about to begin a Western-backed offensive against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Waziristan, the epicentre of Pakistani extremism and an important refuge for Afghan insurgents.

Conditions that come with the Kerry-Lugar Bill, passed by Congress late last month, have caused a political storm in Pakistan, with the military now joining the parliamentary opposition in hostility to the aid package.

The Bill, which was supposed to symbolise US commitment to Pakistan, requires monitoring and certification of Pakistan's action against terrorism. It also requires the country to work to prevent nuclear proliferation and show that the military is not interfering in the political process.

According to critics of the legislation, the conditions imply that Pakistan sponsors terrorism and nuclear proliferation, and they resent the intrusion into affairs of the military.

The army's top brass met on Wednesday to consider the Kerry-Lugar legislation at corp commanders' conference at the military headquarters at Rawalpindi.

A statement issued after the corp commanders meeting said: "Chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, reiterated that Pakistan is a sovereign state and has all the rights to analyse and respond to the threat in accordance with her own national interests.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan army anger over $1.5bn US aid deal: Times

No oversight of transfers, promotions in army: Kerry: Dawn

2009-10-12T06:19:00.000-07:00

By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON: The Kerry-Lugar bill contains ‘absolutely no requirement or desire’ for US oversight on promotions and other internal operations of the Pakistani military, says Senator John Kerry, one of the co-authors of the proposed legislation.

This was the second statement in less than a week from the senator who, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, played a key role in getting congressional approval for the bill.

Kerry worked hard with his colleagues in the House of Representatives to soften some of the harsh conditions proposed in the House version. The bill passed by the both chambers was a compromise version, which included some restrictions proposed in the House while others were watered down.

The Pakistani response to the bill, however, has hurt Pakistan’s supporters both in the House and the Senate.

Even Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, co-chair of the Pakistani Congressional Caucus, is astonished at the Pakistani reaction.

She believes that the bill was a ‘tribute to the resilience of the Pakistani people’ and extended a promise of long-term relationship between Pakistan and the United States.

The most stunning reaction, however, came from Congressman Gary Ackerman, who co-chairs the Indian caucus.

He said that he had no interest in a partnership with Pakistan which is characterised by ‘suspicion, resentment and political manipulation’.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: No oversight of transfers, promotions in army: Kerry: Dawn

Bolivia buys six Pakistan-made aircraft: Dawn

2009-10-07T09:53:00.000-07:00

LA PAZ: The Bolivian government has approved the 57.8-million-dollar purchase of six planes made in Pakistan with Chinese technology for use in anti-drug operations, media here reported Friday.

The deal was finalized Wednesday in consultations with ministers and stipulates that the aircraft will provide a 'contribution to the regional battle against narcotrafficking, ensuring requisite control of national air spaces and areas prone to and affected by this problem,' reported local independent media agency Fides.

The government has not explicitly confirmed the deal but 'the president will announce it on October 10,' according to Defense Minister Walker San Miguel, who was cited by La Razon newspaper.

The K-8, or Karakorum, plane is a light fighter jet jointly developed by China and Pakistan in the early 1990s.

It is used primarily as a training aircraft, but can also be used for airfield defense.

Bolivia is also waiting for five US-made Huey helicopters to be delivered by Brazil. Bolivian President Evo Morales said Thursday that the delivery was being delayed by the United States, which has yet to give the project a green light.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Bolivia buys six Pakistan-made aircraft: Dawn

Umpires say sorry to Umar: The News

2009-10-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

By From Abdul Mohi Shah
JOHANNESBURG: Umpires Simon Taufel (Australia) and Ian Gould (England) said ‘sorry to Umar Akmal’ after their sub-standard and biased umpiring in the Champions Trophy semifinal lead to Pakistan’s unexpected defeat against New Zealand on Saturday.

A source in the International Cricket Council (ICC) confirmed to ‘The News’ that heated arguments were exchanged between Pakistan coach Inrtikhab Alam and the umpires during a hearing conducted after the semifinal at Wanderers. Match referee Javagal Srinath called up Umar and Intikhab for a hearing after the match, over what umpires blamed the batsman for showing dissent over the lbw decision. Taufel ruled Umar lbw at a time when he had played the ball on to his pads. Umar’s fall at a crucial stage robbed Pakistan of a chance to post a big total.

The Pakistan camp defended Umar and was very critical of the umpiring standard during the match. Srinath repeated the slides in front of field umpires and later conducted a separate hearing with the umpires.

According to the sources, the match referee later cleared Umar of showing any dissent and conveyed that the umpire who had made the decision said ‘sorry’ to Umar for the wrong judgment.

That was not the only biased decision by the umpires who faltered on no less than four occasions to help New Zealand make it to the final. Grant Elliott, who went on to play a match-winning knock was let off twice during his stay at the wicket. Shahid Afridi almost got him when he was new at the crease. Rana Naveed had him plumb on a full toss when again he was ruled not out. Even Daniel Vettori got a lucky break off Saeed Ajmal.

The worst of all that the two field umpires were so strict on Pakistan bowlers that they ruled most of short pitched deliveries as wide ball and at the same time extended full luxury to New Zealand bowlers to hurl such deliveries.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Umpires say sorry to Umar: The News

Pak troika in rigging row: Statesman

2009-10-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

KARACHI, 6 OCT: The spectre of match-fixing has returned to haunt Pakistan cricket with the country's parliamentary committee on sports summoning the Pakistan Cricket Board chief, Mr Ijaz Butt, captain Younus Khan and the coach, Mr Intikhab Alam, to seek an explanation for the team's Champions Trophy loss to Australia following allegations of deliberate under-performance.
A senior parliamentarian, who heads the national assembly's standing committee on sports, has accused the team of deliberately losing to Australia in the Champions Trophy in a group match.
Mr Jamshed Khan Dasti said the standing committee would summon Mr Butt, Younus and Mr Alam shortly to explain the team's performance in the Champions Trophy.
“There is evidence that the team lost the match to Australia on purpose. They under-performed. Then, against New Zealand too, there are signs the team didn't want to win,” Mr Dasti alleged.
“We have been told by some respected and senior people and we are trying to collect evidence that there might have been some dirty dealings involving the matches against Australia and New Zealand,” Mr Dasti claimed.
Pakistan's last-ball defeat by Australia put India out of the Champions Trophy while their loss to New Zealand in a semi-final came as a surprise to many. Mr Dasti lashed out at Mr Butt and the team for disappointing the nation.
“I can say we lost to Australia on purpose. And the team's performance against New Zealand was zero. We will get to the bottom of this whole affair and find out the truth,” he said.
Mr Dasti said the standing committee would not allow corruption in cricket.
“We want to see changes in the board and Mr Butt must go because, as it is, he is too old for this job,” he added.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pak troika in rigging row: Statesman

PCB to push for video referrals in ODIs: The News

2009-10-07T09:45:00.001-07:00

By By Khalid Hussain
KARACHI: Pakistan are likely to push for the umpire referral system to be implemented in One-day Internationals also in a bid to avoid 'appalling decisions' like the ones that blew their team's chances of reaching its first ever Champions Trophy final in South Africa last weekend.

Sources in the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) informed 'The News' that the national team management as well as some senior Board officials were left fuming after some bad calls by umpires Simon Taufel and Ian Gould dogged Pakistan in their Champions Trophy semifinal against New Zealand.

According to the sources, the PCB is now planning to push for the implementation of referrals in one-dayers. Video referrals have been permanently implemented in Test cricket from this month.

Pakistan were favourites to beat underdogs New Zealand and reach the final for the first time but were undone by the Kiwis, who recorded a five-wicket triumph to set a date with Trans-Tasmanian rivals Australia. The Aussies hammered New Zealand by six wickets in the final to defend the Champions Trophy crown.

Some experts in Pakistan believe that Pakistan were undone by the umpires. They believe Australia's Taufel and England Gould gave some appalling decisions in the semifinal.

Taufel adjudged promising youngster Umar Akmal lbw though television replays confirmed later that the ball deflected off the batsman's bat before hitting the pads. Umar was batting at 55 and his dismissal ended hopes of a big Pakistani total. Taufel and Gould also turned down a series of confident appeals when the New Zealanders were chasing the target.

Sources told this correspondent that the Pakistan team management wrote a stinging post-match report against the standard of umpiring in the semifinal and described it as 'pathetic'.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: PCB to push for video referrals in ODIs: The News

Pakistan's economy and monetary policy: Reuters

2009-09-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

By Faisal Aziz

Reuters - Pakistan's central bank is scheduled to announce its monetary policy for October-November on Tuesday. Here are some facts about the State Bank of Pakistan's monetary policy and the economy.

* In the previous policy review on Aug. 15, the central bank cut its key policy rate by 100 basis points to 13 percent -- the second rate cut since January.

* As part of an understanding with the International Monetary Fund, the central bank also announced in August an interest rate corridor, with the policy rate serving as the "ceiling" and the "floor" set 300 basis points below that.

* The frequency of monetary policy reviews was also increased to six a year from four, which was also part of the IMF deal.

* Pakistan is being propped up with a $7.6 billion IMF loan running for two years that was agreed in November. The IMF increased the loan by $3.2 billion in July.

* GDP growth slid to 2 percent in 2008/09, about the same as population growth. The government expects growth of 3.3 percent in the fiscal year to the end of June 2010. The Asian Development Bank expects growth of 2 percent in 2009, rising to 3 percent in 2010.

* Steady improvements in key economic indicators have encouraged the central bank to cut rates and provide impetus for growth, but concern about the fiscal side and risks of growing price pressures have prevented a big expansionary policy.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan's economy and monetary policy: Reuters

Pakistan yet to exploit alternative energy resources: The News

2009-09-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

By Mansoor Ahmad
LAHORE: Despite an acute energy shortage and worsening environmental pollution, Pakistan has not exploited the vast potential of environment-friendly alternative energy resources which could add billions of dollars to the economy in the form of carbon credit.

Besides developed countries, many developing economies are adopting alternative methods to produce energy from sources other than fossil fuel. Pakistan, on the other hand, has almost doubled its fossil fuel consumption in order to generate electricity.

Pakistan having a breezy and long coastline has the potential to churn out over 50,000 megawatts of electricity from wind, but at present it hardly produces 100 megawatts.

India and China are among top 10 producers of wind energy. Total installed wind power capacity of China is 12,210MW, of which 6,300MW was added in 2008. In India, total installed wind energy capacity is 9,645MW, of which 1,800MW was added in 2008.

Pakistan’s solar energy potential is also unlimited but no credible progress has been made except for importing some solar-powered geysers from China, which enjoys 66 per cent of global solar water heating capacity. It is followed by Turkey with a 5.8 per cent share. India is also among top 10 countries in solar water heating system with a global share of 1.2 per cent. Pakistan’s share in this area is zero.

Ethanol production in the world increased by 34 per cent in 2008 to 67 billion litres, in which Brazil’s share was 27 billion litres, which make up more than 50 per cent of its non-diesel fuel consumption.

The US was the top ethanol producer with 34 billion litres. India has made it mandatory to add 20 per cent ethanol to motor gasoline. In Pakistan, the first petrol pump started selling ethanol-blended fuel in Islamabad five years ago. However, only a few fuel stations have been added during this period at an average of one outlet per year.

The World Bank’s solar home system projects in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka remained continued, with cumulative installations in 260,000 households by 2008 in Bangladesh and 125,000 households in Sri Lanka. There are not more than 500 residences in Pakistan which have this facility.

The world has made progress in generating energy from waste which Pakistan currently dumps in low-lying areas, polluting the environment. Electricity is being produced through biomass around the world. Though most sugar mills in Pakistan produce electricity from biomass, the government is reluctant to buy this cheap power. The Alternative Energy Development Board has so far signed agreements to buy this electricity with only two out of 73 sugar mills.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan yet to exploit alternative energy resources: The News

Pakistan Petroleum to Increase Output From Manzalai, CEO Says: Bloomberg

2009-09-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

By Farhan Sharif

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan Petroleum Ltd., the nation’s biggest gas producer, plans to increase output from the Manzalai area of the Tal block this year, after missing earlier targets.

“Because of certain delays, production facilities will be in place by November and we hope to increase output to 250 million cubic feet a day,” Chief Executive Officer Khalid Rahman said in an interview in Karachi today.

Pakistan Petroleum needs to compensate for a decline in production from the biggest Sui field in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. Production from Sui, which began in 1955, is declining by as much as five percent a year, according to the company.

The company had planned to increase production from the North West Frontier Province based-Manzalai, which has reserves of 1.3 trillion feet, to 250 million cubic feet a day by June, from 39 million cubic feet, Rehman said in an interview in February.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan Petroleum to Increase Output From Manzalai, CEO Says: Bloomberg

Australia, Italy pledge more aid to Pakistan: Dawn

2009-09-29T10:25:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD: Australia will provide more development aid to Pakistan while Italy has promised a 20-million-euro soft-term loan for training in the marble sector in the NWFP and Balochistan.

The increase in Australian aid and military cooperation was announced by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith after the Friends of Democratic Pakistan summit in New York.

According to a statement issued by the Australian High Commission on Monday, the aid package included doubling of military training slots for Pakistan Army to 140 and establishing defence post-graduate scholarships, making Australia the second largest provider of overseas military training to Pakistan after the United States.

It also included expanding strategic dialogue, establishing an Australia-Pakistan development partnership focusing on health reforms, reconstruction of the Malakand region, promoting democratic governance and economic reforms and providing 100 agricultural scholarships.

Over the past couple of years Australia has increased defence and law-enforcement assistance, doubling development aid to $120 million for two years and contributing $23 million in humanitarian support since last year.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Australia, Italy pledge more aid to Pakistan: Dawn

Seafood exports rise despite EU ban: The News

2009-09-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

By Shahid Shah

KARACHI: Pakistan’s seafood exports increased in August compared to the same period last year after measures taken to improve the condition of harbour and that of boats used in catching fish and shrimp.

According to data, seafood exports rose to 5,327 tons in August against 5,032 tons in August last year. Value of exports also increased to $9.653 million from $9.104 million.

Director General Marine Fisheries Department and Chief Executive Officer Fisheries Development Board, Mohammad Moazzam Khan, told The News several steps had been taken for making improvements at the harbour and modifying boats, which led to increase in seafood exports.

Sources said the exports rose after efforts made by the government which was serious about livestock and dairy development and get the EU ban on seafood exports lifted.

A European Union delegation is likely to visit Pakistan in October to inspect the Karachi Fisheries Harbour.

The EU de-listed all Pakistani seafood exporters in April 2007 and the ban has not yet been lifted. Out of 28 seafood processing units, 11 had been exporting to the EU.

When an EU mission visited the harbour in 2007, it found deficiencies both at the harbour and processing units. Expressing concern, the EU’s Directorate of Food and Veterinary submitted its 25-page findings to Pakistani authorities.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Seafood exports rise despite EU ban: The News

Saudi Arabia gives $100mln aid to Pakistan: Reuters

2009-09-29T09:29:00.001-07:00

By Corinne Scotland

LONDON (AlertNet) - Saudi Arabia has pledged $100 million to Pakistan to help about 2.7 million people who fled their homes during fighting between government forces and the Taliban, the United Nations has said. So far Pakistan has received about $374 million in aid from more than 20 countries, private individuals and organisations. "This contribution from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the single largest contribution received for the vulnerable populations of Pakistan," said Martin Mogwanja, Humanitarian Coordinator for Pakistan.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Saudi Arabia gives $100mln aid to Pakistan: Reuters

Hinopak to export buses from Pakistan to ME and Africa: Daily Times

2009-09-28T00:43:00.000-07:00

KARACHI: Hinopak is Pakistan's first automobile company to export its buses to Middle East and African countries in early 1990's and once again Hinopak would take a gigantic leap in the international market by starting export of buses to Middle East and Africa, a statement released on Friday said. In the statement Mohammad Irfan Shaikh, Director Sales and Marketing, Hinopak stated that it is proud to mention that Hinopak has been chosen as a hub by its principal Hino Motors, Ltd., Japan for manufacturing Hino buses for export to Middle East and Africa. In this regard the first meeting with Hino distributors from Middleast and Africa was held in November last year, where Hino distributors showed their keen interest in Hino buses because of their quality which is not less than any international bus.

Irfan also congratulated the CDGK to start the pilot project by inducting CNG buses in the Karachi transport system. He further added that it is one such step which would augurs well for the citizens of Karachi and would provide impetus for the future induction of both new CNG and Diesel buses in Karachi and also in other cities of Pakistan especially in Punjab. He mentioned that, in Punjab more than 1500 urban buses are successfully operating on the roads and facilitating the commuters. He also urged the government of Punjab to start the operation of locally produced CNG buses which would definitely modernize the existing urban transport system.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Hinopak to export buses from Pakistan to ME and Africa: Daily Times

Pakistan's forex reserves rise to $14.48 bln: Forbes

2009-09-28T00:39:00.000-07:00

KARACHI, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves rose to $14.48 billion in the week that ended on Sept. 19 compared with $14.36 billion the previous week, the central bank said on Thursday.
Reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan rose to $10.94 billion from $10.84 billion a week earlier, while those held by commercial banks also edged up to $3.54 billion from $3.52 billion a week earlier, the central bank said in a statement.
For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan's forex reserves rise to $14.48 bln: Forbes

Pakistan Chief of Army Staff in list of "50 People Who Matter Today": Sify

2009-09-28T00:36:00.000-07:00

Pakistan Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Ashfaq Kayani has been ranked higher than Pope Benedict XVI and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown in a list published by a British political magazine, which highlights 50 individuals who have been instrumental in having an impact in today's scenario around the world.
New Statesman's list of "50 People Who Matter Today", has the Obamas as the most influential people in the world, while Kayani has been ranked at 24th position, way ahead of the Pope or Brown, The Daily Times reports.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan Chief of Army Staff in list of "50 People Who Matter Today": Sify

Blackwater: Widening the rift: Dawn Blog

2009-09-23T02:18:00.000-07:00

Conspiracy theories have always had high currency in our part of the world and ritual cynicism towards America is quite usual. Recent reports claiming the presence of CIA’s contractual army – Blackwater – in Pakistan have bolstered concerns within the Pakistani public about US involvement in this country’s affairs. It’s high time, though, that the government came clean with the public about the extent of US involvement in this country’s security affairs.
.
Blackwater is a private mercenary company which is known to have worked with the CIA on various occasions, including the Iraq war. Rumours claiming that Pakistan is its new home have triggered quite a lot of commotion. It all begin with reports claiming that Blackwater (now known as Xe) had been operating in Pakistan as a vital tool for America’s counterterrorism program.

Jeremy Scahill, the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, recently wrote an elaborate piece on the possible involvement of Blackwater inside Pakistan. Scahill talks about the notorious history of the organisation and goes on to suggest that it has been playing a vital role in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2002, acting as a key player in arming drone aircrafts.

Scahill also quotes former employees who claim that Blackwater’s owner, Prince Erik, ‘views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe.’ The allegations quite literally portray Blackwater as a Christian Al Qaeda. Not surprisingly, the presence of such a force in Pakistan is disturbingly provocative.

The speculations relate back to last September, when the Marriott Hotel blast occurred in Islamabad. Various reports suggested that an undercover operation by US marines was being planned when the attack happened. However, such allegations have been repeatedly denied.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Blackwater: Widening the rift: Dawn Blog

Pakistan government keen on medical tourism: IMTJ

2009-09-23T02:17:00.000-07:00

A sudden government interest in health tourism to prop up a national tourism industry with problems is an increasingly familiar refrain. The latest in this growing list of countries with little existing inbound medical tourism is Pakistan.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in Taliban-linked attacks across Pakistan in the last two years, scaring away all but the most intrepid foreign tourists. Pakistan earned $200 million from 800,000 visitors in 2007. Fewer than 400,000 visitors came in 2008, and the numbers are expected to be even lower this year.” Terrorism has really affected us a great deal,” admits Tourism Minister Ataur Rehman.The Pakistan government hopes that medical tourists can help revive the country’s troubled tourism industry in a big way, which is why the main focus of their new tourism policy will be on health tourism.

Rehman says that his ministry is in consultation with the provincial tourism departments, travel agencies, airlines, businessmen, and other stakeholders on the new policy of providing foreigners with quality healthcare at a price far less than what they pay in Western countries, “The introduction of health tourism will not only bring in foreign tourists but will also help develop health infrastructure on modern lines, create job opportunities, generate greater revenues and most importantly, cast off the country’s negative image of being an unsafe destination.”

He argues that the country has internationally acclaimed doctors and world-class medical facilities, with Pakistani hospitals and doctors being at par with their Western counterparts in specialising in the fields of heart surgery, eye care, cancer therapy, dentistry and diagnostics, at a fifteenth of the cost overseas.

Rehman says a new plan to revive the tourism industry is essential as there has not been a fully new one for two decades. The aim is engage the private sector in developing the tourism infrastructure to attract locals and foreigners.

The minister criticises international newspapers and TV channels, for inflicting considerable damage on the country’s tourism industry and substantially reducing numbers, by generalising a bad law and order situation

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan government keen on medical tourism: IMTJ

US sold $4.5 bn worth arms to Pakistan in three years: Report: Hindustan Times

2009-09-19T02:04:00.000-07:00

The United States sold arms worth $4.5 billion to Pakistan between 2005 and 2008, says a Congressional report even as Washington has expressed concern about reported diversion of military equipment away from the war on terrorism to fight India.

An updated Congressional report released last month says Washington signed arms transfer agreements with Pakistan in excess of $3.5 billion in the year 2006 alone, "ranking Pakistan first among all arms clients of the United States during that calendar year".

Last week, former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf confessed that bulk of US military aid to Pakistan had been diverted for fighting India. However, he later backed out as Washington expressed concern.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: US sold $4.5 bn worth arms to Pakistan in three years: Report: Hindustan Times

Pakistan to receive $780 million loan for energy efficiency: Energy Efficiency News

2009-09-19T02:03:00.000-07:00

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is to lend Pakistan $780 million to support energy efficiency projects aimed at stabilising power supplies and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

The country currently suffers from regular and lengthy power cuts because of the gap between its energy supply and demand.

The multitranche financing facility will release funds in tranches to support the Pakistani government’s 10-year energy efficiency investment plan.

The funds will initially support short to medium term energy efficiency projects such as the replacement of incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan to receive $780 million loan for energy efficiency: Energy Efficiency News

Italy, Pakistan sign debt-swap agreement: Daily Times

2009-09-19T02:01:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD: Italy on Friday agreed to convert Pakistan’s $100 million debt into aid for development projects in the social sector as part of the commitments made at the donor’s conference in Tokyo earlier this year. A debt-swap agreement was signed at the Economic Affairs Division, under which the development projects would be sponsored by the federal, provincial and local governments, non-governmental organisations or channelled through the relevant UN organisation.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Italy, Pakistan sign debt-swap agreement: Daily Times

Afghanistan should not be allowed to destabilise Pakistan: Kerry: PakTribune

2009-09-19T02:00:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON: Describing Pakistan’s stability as a vital US national interest, top American Senator John Kerry has advocated that Afghanistan should not be allowed to destabilise its neighbour and the region.

Chairing a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on strategy for Afghanistan, Kerry called for setting realistic goals in the insurgency-hit country. “The purpose of our mission should be to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda and a destabilising force in the region, especially Pakistan,” the Democratic lawmaker said in his opening statement at the hearing, held to explore various scenarios for the US involvement in Afghanistan.

“We also need to consider our mission in Afghanistan in the context of a highly volatile and strategically vital region, where permeable borders are straddled by clans, ethnic groups, and militants, where what happens in one country can have profound implications for the security of its neighbors.

“The continued stability of Pakistan, a nuclear armed nation in an existential struggle with extremists and insurgents, remains a vital national interest,” he added. Kerry said he did not believe that the United States was in Afghanistan to create a carbon-copy of American-style democracy, or impose a strong central government in a nation that had never had one.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Afghanistan should not be allowed to destabilise Pakistan: Kerry: PakTribune

Pakistan's July-August c/a deficit narrows to $527 mln: Forbes

2009-09-19T01:32:00.000-07:00

KARACHI, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Pakistan's current account deficit in the first two months of the 2009/10 fiscal year was a provisional $527 million, compared with a deficit of $2.68 billion in the same period last year, the central bank said.

Pakistan recorded a current account surplus of $82 million in August, compared with a current account deficit of $606 million in July, the bank said.

A lower trade deficit and record remittances accounted for the swing, according to Asif Qureshi, director at Invisor Securities Ltd.

Pakistan's trade deficit narrowed to $1.04 billion in August, compared with $1.89 billion in August last year. The deficit was $1.15 billion in July.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan's July-August c/a deficit narrows to $527 mln: Forbes

China, Pakistan To Jointly Build $222 Million Satellite: NASDAQ

2009-09-19T01:30:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD -(Dow Jones)- Pakistan said Friday its space agency will build a communication satellite jointly with a Chinese state-run company.

"The project costs $222 million," a statement from Pakistan's economic affairs division said.

China has agreed to fund this project with a 20-year loan, it said.

Pakistan Space and Upper Atmospheric Research Commission and China Great Wall Industry Corp. will jointly develop the PAKSAT-IR satellite in about three years.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: China, Pakistan To Jointly Build $222 Million Satellite: NASDAQ

Pakistan got 970-mn dollars and not 3-bn dollars from US: Sify

2009-09-19T01:28:00.000-07:00

The United States has provided 970 million dollars in aid to Pakistan since the PPP-led Government came to power and not three billion dollars as claimed by US Ambassador Anne Patterson, a Pakistani Finance Ministry official has said.

The statement of US Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, about giving 3 billion dollars assistance to the Zardari Government even surprised the top economic managers of the country. They were completely clueless about the figure of 3 billion dollars floated by the US.

"Out of the total 970 million dollars funding, a major chunk of 550 to 600 million dollars was in shape of the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) as it was the money which was spent by Pakistan on military's movement and it took several months for clearance from the US authorities," The News quoted a a senior official of the Finance Ministry, as saying.

The US has provided less than one billion dollars to Pakistan since the PPP-led government came into power, he said.

The US provided 497 million dollars in shape of CSF in May 2009. Earlier, the US provided around 100 million dollars on the same head a couple of months back - at the end of last financial year.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan got 970-mn dollars and not 3-bn dollars from US: Sify

Visa denial to US citizens earns Pak bad name: Haqqani: The News

2009-09-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON: Pakistani envoy to United States Husain Haqqani has written a letter to Secretary Foreign Office and Director General ISI Ahmed Shuja Pasha on Saturday, Geo news reported.

According to sources, the letter pointed out events occurred with US citizens over denial of Pakistani visas to them on July 28.

The letter also said, denying Pakistani visas to US nationals besides harassing them, has adversely distorted Pakistan image and heavy costs will have to be paid in exchange of such events.

Meanwhile, the spokesman Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) has declined statement over the letter, saying that it is against country’s interest to discuss matters relating to national secrets.

Pakistan has blacklisted US media personalities and NGOs perceived to be critical of its national security objectives and policies.

The list includes Newsweek magazine’s photojournalist Kate Brooks and news channel CNN’s Pakistan correspondent Riza Sayah.

Punitive measures against them include denying a visa or cancelling an approved one, along with rigorous surveillance of those already in Pakistan.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Visa denial to US citizens earns Pak bad name: Haqqani: The News

Legal spanner thrown in US plan: Nation

2009-09-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

LAHORE - A petition has been submitted to the Supreme Court seeking to restrain the Americans from getting further 18 acres of land over and above the 38 acres already acquired by them, for expansion of the US Embassy in Islamabad.
The petitioners, Watan Party and Barrister Zafarullah Khan, have also urged the Apex Court to prevent the Americans from hiring as many as 250 offices in Islamabad and that no diplomatic mission may be allowed to get on lease or through sale land more than the requirement of the diplomatic mission. It has also been sought that the Pakistan government be asked to fulfil their responsibility towards providing security to the diplomatic missions as per international law. The petitioners have further urged the court for directing the government that surveillance of all communications and monitoring of all kind of telecommunication services may be stopped forthwith.
The petitioners argue that contrary to the trend, set by the age of communication, of cutting down the staff, America is extraordinarily enhancing the presence of its staff in Islamabad, which may also include 1000 marines with latest equipment, which may be a means to ‘bring us down on our knees’ and to ‘capture our nuclear facility’ so that Pakistan could get the same treatment America meted out to South Korea, Taiwan, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Legal spanner thrown in US plan: Nation

Expansion of US embassy challenged in SC : Dawn

2009-09-15T09:03:00.000-07:00

LAHORE: The expansion of the US embassy in Islamabad has been challenged in Lahore Registry of the Supreme Court by Barrister Zaffar Ullah.

According to a private TV channel, the petition maintained that the United States acquiring 56 acres of land and converting its embassy into an army cantonment, is against the sovereignty of Pakistan.

The petition stated that the expansion of the embassy over 56 acres of land equals to the area of an airport. It was also maintained that Pakistan's nuclear assets would also be in danger in the presence of a US military base.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Expansion of US embassy challenged in SC : Dawn

OGDC hits oil in Karak: The News

2009-09-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

KARACHI: The Oil & Gas Development Company (OGDC), operator of Nashpa E.L., together with its joint venture partners i.e. PPL and GHPL, has discovered hydrocarbon reserves in the Lockhart Zone of recent discovery made in Nashpa 01 well located in District Karak of NWFP province.

According to a press statement, Nashpa 01 well was spuded on June 29, 2008 and drilled down to the depth of 4,384 M. Initially, one of the potential zones, middle Lockhart was tested on August 31, 2009 which flowed 3,000 bbls/day of crude oil and 9.7 mmscfd of gas.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: OGDC hits oil in Karak: The News

More oil, gas reserves found in Attock: The News

2009-09-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

KARACHI: The efforts to discover the oil and gas reserves in the country are afoot, as more reserves of oil and gas have been found in District Attock, Geo News reported Tuesday.

According to a notice issued to Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) by Oil and Gas Development Company Limited, the discovery was made in Well-11 in Attock.

According to preliminary research, 95 barrel of oil and 3.6 million cubic foot of gas would be acquired from this well.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: More oil, gas reserves found in Attock: The News

Trade deficit narrows by 39pc: The News

2009-09-13T00:53:00.000-07:00

By Aftab Maken

ISLAMABAD: The negative growth in exports and imports in the first two months of new financial year has also registered a negative trade deficit of nearly 40 per cent when compared with the corresponding period of last year.

The trade deficit for the first two months of current fiscal stood at $2.19 billion registering a decrease of around 39 per cent than $3.56 billion recorded in the same period of last fiscal, the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) said on Friday.

The shortage of major commodities and the imports of the commodities at relatively higher prices will definitely push the trade deficit and it would also be again in double digit, fears a trade analyst.

The government last week announced importing of nearly one million tons raw sugar for building its strategic reserves because of anticipated shortfall of nearly 1.5 million tons sweetener for the coming season, which starts from October. The Ministry of Food & Agriculture has also recommended import of 0.4 million tons urea fertilizer for Rabi crops. The current pace of the exports clearly reveals that the $18.84 billion export target for 2009-10 is unlikely to be achieved and the country’s exports will hover around the last year’s figure of $17.78 billion, the analyst added.

During July-August 2009, Pakistan’s exports registered the double digit negative growth totaling $2.96 billion while the imports of $5.16 billion against $3.44 billion and $7.00 billion, have been recorded respectively during the same period last year, said the data, adding that imports were 26.32 per cent less than the same period of last fiscal, while exports also registered a negative growth of 13.78 per cent.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Trade deficit narrows by 39pc: The News

WB okays $300m for Pakistan’s projects: The News

2009-09-13T00:52:00.000-07:00

KARACHI: The World Bank has approved two projects worth $300 million to help Pakistan strengthen its social safety nets and improve higher education.

While fighting a Taliban insurgency in the northwest, Pakistan is struggling with a weak economy and over a third of its people live in poverty.

The World Bank said $200 million was being allocated for the Pakistan Social Safety Nets Development Policy Credit to establish an effective framework.

“Pakistani households are highly vulnerable to income shocks, and existing social assistance programmes cover only a very small fraction of the poor,” Yusupha Crookes, the country director for Pakistan, said in a statement received on Friday.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: WB okays $300m for Pakistan’s projects: The News

Pakistan demands release of $1.6bn from US: Dawn

2009-09-13T00:51:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday once again demanded from the US to immediately release $1.6 billion under the Coalition Support Fund.

According to sources in the Ministry of Finance, US has to pay Pakistan money under the Coalition Support Fund and the payment of money by the US is quite sluggish but Pakistan cannot wait very long because the country’s economy is in a sensitive state.

Pakistan needs the funds to cater to its deteriorating economy and to fulfil the requirements of its defence and armed forces.

Sources say expenditures worth $100 million are being carried out every month in the war on terror and the funds provided by the US are quite slim as compared to the expenditures.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan demands release of $1.6bn from US: Dawn

Eight Years Later, War's End Not in Sight: CBS

2009-09-13T00:50:00.000-07:00

It was supposed to be swift and decisive response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan, launched less than a month after the attacks and designed to destroy al Qaeda and the Taliban government that harbored the group.

Eight years later the conflict continues -- and the endgame seems elusive. Insurgent Taliban forces have gained ground; coalition troop casualties have steadily risen; and Americans have grown increasingly weary of the war, which some critics have begun to describe as a potential quagmire.

Criticism of U.S. policy on Afghanistan from the president's own party, meanwhile, has grown louder. Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold is calling for a "flexible timetable" for bringing the troops home, arguing that "we've become embroiled in a nation-building experiment that may distract us from combating al Qaeda and its affiliates." House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin, another Democrat, said Congress could cut war funding in the spring if things haven't gotten significantly better.

And the criticism is not confined to the left. Last week, conservative columnist George Will offered a much-discussed column calling for the U.S. to pull troops out of Afghanistan and instead "do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units."

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Eight Years Later, War's End Not in Sight: CBS

Dr. Wilmer Leon: Afghanistan a New Vietnam?: HNN

2009-09-13T00:48:00.000-07:00

Under the pretext of responding to the September 11, 2001, attacks in America, the United States and Great Britain invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, under the banner of Operation Enduring Freedom. President Bush 43 told the American people that the US strikes were "... designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime ... As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan ..."

During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Obama promised to immediately withdraw troops from Iraq in order to bolster the forces in Afghanistan in order to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda. "It's time to refocus our attention on the war we have to win in Afghanistan." This approach was taken in order to placate the anti-Iraq war contingent of the American electorate on the left while not leaving candidate Obama vulnerable to the "soft on defense" hawkish argument from the right. As a campaign tactic, this proved to be successful. As American foreign policy, this is proving to be one of the greatest miscalculations President Obama has made. Could Afghanistan become President Obama's Vietnam?

President Obama has taken ownership of this war and now calls this a "war of necessity" that is fundamental to the "defense of our people." In order to convince the American people that more troops are necessary to achieve the desired result, the president says as President Bush 43 said, the mission is to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda and its extremist allies".

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Dr. Wilmer Leon: Afghanistan a New Vietnam?: HNN

Car sales rose 11pc in August: The News

2009-09-13T00:46:00.000-07:00

KARACHI: After a steep decline in FY09, domestic passenger car sales are once again showing signs of improvement on monthly basis. New fiscal year has started off on an optimistic note for the auto industry.

Car sales continued to progress on path of recovery as August sales depicted a growth of 11 per cent, month on month basis, to 8,441 units as against 7,614 units in the previous month, a sixth consecutive month on monthly rise, as revealed by Pakistan Automotive Manufacturing Association (PAMA).

Some of the reasons for improved car sales are decline in automobile prices, higher taxes on imported cars and economic stability. The situation appears even more stable on year on year basis with strong improvements of 31 per cent. However, because of a lower count in the similar month last year, the numbers portray massive growth in the month.

Importantly, during the first three months of FY09, car sales numbers were unusually low due to phase-out of Corolla’s previous model. In 1Q of FY09 (JulñSept), corolla’s sales averaged at 640 units as against 2,760 units in rest of the period of FY09.

Economic slowdown, limited avenues for auto leasing and record domestic inflation had hit the consumers hard, mostly affecting the lower-end cars. However, with the recovery in domestic economy along with the price cuts by PSMC (dominant player in 850cc segment with 85 per cent market share) the demand for low-end cars has improved. In addition to this, high-end segment cars are becoming less affordable.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Car sales rose 11pc in August: The News

Pakistan to address Chinese concerns over US Marines: Khabrein

2009-09-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD, Sept 5 (KUNA) -- Pakistan Saturday said that it will address the Chinese concerns over the expansion of the US embassy in the heavily-guarded capital. Talking to reporters in eastern Multan city, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmoud Qureshi said that China is an old and trusted friend. "There is nothing to worry about and we will take steps to address concerns if any," he said while responding to a query about Chinese concerns.

The American embassy had invited Islamabad press and shared the whole plan with them, he said while rejecting that a large number of US Marines will be deployed in Pakistan.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan to address Chinese concerns over US Marines: Khabrein

Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy Responds to Nature Article on Pakistan’s Higher Education Reform: ATP

2009-09-11T22:13:00.000-07:00

Adil Najam

Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, one of Pakistan’s preminent intellectuals and someone who I and ATP holds in the highest esteem (here and here), has written a letter to the editors of Nature in response to the recent article (of which I was a co-author) on Pakistan’s higher education reform experiment.

I just wrote to Pervez requesting that in the interest of greater discussion on this important issue, he allow us to reproduce the letter here at ATP. He has graciously agreed.

We reproduce his letter, in full, here:

“Pakistan’s Reform Experiment” (Nature, V461, page 38, 3 September 2009) gives the impression of providing a factual balance sheet of Pakistan’s higher education under General Pervez Musharraf’s former government. Unfortunately, several critical omissions indicate a partisan bias.

Mention of the billions wasted on mindless prestige mega-projects is noticeably absent. Example: nine new universities were hastily conceived and partially constructed, but abandoned and finally scrapped after it became obvious that it was impossible to provide them with the most crucial ingredient - trained faculty. Similarly, fantastically expensive scientific equipment, imported with funds from the Higher Education Commission, remain hopelessly under-utilized many years later. They litter the country’s length and breadth. For instance, my university has been forced to house a “souped-up” Van de Graaf accelerator facility, purchased in 2005 with HEC funds. A research purpose is still being sought in 2009.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy Responds to Nature Article on Pakistan’s Higher Education Reform: ATP