06-13-2009, 04:54 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-13-2009, 05:04 PM by Naresh.)
<b>Economy shows negative growth in dollar terms</b>
<i>* Experts point at fudging figures</i>
KARACHI :<b> Pakistanâs economy has shown negative growth in dollar terms owing to the depreciation of rupee against the greenback and experts have said that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth figures were fudged.</b>
The GDP grew by 2 percent during the current fiscal year, claims the government. This growth rate was achieved by revising the previous yearâs GDP growth rate from 5.8 percent to 4.1 percents. Economists say that this revision has been done very late. âNormally the figures are revised within three to four months,â says Dr Shahid Hassan, a renowned economist. <b>âThis is clear evidence of fudging : either the growth rate of 5.2 percent was fudged or the revised rate is fudged,â he added.</b>
Regarding the performance of the economy, he says: âThis performance can be summed up in one wordâdisastrous.â Shaukat Tareen, the advisor to the PM on finance, had admitted during May this year that the 2.37 percent GDP growth estimate for current fiscal year worked out by the Federal Bureau of Statistics and endorsed by National Accounts Committee was fudged as they had not included the largest ever negative growth witnessed by the large-scale manufacturing. The government released the Economic Survey of Pakistan on Thursday, which did not mention the contraction of economy in dollar terms. <b>Nor did it say anything about the âmethodologyâ according to which the growth rate of 2 percent was achieved.</b>
<b>The GDP growth declined to 2 percent in the current fiscal year from an average of 7 percent in the past six years. âThis would have come in even lower, at 0.4 percent, had officials not revised the GDP numbers for the previous fiscal year,â says Sayem Ali, Country Economist at the Standard Chartered Bank. The economy shrank to $161 billion in FY09 from $165 billion in FY08, reflecting the 18.4 percent decline in the value of the Pakistani rupee (PKR) in the last 12 months.
However, with GDP growth at three percent and inflation at nine percent the economy is expected to grow in dollar terms for the next fiscal year as the rupee is expected to remain in the band of Rs 84 to Rs 86 a dollar, which is five percent depreciation only.</b> The saving grace for the economy has been the positive performance of the agricultural sector which expanded by 4.7 percent on account of bumper wheat and rice crops. Higher support prices and water availability have helped to improve farm output and support more than 2.2 million workers involved in the rural economy.
Regarding the medium-term future of the economy, Ali says that persistently high inflation, tough measures taken under the IMF programme, and the rising security-related expenditure are weighing heavily on the economy. The economy is slowing to a near-halt, he says. âPakistanâ economy is slipping into recession,â he says. âThe policy fous needs to shift from stabilisation to growth in order to avoid this situation.â The government went to the IMF for a $7.6 billion loan in November 2008 as it faced a balance-of-payments crisis and quick depletion of foreign exchange reserves. The subsequent build-up of forex reserves and a stable rupee have helped to bring down inflation and allow the government to meet its external debt obligations. saad khan
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06-13-2009, 05:01 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-13-2009, 05:02 PM by Naresh.)
<b>Iran-Pakistan gas project wonât bear fruits : Balochistan legislators</b>
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Pakistan hikes defence spending 15 percent to Rs.347 bn</b>
pioneer.com
IANS | Islamabad
Pakistan has hiked its defence spending for fiscal 2009-10 to Rs.347 billion ($4 billion) in the budget presented in parliament Saturday.
Of this, Rs.343 billion has been allocated for the armed forces, Rs.463 million for defence production and Rs.840 million for the defence division, Minister of State for Finance Hina Rabbani Khar said while delivering the first budget speech by a woman in Pakistan's history.
Quoting from the budget documents, Online news agency said the defence budget was 15 percent higher as compared to the allocation for 2008-09 <b>"due to the high inflation rate and keeping in view of current situation at country's eastern and western borders". </b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>DIK blast kills 8, injures 15</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->DERA ISMAIL KHAN : At least eight people were killed and 15 injured in Tijarat Ganj Market area of Dera Ismail Khan, police sources told Geo News Sunday.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Jun 14 2009, 04:25 AM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Jun 14 2009, 04:25 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Pakistan hikes defence spending 15 percent to Rs.347 bn</b>
pioneer.com
IANS | Islamabad
<b>Pakistan has hiked its defence spending for fiscal 2009-10 to Rs.347 billion <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>($4 billion) in the budget presented in parliament Saturday.</span></b>
Of this, Rs.343 billion has been allocated for the armed forces, Rs.463 million for defence production and Rs.840 million for the defence division, Minister of State for Finance Hina Rabbani Khar said while delivering the first budget speech by a woman in Pakistan's history.
Quoting from the budget documents, Online news agency said the defence budget was 15 percent higher as compared to the allocation for 2008-09 <b>"due to the high inflation rate and keeping in view of current situation at country's eastern and western borders". </b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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<b>Mudy Ji :</b>
Here "comes" the USD 4 Billion :
<b><span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Pak to go to IMF for $4b loan : Tarin</span></b>
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[center]<b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>NINE</span></b>[/center]
Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Here "comes" the USD 4 Billion :
Pak to go to IMF for $4b loan : Tarin<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have no problem till it provides furnitures and shopping funds to Col, Brig and Generals, till they are making them fat cat, Its okay. Yes I pay tax and my money will fat some cats but I am hoping this will make them as good as Saddam's Iraqi Army.
<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Jun 14 2009, 08:42 PM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Jun 14 2009, 08:42 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Here "comes" the USD 4 Billion :
Pak to go to IMF for $4b loan : Tarin<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have no problem till it provides furnitures and shopping funds to Col, Brig and Generals, till they are making them fat cat, Its okay. Yes I pay tax and my money will fat some cats but <b>I am hoping this will make them as good as Saddam's Iraqi Army.</b>
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<b>Mudy Ji :</b>
The Pakistani Defence Officers' Corps in General and the Pakistani Army Officers Corps in Particular have already attained the "Status" that you are hoping for!
You will note that every time the Fundamental Islamic Jehadi Terrorists slaughter the Pakistani People we see pictures of the Victims as also "YouTube" Presentations.
You will note that in the case of the so-called 1,200 to 2,000 Fundamental Islamic Jehadi Terrorists which the Pakistani Army claims to have sent for their Individual Allotment of 72 Virgins and 36 Boys there is not even "One Picture-Photograph" of the 1,500 to 2,000 Fundamental Islamic Jehadi Terrorists despatched to the land of 72 Virgins and 36 Boys for each one of them!!
As such I predict that in due course of time Pakistan will become an Islamic Theocratic State - just like Iran.
<b>You can take that to the Bank!!!</b>
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<b>The US advice on Kashmir is lunacy - M.J. Akbar</b>
If you want to sell arsenic, the kindest way to do so is to disguise it as medicine heavily coated with sugar. There is nothing particularly new about the proposal of an interim balm for the wounds of Kashmir, demilitarization on both sides of the Line of Control. What is novel is the heavy Washington endorsement of this Pakistan-promoted option.
This is not all. Unusually for a senior diplomat of a super power that affects neutrality, US under secretary of state for political affairs, William Burns, chose Delhi as the venue for a message designed to disturb the equanimity of his hosts, when he said, "Any resolution of Kashmir has to take into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people". That must have been music to Islamabad's ears.
Demilitarization sounds so sweetly reasonable, a definitive gesture of de-escalation. The Obama administration is delighted by the prospect of collateral benefit. This would release more Pak troops for the war against Taliban. Pakistan has shifted some brigades from the Indian border, but not from the Line of Control.
Self-interest may have blinded Washington to an obvious fallacy in this "reasonable" formulation. In all three major Kashmir conflicts â 1947, 1965 and Kargil â Pakistan has used a two-tier strategy. A surrogate force has served as a first line of offense. The Pakistani term for them has been consistent; they have come in the guise of "freedom fighters". India called them "raiders" in 1947 and 1965, and defines them as terrorists now. This surrogate force has expanded its operations far beyond Kashmir, as the terrorist attacks on Mumbai confirmed.
<b>DMZs (De-Militarized Zones) would guarantee the security of Pakistan and weaken India's defences, since there is no suggestion that terrorist militias are going to be "demilitarized". Should the Indian army leave the Kashmir valley to the mercy of well-organized, finely-trained, generously-financed indiscriminate organisations? India has no corresponding surrogate force, because it is a status-quo power; it makes no claims on any neighbour's territory.
If America wants a DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) in India they will first have to ensure a DTZ (De-Terrorised Zone) in Pakistan.
India and Pakistan may have a common problem in terrorism, but they do not have terrorists in common. Those who have inflicted havoc already in India, and those who intend to do so in future, are safe in their havens in Lahore and Multan and Karachi. Pakistan's ambivalence on terrorism was exposed yet again by the release of Prof Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed, emir of Jamaat ud Dawa, from house arrest on June 6. It needed an official sanction by the UN Security Council to send him into soft detention. The government's duplicity was evident in the frailty of the case against him. The Lahore High Court, which ordered his release, discovered that Pakistan had not even placed al-Qaeda on its list of terrorist organizations.
Islamabad may have taken action against militants in the Frontier who pose a threat to Pakistan, but it continues to mollycoddle those who threaten India.
Islamabad's leverage has risen in Obama's Washington for good reasons. America may have outsourced flat-world, high-tech jobs to soft-power India. But America has outsourced a full-scale Af-Pak war to Pakistan.</b>
Rewards for India come in corporate balance sheets and middle-class jobs. Compensation for Pakistan comes in billions of dollars for the army (as much as $5 billion of which has been diverted, so far, to the purchase of conventional weapons meant primarily for use against India) and much more in aid and soft-loans. Pakistan believes that money is insufficient. It wants the bonus of political rewards. It expects a Pak-US nuclear pact, not because it is in need of fuel for peaceful or martial purposes, but in order to quasi-legitimize its status as a nuclear power. <b>Islamabad also wants some settlement on Kashmir that it can sell to its people as a victory.</b>
Former president Pervez Musharraf may be out of circulation but ideas that jumped out of his box a few years ago are back in play. He has just given an interview to Der Spiegel in which he suggests that India and Pakistan were close to an agreement over his proposals: "demilitarization of the disputed area, self-governance and a mutual overwatch." Delhi insisted on the conversion of the Line of Control into a formal border, but the thought that the two countries came close has given Washington reason to believe that it can now pressurize Delhi to make some concession, perhaps by agreeing to make the Line of Control "irrelevant" by "opening transit routes".
<b>There is great danger in this "soft border" thesis. How can you have a "soft border" unless both sides recognize it as a border? Moreover, what does the phrase "mutual overwatch" mean? Both would dilute symbols of Indian sovereignty in Kashmir.</b>
Musharraf, who sounds bored by his new routine of bridge with friends at his flat in London, says he is ready to broker a peace deal.
<b>The search for peace might prove to be tougher than starting a war in Kargil.</b>
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->As such I predict that in due course of time Pakistan will become an Islamic Theocratic State - just like Iran.
You can take that to the Bank!!!<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Before that lot of Diwali and holi we will see. Currently, its too low.
Good for earth and population control.
<b>Pakistanâs Beg and fly budget</b>
ISLAMABAD : Makhdoom Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, the 26th prime minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, was allocated Rs80 million a month for his foreign tours during 2008-09; a total allocation of Rs958 million or Rs95 crore. During 2008-09, the prime minister ended up spending Rs112 million a month every month for his foreign tours; a total of Rs1.3 billion in one year.
This year, Hina Rabbani Khar, PML-Qâs State Minister for Economic Affairs from 2003 till 2007 and now PPPâs State Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs Division, has allocated Rs1.2 billion, or Rs10 crore a month.
If history is any guide, our prime minister will end up spending Rs1.7 billion or Rs14 crore a month every month on his foreign tours. Asif Zardari, the 11th president of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, has reportedly taken a meagre Rs230 million, or less than Rs2 crore a month, from taxpayers kitty (according to newspaper reports, the actual expense on foreign presidential junkets was much higher but the president took money out of his own pocket). This year, the presidential allocation under the head of budget for âstaff, household and allowancesâ stands at Rs390 million or Rs3 crore a month.
Additionally, every member of our National Assembly has been allocated Rs2 million for âtravelling, conveyance and air ticketsâ. At 342 strong thatâs an allocation of Rs645 million or Rs5 crore a month.
<b><span style='color:green'>What we have is a âbeg and fly budgetâ. Beg the US, beg the World Bank and beg the IMF. Beg Japan, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, China, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, Australia, Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Spain â the so-called âFriends of Democratic Pakistanâ.
Imagine : three out of every four Pakistanis make Rs160 or less a day while the prime ministerâs allocation in the budget 2009-10 for his foreign tours stands at Rs330,000 a day every single day of the year.</span></b> Yes, the presidential allocation under the head of budget for âstaff, household and allowancesâ stands at Rs100,000 day. Yes, every single minister or people with the rank of a minister cost the treasury Rs100,000 a day every single day of the year (we have nearly 90 of them in Islamabad alone).
Talk about misplaced priorities. Gilani gets Rs1.2 billion for his foreign tours and the law division gets Rs2.051 billion (for its three development schemes). The team of ministers in Islamabad cost the treasury Rs3 billion a year and the law division gets Rs2.051 billion. In 2007, fatalities in terrorist violence numbered 3,599. In 2008, the same figure shot up to 6,715 (as of June 9, 2009, a total of 4,518 Pakistanis have already lost their lives). This year, the police gets a paltry Rs13 billion. Look at the âcarbon surchargeâ. What a joke! What an eyewash! The government fails to collect taxes; the right way so this repressive mode of tax collection; a total of Rs122 billion, Rs8 per litre on high speed diesel, Rs10 per litre on motor spirit and Rs14 per litre on HOBC (the Kyoto Protocol established âlegally binding commitmentsâ only on Annex 1 Industrialised countriesâ).
<b>Itâs a âbeg and fly budgetâ. Itâs a status quo budget. At the end of the year, the government will miss the revenue target by 10 per cent or more and overshoot the expenditure target by 10 per cent or more. As a consequence, the budgetary deficit will not be the expected Rs700 billion but closer to Rs1 trillion. All the more reasons to fly. Within the next two quarters, our president, our prime minister and our army of ministers will all be flying. After all, they have got 510 million square kilometres to fly over.</b>
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<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Jun 15 2009, 08:31 AM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Jun 15 2009, 08:31 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->As such I predict that in due course of time Pakistan will become an Islamic Theocratic State - just like Iran.
You can take that to the Bank!!!<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Before that lot of Diwali and holi we will see. Currently, its too low.
Good for earth and population control.
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<b>Mudy Ji :</b>
There are hardly any Fundamental Islamic Jehadi Terrorists being killed - despite the "Tall" Claims by the Pakistani Authorities.
This is evidenced by the lack of photographs in respect of the Fundamental Islamic Jehadi Terrorists dead bodies.
The Islamic Religious "Take Over" will not be facing Major Protests as the Pakistani People are Devout Muslims and so a Religious Theocratic Form of Government will in fact be welcomed.
Watch this Space!
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In SWAT and other agencies, Paki Army is trying to take control of region which was never been part of Pakistan. I am taking about those drug addict gone case who are blowing themselves in Lahore and other Punjabi area. One addict is taking out guys in uniform in Punjab area. Basically, both side are busy in population control.
<b>Zardari, Singh did not discuss resumption of talks : Menon</b>
YEKATERINBURG : Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said on Tuesday no discussion was made on resumption of dialogue during the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Asif Ali Zardari, which lasted for 40 minutes.
Talking to reporters after the meeting between two leaders, Menon said India had conveyed its expectations to Pakistan vis a vis terror and 26/11 probe, it did not discuss resumption of talks between the two countries.
He also said that Dr. Singh and Zardari would meet again in Shram-el Sheikh in Egypt on the sidelines of NAM Summit next month to take stock of the outcome of the Foreign Secretaries meet.
Earlier in the day, Pakistanâs Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that the most sensible thing would be to resume dialogue with India as soon as possible.
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06-17-2009, 01:24 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-17-2009, 03:07 PM by Naresh.)
<b>Esteemed Members :</b>
One has been reading volumes and tomes about the âStrategicâ importance of Gwadar to China as Thina would Import Oil and Natural Gas from Persian Gulf, Red Sea, West Africa etc. etc. via the âExcellent Port of Gwadarâ which the Chinese Financed and Built.
Now that China is constructing Pipe Lines from Kyaukpyu â about 11o KM South East of Sitwe (Akyab) does it mean that China is âLosing Intelestâ and Pakistan is Losing its Highel thean the Himalayas, Deepel than the Pacific, Lalgel than the Univelse and Sweetel than Honey Fliend?
<b>Construction of Sino-Myanmar oil-and-gas pipelines to begin in Sept.</b>
www.chinaview.cn 2009-06-16 17:02:24
BEIJING, June 16 (Xinhua) -- The construction of pipelines that will transport oil and gas to China via Myanmar will begin in full swing in September, an insider from PetroChina said Tuesday.
The project will open the fourth route for China's oil and nature gas imports, after ocean shipping, the Sino-Kazakhstan crude oil and natural gas pipelines, and the Sino-Russian oil pipeline, according to the insider, who declined to be named.
According to an agreement signed in March 2009 between the Chinese and Myanmar governments, the oil and natural gas pipelines will run in parallel. Both will start in Kyaukryu port on the west coast of Myanmar and enter China at the border city of Ruili in China's Yunnan province.
The 1,100-kilometer oil pipeline will end in Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province. It is expected to transfer 20 million tonnes of crude oil to China from the Middle East and Africa annually.
The natural gas pipeline will extend further from Kunming to Guizhou province and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, running a total of 2,806 kilometers. It is expected to transport 12 billion cubic meters of gas to China every year.
The Sino-Myanmar gas pipeline will further increase China's gas import, which is projected to exceed 100 billion cubic meters over the next few years.
<b>Compared with ocean shipping, the oil pipeline can reduce the transport route by 1,200 kilometers, experts said. What's more import, it will reduce China's reliance on the Straits of Malacca for oil import.</b>
China has imported more than 10 million tonnes of crude oil through the Sino-Kazakhstan oil pipeline, which was put into service in 2006. Sino-Russian oil pipeline is also expected to put into use by the end of 2010.
Editor: Deng Shasha
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<b>Advice from Disneyland</b>
<i>Hit and run</i>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Shaukat Tarin/Hina Rabbani Khar budget for 2009-10 is no different from any other Pakistani budget presented in the last two decades. There is nothing in there which will tangibly do anything for the <b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>180 million wretched Pakistanis</span></b> who find it difficult to make ends meet.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The beauty of budgets like the one presented is that the people presenting will shuttle off to conferences and meetings soon after it and all will be forgotten. Till next year and the next. One day Hina Rabbani Khar will be a full-fledged finance minister without having lifted a finger or having had a real job; and that is the tragedy of Pakistan. Despite having capable people who have the brains and the capability to craft budgets which can change the destiny of millions of Pakistanis, we are stuck with mediocrity until the near foreseeable future. Until we get ministers who are willing to put their money where their mouths are with advice and start using the public transport system themselves, educating their children in Pakistan, use the same health care facilities as the rest of the country things will not change. <b>In the meantime we can all pretend that Islamabad is being run by the Loony Tunes and it's not really their fault.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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Video 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8MCl0bHVXo
This video tells about the pain and the trouble our country faced from the Muslims since the last 1000+ years
Video 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdabtVzZi2E
This video summarizes the modern Indian Hindu struggle and the problems we are facing from the Muslims since the independence.
Video 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nOg7_0UHQ8...re=channel_page
This video summarized about the problem faced by the country of Thailand from the Jihads in its country. The condition in Thailand is very similar to that we are facing in the states of Assam, West-Bengal , etc...
<b>The other Islamist threat in Pakistan</b>
<i>Selig S. Harrison</i>
<b>THE DANGER of an Islamist takeover of Pakistan is real. But it does not come from the Taliban guerrillas now battling the Pakistan Army in the Swat borderlands. It comes from a proliferating network of heavily armed Islamist militias in the Punjab heartland and major cities directed by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a close ally of Al Qaeda, which staged the terrorist attack last November in Mumbai, India.</b>
Pakistanâs failure to crack down on Lashkar-e-Taiba militias and the recent release of two of its leaders jailed after the Mumbai attack led to an angry exchange on Monday at a meeting in Russia between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan Prime Minister Asif Ali Zardari.
<b>No new US aid commitments should be made to Islamabad until it takes decisive action to disarm Lashkar-e-Taiba in accordance with Article 256 of the Pakistan Constitution, which bars private militias. The administration wants to provide $3 billion in new military aid on top of the $10 billion already showered on Pakistan since 2001, together with a five-year, $7.5 billion program of economic aid. Surprisingly, while congressional leaders are seeking to attach a variety of conditions to the aid package, they have so far ignored the critical issue of the militias.</b>
Disarming Lashkar-e-Taiba should be the top US priority in Pakistan because it would greatly reduce the possibility of a coup by Islamist sympathizers in the armed forces. The closet Islamists in the Army and the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) are not likely to risk a coup in Islamabad unless they can count on armed support from Lashkar-e-Taiba and its allies to help them consolidate their grip on the countryside.
Equally important, a strong US stand on Lashkar-e-Taiba is necessary to defuse India-Pakistan tensions that could lead to another war and to sustain the improvement now taking place in US relations with India, a rising power eight times larger than Pakistan.
New Delhi fears a repeat of the Mumbai massacre, in which 166 were killed, and views US readiness to pressure Islamabad on the militias as a litmus test of US friendship.
<b>To be sure, the Pakistan government did make a show of cracking down on Lashkar-e-Taiba after the Mumbai tragedy. It banned it, placed two of its leaders under house arrest, and jailed and arrested six of its operatives on charges of âfacilitating a terrorist act.ââ But the two leaders were released on June 2. The government stopped short of breaking up the militias and destroying the weapons stockpiles at their four training camps near Muridke and Muzaffarabad, and it has yet to prosecute the six prisoners or to arrest Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, identified by US and Indian intelligence sources as the ringleader of the Mumbai attack, who is still at large.</b>
Under a new name, Jawad-ud-Dawa, Lashkar-e-Taiba has continued to operate its militias, its FM radio station, and hundreds of seminaries where jihadis are trained, in addition to its legitimate charities and educational institutions. When the UN designated Jawat-ud-Dawa as a terrorist group, the Pakistan government issued another ban and Jawat-ud-Dawa changed its name to the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation.
The âfoundationââ now has 2,000 members doing relief work in war-torn Swat with the approval of the Pakistan government, amid credible reports that it is using its humanitarian cover to recruit new members as it did after the 2002 Kashmir earthquake.
Lashkar-e-Taiba is on the Sunni side of the Sunni-Shia doctrinal divide in Islam and has its deepest roots in a 20,000-square-mile swath of southern Punjab between Jhang and Bahawalpur, where it champions the cause of landless Sunni peasants indentured to big Shia landowners.
<b>âIt is common knowledge that the local police are in their pocket in much of that area,ââ retired diplomat Tariq Fatemi, a former ambassador to Washington, told me recently.</b>
Sunni extremist groups have been active in the Punjab since the creation of Pakistan and became the nucleus of Lashkar-e-Taiba when the ISI, with US funding, built up a jihadi movement to fight against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Lashkar-e-Taiba and key allies such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi still get ISI support and have close ties with other intelligence agencies, but how much and how close remain uncertain.
Like Al Qaeda to Americans, Lashkar-e-Taiba is a powerful emotive symbol to the 1.2 billion people of India. Hindu nationalists use this symbolism to fan fears of another Mumbai and to step up demands for reprisals against Pakistan. Increasingly, they are criticizing the United States for giving Pakistan money and weaponry without monitoring whether they are being used to strengthen Pakistan forces on the Indian border.
<b>Why, they ask, should the United States give another $10.5 billion in aid, on top of the $14 billion already provided since 2001, to a government in Islamabad that is unwilling or unable to disarm home-grown terrorists who threaten India?
Why, indeed.</b>
<i>Selig S. Harrison is author of âPakistan, The State of the Union,ââ a report just published by the Center for International Policy, where he is director of the Asia program.</i>
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
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[center]<img src='http://www.thefridaytimes.com/19062009/images/main.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />[/center]
[center]<b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>DO MIAN MEIN MURGI HARAAM</span></b>[/center]
Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>American war plans to attack and de-stablize Pakistan using Talibans</b>
<b>Following are the exclusive maps drawn by a defense analyst who writes that, âUS is after Pakâs Nukesâ and that for that Pakistan needâs to be destabilized.</b>
<img src='http://islamabadobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/us-destabilise-pakistan-plan-6-300x225.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<img src='http://islamabadobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/us-destabilise-pakistan-plan-2.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<img src='http://islamabadobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/us-destabilise-pakistan-plan-4.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
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