Review and Analysis

Abandoned children Of dubious patronage and indubitable hypocrisy

2011-10-21T14:10:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time a man called America enticed a woman called Pakistan, promising all kinds of things that Lotharios always do. The giddy girl fell for it. America fathered many children with her. A woman called Saudi Arabia the midwife every time. One child was named ‘Mujahideen al Amreeka’ and later renamed ‘Taliban bin CIA al ISI’. Another, conceived with ova supplied by the midwife, was named ‘Al Qaeda bin Amreeka’. A third was named ‘Haqqani bin Amreeka al Jaal’. There were many others. America fathered them for a purpose.

After the children had served their purpose, the father abandoned them. Naturally, they turned against him and became his enemies. Ever since, he has been doing everything to kill them. The children are killing him back. The children are winning. The father is desperate. He has gone bankrupt. His political system is paralysed. He cannot think logically. He hypocritically blames the mother and the donor-midwife for having fathered them too like self-procreating organisms and also turned on them. But he never blames himself for abandonment as callous fathers do. So he is paying the price, as are the mother and the midwife.

Lacking logical answers, America scoffs at those that question it by trying to portray them as inferior life forms: “That was history. This is now. Forget the past”. Pseudo ‘intellectuals’, themselves looking to help America father more illegitimate children, say, “Right on. Look to the future.” Problem is: the past never allows you to forget itself. If you try, the future becomes bleak. That is America’s prime hypocrisy in this region.

Hypocrisy: There were times when Ronald Reagan likened the Haqqani Network’s founder Jalaluddin Haqqani and America’s other children to the “moral equivalent of America’s founding fathers” who were freedom fighters against the British. America’s children then were freedom fighters against the Soviet Union. Today, they have become the “moral equivalent” of freedom fighters against American occupation. That’s the only difference – just a detail.

Hypocrisy: Retiring Admiral Mike Mullen’s assertion that the ‘Haqqani Network’ is “a veritable arm of the ISI” is a parting-kick of desperate petulance. He forgets that the Mujahideen-Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the Haqqanis started life as “veritable arms of the CIA”. If America’s callous, hypocritical and irresponsible personality hadn’t caused it to become an abandoning father, they would never have turned against it. America forsook its strategic and moral responsibility of looking after its children and is now reaping the harvest.

Hypocrisy: What would you do if someone broke into your house and tried to occupy it? You would bring out your gun and shoot him, wouldn’t you? Well, that is exactly what the Haqqanis and Taliban are doing. Contrarily, America wants Pakistan to wage war on the Afghan Haqqanis on its behalf because they are killing Americans in Afghanistan. That begs the question: what are you doing in Afghanistan in the first place? It is not your country. It belongs to the Afghans. They are fighting to free it. They have every right to do so. Wasn’t that the logic when the Soviet Union was the occupier? Or does logic change with occupier?

Hypocrisy: While America wants Pakistan to wage war against the Haqqanis, it itself wants to negotiate with them. What sense does that make? Talk of being two-faced.

Hypocrisy: America allows its unstable drug lord stooge Karzai to cozy up to India, giving it undue entry and influence in Afghanistan. India should be careful. History shows that whoever befriends America eventually comes a cropper, and not just in the Third World. Europe followed crazy American economic nostrums cooked up by bankers who by definition are limited of living on more and more credit. Today their economies have flatlined. Afghanistan has been totalled. Pakistan followed America slavishly virtually from the beginning and today its very existence is being wondered about. Learn lessons from our pathetic histories, my dear neighbours, learn lessons. Don’t commit suicide in an effort to do Pakistan down. Keep pestering us if it pleases you, but for your own sakes don’t do it by getting into bed with America, else you will get an unmentionable disease. We have.

Hypocrisy: The events of 9/11 started it all. Ten years on and America has still not provided incontrovertible proof that it was Al-Qaeda that did it. Oh, I forget, I’m a ‘conspiracy theorist’.

Hypocrisy: On May 2 this year America claims to have killed Osama Bin Laden in a decrepit house in Abbottabad, while many important Americans say that he died in late 2001. But they are ignored as – you guessed it – ‘conspiracy theorists’. No one was shown the body, not even their own media. They claim to have done a DNA test in 24 hours, which experts say is impossible. They quickly dumped his body in the Arabian Sea. They don’t even show us the photographs because they are too gruesome. Since when did ‘gruesome’ bother America? Since they saw the bodies of cooked Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? There goes the ‘conspiracy theorist’ again. When people don’t have cogent answers to what you are saying, their defense is to discredit you by labeling you a ‘conspiracy theorist’. Their puppets parrot them. When the ‘conspiracy theorist’ abuse is hurled at me, I’m convinced that there is something to what I am saying. Yes, I am a ‘conspiracy theorist’ and proud of the label. You keep hatching conspiracies; I will keep questioning them. When you cannot answer rationally and in a civilised manner, you have lost and I have won.

Hypocrisy: America keeps moaning about the growing heroin addiction in its country. Having ‘successfully’ occupied Afghanistan and installing its satrap Karzai there, couldn’t it have prevented the growth and refinement of poppy? The Taliban government made poppy cultivation history. But if America did it too, how could it assert that the drugs trade is financing its abandoned children, when actually it is financing America’s war: enough has been written about how America part-financed its wars in Latin America, Indo-China and Afghanistan through drugs as a matter of policy. As you sow so shall you reap: there was a time when America and Britain deliberately exported so much opium to China that it turned it into a country of addicts. Today, China is an audacious world climber and America is a pathetic world descender. Too many Americans are drug (and credit) addicts. Which is worse? Such is the bitter fruit of perfidy and hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the product of stupidity.

So, my two-faced ‘friend’, let’s forget history and talk of today. European economies are finished. America’s economy is in terminal decline. The dollar isn’t dead yet not only because China keeps it on life support to save its loans to America, its investments in America and America’s investments in China.

It is more because the dollar still remains the reserve currency till an alternative is found, which it will be. When people buy dollars (or US bonds), they don’t do so because they think that, “it is as good as gold”. They do so because with all other dollar-pegged currencies also in decline, stock markets in turmoil, equities unstable and real estate falling, they might as well go with the reserve currency until they have something more solid and stable to park their money in. With America’s political system too incompetent to throw up quality leadership to solve its myriad problems, confidence is zero. That, my dear America, is today.

If America doesn’t see sense, stop its hypocrisy and get out of the many messes that it has got into, I wouldn’t bet on it surviving as the global bully much longer. But that is how empires fall: hubris, strategic and intellectual decadence, and imperial overreach.

Yamaha to set up a Motorcycle plant in Pakistan

2011-08-04T18:14:00.001-04:00

Finally some good news coming out of Pakistan !

Japanese motorcycle manufacturer Yamaha, will invest $150 million to establish a manufacturing plant in Pakistan. This was revealed at a meeting by the visiting three-member delegation of Yamaha, who called on the Chairman Board of Investment, Saleem H Mandviwalla on Tuesday.
Mandviwalla later told journalists that Yamaha Japan approached BOI through the commission in Japan with the proposal to manufacture motorcycles in Pakistan. He said that Yamaha will establish their manufacturing facility in National Industrial Park, Bin Qasim, Karachi, by acquiring 50 acre of land.
The motorcycle will have EFI engine, automatic transmission, water cool & environment friendly exhaust system, meeting European standards, in this plant. This will not only meet the demand of Pakistani market but will also enable them to export their models to various Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries.
Mandviwalla said that keeping in view the current fuel and energy situation in Pakistan, Yamaha will produce state of the art motorcycles with less fuel consumption of Rs10 per 30min drive which covers a distance of 40-50km. He stated that President Zardari, during his visit to Japan in February 2011, also met Yamaha officials and ensured that government has framed the rules and procedure for the foreign investors in the auto sector.
The Board of Investment is working to frame a policy that rests on the production of high technology products with environment friendly and consumer satisfying features.
The board, being the facilitator of investments in the country, strongly feels that the New Entrant Policy of automobiles should focus on important international auto manufacturers in Pakistani market and meet the local demand and supply gap of various sectors.
Yamaha Executive Officer Sumioka Ryouichi that the investment in Pakistan will create 45,000 jobs and with the transfer of technology in manufacturing of motorcycle, vendor skill capability and capacity will also be developed with exclusive training institutes being run by the company.

Why Karachi is held on ransom by Zardari !

2011-07-29T18:20:00.006-04:00

Asif Zardari owned Abraaj Capital now owns KESC ! Why Zardari will never let KESC run smoothly !

Nationalize KESC or Karachi is doomed !

Karachi must be one of the unluckiest places on earth and its people are victims of absolute greed and nepotism that is displayed overtly by the President of Pakistan and his cohorts. KESC is a shining example in our president’s list of achievements to undo the Pakistan society as his personal greed and the nepotism of his close associates is about to finish off the Karachi Electric Supply Corporate (KESC) as we know it. In Karachi, a 3 hour daily load-shedding based outage is now considered normal by Karachites who must be by far the most patient (read helpless) community in the world.

KESC was recently acquired by the Abraaj capital , a UAE based firm which is staffed primarily by Zardari’s relatives and associates. The deal itself is a complex and creative acquisition where Abraaj Capital itself does not own any shares of KESC, which are still held by the previous owners Al Jomaih Group (KES Power) and the Government of Pakistan. From the onset the new and very expensive executive management team from Abraaj, required the resignation of all existing Executive Management and replaced them with their own in-experienced and non technical management teams which included new graduates, bankers and career accountants to run the operations of an electric supply utility for one of biggest cities in the world (Well it could be worst as Zardari appointed a night club manager to run the national insurance company).

Next, a detailed asset inventory was taken including all hardware and land assets owned by the KESC Group in Karachi and its surroundings. These included prime properties and very expensive copper wire surplus and stock held by the KESC. These were sold at rock bottom prices to more of Zardari's cohorts. In the public imagination KESC’s biggest problem is the generation of power, the truth of the matter is that KESC is perfectly capable of generating power for its regional customers. It is in-fact the availability of furnace oil and gas that is the main issue. In 2008, KESC owed 80 Billion Rupees to its main suppliers which are WAPDA and Sui Southern Gas(SSGC). By the end of 2010, KESC now owes 350 Billion rupees to WAPDA and Sui Southern Gas. Zardari has been using his presidential powers to pressure WAPDA and SSGC to continue to provide the required furnace oil and gas to KESC without getting the bills paid for the last few years which results in this unprecedented debt. This off-course involves both government pressure on the suppliers and also large bribes paid to the senior executives at WAPDA and SSGC. In the meanwhile KESC continues to collect sizable cash from its regional consumers and that Cash is disappearing in the Black Hole of Zardari and Co’s well of greed. It is said that already Abraaj capital has gotten 50 times the return on its original investment. All the stakeholders are now awaiting is the imminent fall of the Zardari government and then all hell breaks loose.

The future will look something like this. Fast and timely exits of all key players from Abraaj capital from the country before their names are put on the infamous exit control list. A suspension of furnace Oil and Gas supplies to KESC, resulting in ceasure of all power generation by KESC. Potential social havoc in Karachi due to complete daily outages with only limited hourly power supply during the day. Mass social unrest as hospital, schools and the general social structure is deeply affected by complete and limitless power outages. In case of a Sharif Government coming in (as it would be technically their turn to rip the country off) a hard-line approach is expected towards Karachi which would result in political upheaval and further violence in the city. In short, this would be by far the worst affecting corruption scandal in our history rife with massive and overt corruption scandals. And all this is happening as I write these words.

How did Abraaj take control of KESC !

According to the detailed answer regarding ownership of shares, this is the exact explanation provided to The News by Mr Farrukh Abbas. It is reproduced in toto so that experts can decipher the real situation.

The question sent to Abraaj was the following: Has the transfer of 51 per cent shares between Al-Jomaih Group (KES Power) and Abraaj Capital been completed. If so when was it done?

The answer: It is important to note that there is no transfer of shares taking place in the transaction. Abraaj will subscribe for new shares in KES Group, the holding company that currently owns 71.5 per cent of KESC. As a result of this subscription for new shares, Abraaj will end up owning 50 per cent of the issued share capital of KES Power, and therefore will indirectly own 35.75 per cent of KESC. All of the capital (i.e. funds) used for the purchase of KES Power Shares will remain in KES Power and will then be injected into KESC (this is what is meant by capital injection). The total amount to be injected equals US$361 million, all of which will go directly into the business of KESC. This exactly equal the amount that has been invested in KESC by the existing shareholders Al Jomaih Group and NIG, who will continue to hold the same number of shares as before in KES Power, but will be diluted down to 30 per cent and 20 per cent ownership respectively in KES Power. As part of the agreement between Al-Jomiah and Abraaj, Abraaj will have full management control of KESC.

These top level connections to the political leadership of the country apart, the Abraaj management has already acquired the reputation of an arrogant, no-nonsense set up which does not care about the consumers of KESC or the Karachi political leadership, an attitude never seen before in any management, not even run by the army.

Mystery ::
The mystery surrounding the new owners of KESC, Karachi’s beleaguered power supply utility, has finally been unraveled. In a rare show of plain speaking, the top boss of Abraaj Capital with his 40 expensive executives, has made startling written confessions which may stun the nation.
In response to 35-questions sent to Abraaj/KESC’s new management, Mr Farrukh Abbas, the Chief Executive Officer of Abraaj Capital (Pak) and Mr. Naveed Ismail the Chief Executive Officer of KESC, have sent a 28-page document answering all the questions sent by The News, explaining and confirming what has so far remained part of a vicious whispering campaign in cool and cozy drawing rooms.
For instance these top executives admit that Mr Farrukh Abbas is a relative of President Asif Ali Zardari. “Mr Abbas is not directly related to the Zardari family, but is indeed through marriage,” his written response to The News states, but quickly adds: “At no time has any personal relationship played a part in Abraaj’s involvement in KESC….Abraaj spent six months doing due diligence of this deal and no favours were sought by Abraaj during the course of its negotiations with the Government of Pakistan and none were granted outside the normal course of commercial discussions aimed at reviving KESC for the benefit of all stakeholders.”
Another frank admission is that the Group marketing and Communication Head of Abraaj/KESC, Mr Qashif Effendi, is also related to the Zardari family. Is this correct, Mr Abbas was asked. “They are distantly related but that relationship has no impact on the business, nor has it played any role in Mr Effendi’s known career growth,” the written response says.
Yet another shocker comes when the company chief admits that the new Chief Financial Officer of KESC, Mr Jalil Tareen, is a distant cousin and a good friend of Mr Shaukat Tareen, Prime Minister’s Adviser on Finance but adds: “He has obviously been hired entirely on his own merits as he also happens to have a superb track record as a highly seasoned UK-qualified chartered Accountant and senior manager in Pakistani local and multi-national businesses.”
Abraaj is a middle-east based company with over US$7.5 billionin management funds and has been operating in several countries. Its investors are predominantly from the Gulf and wider Middle East and increasingly from markets as wide as US, Asia and Europe and its management says it has an clean track record of transparent and self-regulatory conduct.
Yet the manner in which the Abraaj Group has taken over the control of KESC is highly complicated and it would take some real experts to determine how they have been allowed to run a company with 17,000 employees when they do not own one share, either of KES Power or KESC, as of today.
According to the detailed answer regarding ownership of shares, this is the exact explanation provided to The News by Mr Farrukh Abbas. It is reproduced in toto so that experts can decipher the real situation.
The question sent to Abraaj was the following: Has the transfer of 51 per cent shares between Al-Jomaih Group (KES Power) and Abraaj Capital been completed. If so when was it done?
The answer: It is important to note that there is no transfer of shares taking place in the transaction. Abraaj will subscribe for new shares in KES Group, the holding company that currently owns 71.5 per cent of KESC. As a result of this subscription for new shares, Abraaj will end up owning 50 per cent of the issued share capital of KES Power, and therefore will indirectly own 35.75 per cent of KESC. All of the capital (i.e. funds) used for the purchase of KES Power Shares will remain in KES Power and will then be injected into KESC (this is what is meant by capital injection). The total amount to be injected equals US$361 million, all of which will go directly into the business of KESC. This exactly equal the amount that has been invested in KESC by the existing shareholders Al Jomaih Group and NIG, who will continue to hold the same number of shares as before in KES Power, but will be diluted down to 30 per cent and 20 per cent ownership respectively in KES Power. As part of the agreement between Al-Jomiah and Abraaj, Abraaj will have full management control of KESC.
These top level connections to the political leadership of the country apart, the Abraaj management has already acquired the reputation of an arrogant, no-nonsense set up which does not care about the consumers of KESC or the Karachi political leadership, an attitude never seen before in any management, not even run by the army.
This became evident last week when a top Jamaat Islami delegation led by Mr Mehnti, tried to meet the top managers at the KESC office but they were not allowed on the 7th floor and security guards were called to shoo them out. A notice has been posted at the 7th floor that prior appointments are required to meet anyone.
Yet while the Abraaj management claims that these top level relationships with the political class have played no role in acquiring KESC or running it, the 28-page document submitted to The News denies these claims of not being a ‘most favoured company’, even before it has acquired the stakes.
For instance Abraaj has confirmed the following special favours given to the company in the last few months, eversince Abraaj started the due diligence process to acquire KESC. These statements of fact were made in answers to various questions in different contexts:
* While Abraaj has already taken over KESC and started running the show, the document says: “Management control of KESC will transfer fully to Abraaj once the transaction has been completed. “The Consortium agreement has been signed between Abraaj and KES Power (Al Jomaih Group, the previous owners) and there are a number of conditions precedents that need to be satisfied before the subscription of shares can take place.” So factually Abraaj has no shares in KESC as of now but has been handed over the management.
* “KES Power and the Government of Pakistan, as the existing shareholders of KESC, requested that Abraaj make its new management team available to the company prior to transaction completion”. Why the GOP was so interested in an Abraaj takeover even before the formalities and transfer of shares was completed has not been explained.
* The new senior management team was appointed and empowered by the existing Board of Directors, including the Government, through circulation without any formal Board meeting.
* “Abraaj’s entry into KESC will occur once the GOP approves a waiver to the Sales-Purchase agreement signed between the Privatisation Commission and KES Power in November 2005. The GoP has to approve the transaction and sale of new shares by KES Power to Abraaj by Nov 28, 2008 after which the shares would be available for transfer to Abraaj.”
* Although Abraaj has yet to acquire the shares, Government of Pakistan has already approved a petition awarding Disco Status to KESC which means buying Wapda electricity at 25 to 30 per cent of the current rates. This concession was denied to all previous managements of KESC for years, not given even by General Pervez Musharraf to army generals running KESC. Yet Abraaj is so influential it says: “Following consultations with the GOP, and after filing a detailed petition with NEPRA, Abraaj and KESC were able to convince the Government and NEPRA that this discriminatory treatment must be reversed and KESC must be treated on par with all the other Discos (distribution companies) in the country. NEPRA issued a determination in this regard following full consultations and hearings….It is important to note that key beneficiaries of this decision are the consumer of Karachi.” This decision would save KESC Rs30 billion in money it owes to Pepco and in future it will get electricity cheaper from Wapda.
* Regarding new concessions from the Zardari Government, Abraaj says:: “All that has been done is address actual problems and issues faced by KESC and to try and find solutions to these problems,” and significantly admits: “Some of these problems that were addressed had been lingering for years, without adequate focus from either the management of KESC or the Government….With active effort many of these problems have been solved, or at least begun to be solved..”
* In a significant claim, the Abraaj statement says: “Without active involvement from Abraaj and the new management team, many of these issues would have remained unresolved.”
* Government of Pakistan has already settled the dispute of pending payments between KESC and Wapda/Pepco on KESC’s terms. Besides the above fast track concessions, this is a major achievement as this was a lingering issue since 2004 but was resolved even before Abraaj has acquired the KESC shares. Abraaj, however, maintains that “Its (the Wapda dues) elimination does not alter KESC’s financial position and does not, in any sense, amount to a write off.”
* Abraaj and Government of Pakistan have already agreed on amendments in the Implementation Agreement which was originally signed between KESC and the Government when KESC was privatised to Al-Jomiah Group in Nov 2005. The Abraaj statement claims these amendments will “bring the agreement up to date and to clarify the support which the Government will provide (to KESC under Abraaj).”
All these decisions and agreements have been possible not because the top managers are relatives of President Zardari but because they are so smart and competent, within days and weeks they have moved the mountains and forced the bureaucratic machine to move in their favour at top speed, so that when they take over the company fully, nothing is left to decide and they can concentrate on providing electricity to the people of Karachi now burning KESC bills and shouting slogans on Karachi streets.
This smart management is being paid a huge price for this job. According to KESC insiders the total bill of Mr Abbas and his 40 executives is the same US$ 8 million which was paid to Siemens for operation and maintenance contract by the Al-Jomaih Group. But Siemens was an operations company with engineers and equipment, while these 40 executives are managers with a few engineers but no equipment.
When Abraaj was asked about this huge monthly salary tabs, ranging from Rs 1 million at the lowest level to Rs 5 million for the chief executive, plus the perks, Abraaj’s written response was: “Compensation for the new management team has been approved by the Board of Directors of KESC and is paid by the company. The Government of Pakistan’s Directors have also approved the compensation to be paid to the CEO.”
But Abraaj refused to confirm or deny the figures saying: “Being a public company, the total salary costs for the CEO and the management team will be disclosed in the annual audited accounts but at this stage it is sufficient to say that they are competitive and commensurate with comparables available in the corporate sector of Pakistan.”
The statement, however said: “The numbers quoted by you are incorrect,” yet at another point in the statement, Abraaj says: “These individuals did not join KESC for salary inducements, rather they left lucrative professional careers elsewhere in order to be able to turnaround KESC and participate in a story that hopefully will have a beneficial impact on the lives of millions of people.”
This last statement is amusing as nowhere in the world any corporate executive leaves a lucrative job to “participate in a story” to impact millions of lives. That basically is politics.

Pew Institute : 2/3 of Pakistanis and Indians have an unfavorable view of each other !

2011-06-21T20:43:00.004-04:00

Pakistanis consider India and the Murtids - al Qaeda and Taliban- a major threat to Pakistan.

WASHINGTON: A PEW research says that most Pakistani disapproved of the US operation that killed Osama bin Laden, even though the terror leader was not a crowd favourite, a majority considered it a bad thing. However views about the US and Obama did not get any worse after bin Laden’s killing.
With the relations between the two war on terror allies moving towards breaking point, the research found that 63 per cent of the people did not approve of bin Laden’s killing while 55 per cent believed it to be a bad thing. A mere 37 per cent believed in using army to combat extremists in Khyber Pakhtookhwa and FATA areas.
The comprehensive report is broken down in six chapters, views on national conditions, ratings of political leaders and government institutions, death of bin Laden and the continuing efforts against terrorists, opinion about US and Obama, on extremism and how Pakistanis and Indians view each other.
Views on national conditions
With regards to national condition, the PEW research said that “Pakistanis continue to be highly dissatisfied with conditions in their country. Roughly nine-in-ten (92 per cent) are dissatisfied with the country’s direction. Almost as many (85 per cent) say the economic situation in Pakistan is bad. And optimism is scarce – 60 per cent think the economy will worsen in the next 12 months; only 13 per cent believe it will improve.”
Ratings of political leaders and government institutions
Ratings for President Zardari dropped from 20 per cent a year ago to mere 11 per cent. While ratings for the Prime Minister Gillani fared better, with 39 per cent, despite dropping from 59 per cent from a year ago.
In contrast, political rivals such as Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif saw their popularity soar with Khan getting 69 per cent and Sharif 63 per cent.
Chief of Army Staff, Ashfaque Pervaiz Kayani came in third with 52 per cent. However, the institution he represents, the armed forces were viewed positively with 79 per cent approval. The ratings for the army have fallen only four points after the OBL incident.
Death of bin Laden and the continuing efforts against terrorists
After the bin Laden operation, criticism of the army was rising home and abroad. According to the PEW research data “although Osama bin Laden was not well-regarded in recent
years, few Pakistanis approve of the military operation that killed him, and most say it is a bad thing that the al Qaeda leader is dead. Looking forward, many think the killing of bin
Laden will create even greater tensions between the US and their country.”
As criticism about drone strikes increase, more and more people seemed to be getting knowledgeable about what the hue and cry about it. In addition to that, almost 61 per cent of the people disagreed that they were necessary while 89 per cent thought that they killed too many innocent people.
Support for the fight against extremism using Pakistani forces to conduct operations in the troubled FATA and Khyber Pakhtoonkhw areas of Pakistan has also waned with only 37 per cent of the people supporting an Army operation.
Opinion about US and Obama
Pakistanis are ranked second in viewing the US as unfavourable to their cause. The PEW report suggested that percentage of people who viewed America as friendly slipped from 17 per cent in 2010 to 12 per cent in 2011. Only in Turkey was America viewed less favourably with only 10 per cent viewing the country in positive light.
Extremism
According to the PEW research, the views about Islmaic extremism slipped slightly in 2011 compared with 2010. However, with 63 per cent still worried about the extremism in the country, most Pakistanis continue to see it as a problem facing their nation. Many worry that extremists could take control of their country, and pluralities see al Qaeda and the Taliban as serious threats.
How Pakistanis and Indians view each other
Pakistanis continue to see India in a bad light, with the PEW research saying that views have gotten more negative about their arch rivals over the past five years. According to the research,

ONly 14 per cent of Pakistanis view India in a favourable light.
54 per cent consider India to be a serious threat to Pakistan. Pakistanis also consider Taliban and Al Qaeda (Murtids) a huge threat to Pakistan -Taliban is (34 per cent) and al Qaeda (29 per cent).
On the flip side, Indians do not view Pakistan as any more favourable as Pakistanis view Indians.
However, 65 per cent of Indians see Pakistan in a negative light compared to 75 per cent for Pakistanis.
Interestingly, despite the visible hostility between the neighbouring countries, a large majority of people on both sides of the border want to improve relations.

The full research report can be read on the PEW research website.

Pakistan Army Uncovers a cell of Murtids in the Army !

2011-06-21T10:13:00.004-04:00

"Murtids" caught in the Army with contacts with a militant oganization. Serving Bearded army officer by the name of Brig. Ali Khan arrested.

A spokesman for Pakistan’s military confirmed on Tuesday that a senior officer had been detained and was under investigation for suspected ties to militants.

The BBC’s Urdu-language news service first reported that the officer, Brigadier Ali Khan, who was serving in the general headquarters of Pakistan’s military in Rawalpindi, was taken into custody last month.

Dawn, a leading Pakistani newspaper, added that the military’s chief spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, “confirmed that the officer had been arrested, but released no further details on which groups he was alleged to have been in contact with.”

General Abbas told Agence France-Presse that Brigadier Khan had been detained because of contacts with a “defunct” militant organization. He added, “The investigation is on and we follow a zero tolerance policy of any such activity within the army.”

General Abbas later told Reuters that Brigadier Khan was linked to Hizb-ul-Tahrir, a radical Islamist group.

Omar Waraich, a Pakistan correspondent for Time magazine, noted on Twitter that Hizb-ul-Tahrir “clandestinely dropped pamphlets in military cantonments” after the American raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, “calling for officers to establish an Islamic caliphate.”

A Karachi newspaper, The Express Tribune, reported that “sources close to Khan’s family revealed he had not returned home on May 6.”

“Senior military officers had told the family that he had been held back to answer some questions and that he would return soon,” the newspaper said.

A Pakistani journalist, Abbas Nasir, pointed out on Twitter, Brigadier Khan seems to have been detained just four days after the Abbottabad raid.

The Express Tribune said Brigadier Khan came from a military family. “Khan’s father was a junior-commissioned officer in the army and his brother is a serving colonel posted with an intelligence agency,” the paper reported. “His son-in-law and son are both captains in the army.” The Tribune added that a senior military source said that the possible radicalization of a senior officer “with loyalty to the army stretching to three generations” was “a worrisome issue for the army.”

After militants penetrated security at a naval base in Karachi earlier this month, Newsweek asked Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s interior minister, if “rogue elements within the military” might give radicals access to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. The minister assured the magazine, “Our nuclear weapons are 200 percent safe.”

Pakistani Police and Army confused who are the "Good" and "Bad" Terrorists !

2011-06-20T16:04:00.001-04:00

There is “massive confusion” in the police department about whether they can take action against certain banned groups such as the active Jamaatud Dawa unless they get the go-ahead from ‘big brother’.
These groups differ from clearly marked ones such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi or Tehreek-i-Taliban, who are fair game. In any given month, the police arrest at least a dozen of their operatives, who are paraded in front of the media, albeit under blankets to protect their identity. The proud officers rachet up the number of suspects and everyone goes home happy.
But what about the groups that fall in a grey area? In background interviews, senior police and civilian intelligence officials reveal to The Express Tribune that the confusion begins when they come across suspects who operate under groups with an “untouchable status”.
Take, for example, certain outfits such as the Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) whose members were “sashaying around” [Dhandanatay huey phir rahey they] in a massive rally to openly mourn the death of Osama bin Laden, as one senior police official put it. It was ironic that the force had to offer them “protection” for their rally, he remarked. They even openly offered funeral prayers in absentia for the al Qaeda leader.
“Today, if [Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan’s general secretary] Maulana Aurangzeb Farooqi comes to the city and holds a rally, nobody in the police force would know whether he should be allowed to make a speech or not,” said this officer, who has vast experience and specialises in terrorism cases. To make matters worse, the police have the complaint that the intelligence agencies are usually arrogant about these matters and tell the police force that they should be consulted first before any action is taken.
“Without a doubt, there’s massive confusion in the police force today about what to do with certain people belonging to some banned militant groups,” said a senior civilian intelligence official, who corroborated the police official’s claim. He stressed there was a dire need to set up a platform where police, civil and military security agencies can coordinate and work out what is kosher.
This confusion and its fallout has been noted and discussed not just inside the force, but by observers too. It should hardly come as a surprise that the police in Karachi, as those elsewhere in the country, don’t know what to do, said Zahid Hussain, who is the new Pakistan scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre and the author of The Scorpion’s Tale: The Relentless Rise of Islamic Militants in Pakistan. “Despite numerous terrorism incidents, Pakistan lacks a national policy on how to deal with terrorism,” he said. In fact, some of our security agencies engaged in counter-terrorism are still not clear in their heads whether militancy and all militant groups are a threat to the country.
Hussain blamed the government for failing to come up with a national policy and warned that the longer we wait, the more difficult it would become to craft one. For him, it was a shame that the national counter-terrorism authority that was supposedly established to deal with exactly these questions, remains ineffective. “They’re still bickering over whether this body should come under the interior minister or prime minister,” he said.
But why should there even be kosher and non-kosher groups at all, argue others. These categories for militant groups are “mere excuses” being made by the police, in the opinion of former Inspector-General of Police for Sindh Afzal Shigri. It was the duty of a police official and every law enforcement authority to arrest all terrorists. A policeman works under the law and if he catches a suspect according to the law, no one can stop him from doing so. “It is ridiculous, in my opinion, to say that they can’t act unless Big Brother winks at them,” he said, adding that it’s highly unfortunate that today the police was playing second fiddle to the agencies. “Police have the powers to arrest and interrogate. They have all the powers, while intelligence agencies technically have no such powers.”
The truth is that the police has its own national police management board which can be approached for all such conundrums and from whom legal opinion can be solicited.
For Shigri, it’s the policeman’s job to withstand pressure from all internal and external players, even if it comes from the intelligence agencies. “Worst comes to worst, the influential [people] can have an officer transferred. So why be afraid of that?” he asked. In his view, the current situation also indicates a lack of leadership within the police. “An officer who is earning just his salary, [about] Rs20,000, wouldn’t care for such things,” he explained. “It is those who are earning two million rupees a month who worry about transfers and Big Brother pressures.”

Pakistani politicians in Total Denial on Terrorism !

2011-06-20T15:07:00.002-04:00

Taleban should be declared "Murtids" if we are to win the hearts and minds of the illiterate majority of Pakistan. Innocent people of the villages are brainwashed and then made to believe that the Taliban's agenda is the truth and Pakistan is on the wrong side of the war.

Circumvention, hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness describe best the behaviour of clergy and politicians when it comes to condemning terrorists and extremism. Fearing electoral losses, the politicians and ulema have chosen to either remain mum or side with the rising tide of bigotry and fanaticism.

Nawaz Sharif and company::
The Sharifs of Punjab are playing the most dangerous game with the fate of Punjab vis-à-vis terrorism which has become entrenched in the province due to denial of the threat’s existence. There have been allegations of them being in arms with various extremist elements for petty political gains. Earlier, Punjab’s senior minister Rana Sanaullah was photographed with the chief of defunct Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan during the by elections in south Punjab. Following this, Shahbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Rehman Malik exchanged endless salvos of claims for and against the existence of Punjabi Taliban.

Imran Khan ::
Imran Khan is another politician of the same ilk who wants us to think that terrorists are only after Pakistan because we are fighting a “US war” and not a war for our own survival. He conveniently ignores the terrorists’ proclamation of “fighting to create an Islamic system in Pakistan”. However, ANP is an exception which bravely and boldly took the case of the militants on, wrestled free Swat and South Waziristan and suffered several casualties in its ranks and file.

Parliament ::
Shrinking from its duty, the Parliament has failed to take ownership of the counter terrorism action. They have not amended the 1997 Anti Terrorism Ordinance which lapsed and has not been re-promulgated ever since.

Politicians ::
The politicians share the mindset with the clergy who otherwise issue infidelity verdicts at the drop of hat, like their cousins in the pre-Protestant Movement’s clergy, but refuse to educate people to exorcise the genie. Most share the perverted ‘jihad’ mindset of imposing a system based on blood and gore.

One would question their quest for Islamising Pakistan. The preamble to our Constitution says no unIslamic law can be passed in the country. A republic with majority Muslims has never passed anything even remotely unIslamic. But constitution matters little to them which they consider based on “munkirat”.

Sectarian ::
Barring the argument, the roots of intolerance go back to the ’50s at times of movement against the Ahmadis. Later, the country bore witness to the blood curdling Shia -Sunni violence at the behest of the Saudis and the Iranians. This progressed into internecine intra-sunni conflict. And now fundamentalist insurgency. They are waging their “jihad” in clear violation of the Holy Quran and Hadith. As Javed Ahmad Ghamdi points out ” Jihad can only be launched by the state and not independent actors otherwise it turns into chaos.”

Deoband ::
Unfortunately, all the followers of Pakistan’s chapter of Deoband school approve of terrorism, whereas scholars running the Deoband Institution in India have rejected and denounced terrorism as unIslamic.

Jamat-e-Islami::
Qazi Hussain Ahmad of Jamaat-e-Islami refuses to denounce the Taliban offensive and terms it justified. His party, now led by Munawwar Hassan, is up in arms over action against feared terrorist and mastermind Ilyas Kashmiri. Jamaat-e-Isami’s Karachi chief Merajul Huda Siddiqui says Kashmiri’s death is being celebrated by India.

JUI (F)::

A departure from this trend is Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Albeit too little too late, Fazl’s reaction coincided after two life attempts on him. Stopping short of categorical rejection, he criticised terrorism, saying “violence has no parallel in Islam.”

Who is on Board against the Taliban/Al Qaeda/The Right::
But there were some religious luminaries who acted like “light at the end of the tunnel”.

Maulana Hassan Jan ::
They lost their lives in opposing Taliban and al Qaeda’s brand of Islam. Foremost among them was Maulana Hassan Jan who was a Taliban ideologue and tried to convince the latter of the wrongdoing. He received several warnings but he didn’t budge from opposing the macabre deeds and was gunned down.

Other Maulanas who should declare the Taliban Murtids ::
Dr Ghulam Murtaza, Dr M Farooq, vice chancellor of International Islamic University, Swat, Mufti Naeemi, and Maulana Hassan Turabi slammed the violence perpetrated by the fringe elements openly and boldly but had to pay with their blood for sticking to their conviction. Another critic, noted scholar Javed Ahmad Ghamdi has to leave the country following persistent life threats.

Ulema ::
The ulema as a whole should have taken the lead role in explaining and defining terrorism as a vice which only sows more confusion and chaos. Their effort should have been directed at reformation and education. Let’s see how long it takes for sanity to prevail.

Political Parties who are on Board ::
MQM
ANP
PPP
JUI(F)
BNM
APML
PML (Q)

Political Parties who are NOT on Board ::
PML (N)
TI

This tells us that major political parties are on board with the rest of Pakistan. PML(N) has basically lost all track to what way they are headed.

Imran Khan thinks this is all Americas fault and there is no enemy within.

I rest my case with both of these parties. PML(N) will perhaps get another drubbing at the hands of the the major parties in 2013 with no major coalition partners siding with them.

Defining Moment for Pakistan's media and the military establishment !

2011-06-17T16:59:00.003-04:00

Pakistani journalists' Syed Saleem Shahzad killing has changed Pakistan and its media. This sole event has brought Pakistan's media and the military establishment at loggerheads putting the military on the defensive for the first time in the history of the country.

“I have never worked for any well-funded international news organizations. Nor have I worked for the mainstream national media. My affiliations have always remained with alternative media outlets. This has left me with narrow options and very little space to move around in. Those who loom large on the political horizon by and large target mainstream information outlets and well-financed news organizations for the launch of their media campaigns, interviews and/or disclosures. Alternative media persons need to work twice as hard as others to draw their attention…,” wrote Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, who was tortured to death, in the preface to his book Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11 that hit the stands just 10 days before his brutalised body was fished out of a canal.

But in death, Shahzad — who was the Pakistan bureau chief of the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online — has turned out to be a game-changer in a country where journalists are often part of the collateral damage in the war on terror. Before his body was found on May 31, over 70 journalists had been killed in the country since 2000. And, in the fortnight after his end, at least three journalists have been killed — two while reporting a blast in Peshawar and a third in mob violence outside the Multan Press Club.

While some of these journalists killed in the line of duty were victims of targeted attacks, Shahzad's case shook media honchos to the core. Top guns of the industry — seldom seen in protest meetings over attacks on freedom of expression and minorities — took to the streets; rubbing shoulders with lesser mortals in the profession and, more importantly, began openly questioning the feared Inter Services Intelligence by name.

Had Shahzad been killed at any other time, the volte face by some of the media bigwigs would not have been so evident. But, Shahzad died at the end of a month which began with the U.S. raid in Abbottabad to take out al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and terrorists laying siege of a naval airbase for 17 hours three weeks later.

After the initial loss for words at these show-stopping events, the media — particularly, the mood-setting television news networks — stuck to the all-too-familiar narrative on security-related matters; pedalling conspiracy theories that sought to put the blame outside Pakistan. Of course, there were some notable exceptions who questioned the country's strategic policy that has harmed Pakistan most than any other country and called for introspection, especially by the military which has shaped not just the nation's history but also its thinking. But the mainstream narrative focussed on the U.S.' violation of Pakistani sovereignty in the Abbottabad raid and the “outside hand” in the “PNS Mehran” attack; prompting columnist Ayaz Amir to write: “Islam is not the state religion of Pakistan, denial is. And our national emblem should be the ostrich, given our proclivity to bury our heads in the sand and not see the landscape around us as it is.”

Shahzad changed that. Known to have contacts within terror networks and intelligence agencies, the unsaid view is that he had crossed some “red lines.” What these lines were or who drew them will probably never be known — given the track record of enquiries in Pakistan — but it drove home the fact that proximity to the security establishment does not necessarily ensure personal security.

Protest

Overnight, several prime time television anchors and columnists — known to toe a certain line — changed their tone, began asking searing questions and joined the 24-hour protest staged outside Parliament House on Wednesday to demand the setting up of a commission to enquire Shahzad's killing. Some of them did live talk shows from the site of the dharna and openly admitted that the media — which had been so supportive of the security establishment — had been forced by circumstances to turn against it.

In all this the democratically elected government got a bit of a breather for the first time since it was voted to power three years ago. The guns were trained elsewhere with even the higher judiciary coming in for some fire over the Supreme Court taking suo motu notice of actress Atiqa Odho being let off by airport authorities after detention for carrying two bottles of liquor in her luggage. What peeved a lot of people was that the Court could take notice of this but not to a petition filed in January to act against a cleric who had issued a fatwa against Asia Bibi, the Christian woman facing death sentence for blasphemy.

However, this comfort was short-lived. Though the federal government accepted journalists' demand for a commission headed by a sitting Supreme Court judge, the past-midnight decision to assign the task to Mian Saqib Nisar was taken without consulting the Chief Justice. As a result, Justice Nisar has made his acceptance conditional to approval by the Chief Justice. The Government's contention is that the law does not mandate consultation with the Chief Justice before appointing a judge of the apex court to head a commission. But, Supreme Court Bar Association president Asma Jehangir said, “the government just cannot disturb benches of the apex court by picking judges of its choice to head such commissions with consulting the Chief Justice.”

Given that there was an identical hiccup in the setting up of the commission to enquire into the circumstances that led to the U.S. raid in Abbottabad, the government's decision to walk the same path has led to questions about its own seriousness in getting to the truth in both instances. So much so that now the Pakistan People's Party — which has always been regarded as an anti-establishment party and one of the few that does not owe its existence to the powerful military — is being called the security establishment's bedfellow.

The China Pakistan Nexus !

2011-06-11T16:22:00.001-04:00

China is adamant that the West "must respect" Pakistan's sovereignty.

The message was delivered during Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani's recent four-day visit to Beijing, which celebrated no less than six decades of strategic relations - involving, among other issues, nuclear collaboration and support over the ultra-sensitive Kashmir question.

The Times of India reconstructed the message as a stark warning that: "any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China."

Chinese diplomacy dwells on too much sophistication for such a crude outburst; but even enveloped in red velvet, the message - in view of the non-stop US drone war over Pakistan's tribal areas, not to mention the "get Osama" raid in Abbottabad - was indeed a bombshell.

Whatever the merit of charges that Islamabad helps some Taliban factions - such as the Haqqani network in North Waziristan - the Pakistani politico-security-military establishment has had enough of being treated by Washington as a mere satrapy, or worse, a bunch of punks.

Pakistani popular opinion, from urban centers to tribal areas, roundly abhors Washington's drone war. And even before the Navy SEALS raid to get Osama the sordid Raymond Davis case was configured as the ultimate humiliation.

Davis, a CIA asset, shot two Pakistanis dead in broad daylight in Lahore; an American "extraction team" killed another one who was trying to save Davis from arrest; and then the CIA paid blood money to finally extract Davis out of the country. Sovereignty? What sovereignty?

Strategic ports

There's frantic spin in the US especially among the right that Pakistan must be taught a lesson because it "harbors terrorists". The mighty conceptual leap would be for these righteous, misinformed, armchair warriors to advocate teaching China a lesson.

Gwadar is an ultra-strategic deepwater port in the Arabian Sea, in Pakistani Balochistan, not far from the Iranian border and only 520 km away from the hyper-strategic Strait of Hormuz. Beijing financed close to 80 per cent of the construction of the port via the China Harbor Engineering Company Group. The port is currently managed by Singapore. The lease will end soon - and it will go to China.

Islamabad now wants the Chinese to build a naval base at Gwadar. That will be a monster geopolitical earthquake in a crucial node of "Pipelineistan" as well as the New Great Game in Eurasia.

Sleepy (for now) Gwadar has been building up for years as the key node of the IP (Iran-Pakistan) pipeline, which used to be the IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) or "peace" pipeline, before New Delhi got cold feet. For Washington, the prospect of a steel umbilical cord linking Iran and Pakistan has always been anathema.

What Washington wants - and has wanted badly since the Bill Clinton years - is the TAP (Trans-Afghan) pipeline, which then became TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India). Even millennial rocks in the Hindu Kush know TAP or TAPI will only be built when the war is over in Afghanistan, with the Taliban an inevitable part of the government.

In this ongoing, epic IP (or IPI) versus TAP (or TAPI) battle, what is never mentioned is that the winner after all may be... China.

New Delhi knows a pipeline crossing Afghanistan is, well, a pipe dream. But still it has not committed itself to IPI - in part because of relentless Washington pressure, in part because it does not trust Pakistan.

China, on the other hand, has already proposed itself for an IP expansion. This means that starting at Gwadar, another pipeline would be built, by the Chinese of course, crossing Balochistan and then following the Karakoram highway northwards all the way to Xinjiang, China's Far West.

Those who have already traveled the spectacular, 1,400 km-long Karakoram highway from Kashgar in Xinjiang, Western China, via the Khunjerab pass to, of all places, Abbottabad in Pakistan, know it for what it is - a graphic example of strategic Sino-Pak collaboration. Further on down the road, Beijing engineering will connect the Karakoram highway with a railway across Balochistan towards Gwadar.

Pakistanis involved with the development of Gwadar love to bill it as the new Dubai. Well, it might as well become Western Hong Kong.

No wonder Beijing's strategic analysts are tasting what could be the geopolitical equivalent of the finest shark-fin soup; the Chinese Navy positioned at the heart of the Arabian Sea, a stone's throw from the Persian Gulf; a great deal of its Middle East oil imports shipped to nearby Gwadar - and then by pipeline or railway all the way to Kashgar; and the Chinese economy profiting from extra gas supplied by Iran and, in a near future, Qatar.

Keep on truckin'

It's not only China possibly winning a crucial "Pipelineistan" chapter plus an Arabian Sea base to add to its "string of pearls" network. In terms of its AfPak vulnerability, Washington may be contemplating a triple X defeat.

For obvious reasons the Pentagon cannot use Chinese or Iranian seaports to supply no less than 100,000 US troops, 50,000 NATO troops and over 100,000 private contractors in Afghanistan - legions of mercenaries included - which dabble in over 400 military bases all across the country. Nearly 80 per cent of this monstrous quantity of supplies transit through Pakistan. And that means, essentially, Karachi.

So one cannot imagine the "kinetic military action" (White House copyright) in AfPak without a non-stop serpent of trucks leaving Karachi and entering Pakistan via Torkham or Chaman every single day.

All the stuff Kabul - and the immense Bagram Air Base close by - needs goes through Torkham, at the end of the fabled Khyber Pass. All the stuff Kandahar needs goes through Chaman, in Pakistani Balochistan, not far from Quetta, where Mullah Omar theoretically lives when he's not being pronounced dead by the Pentagon.

The Pentagon of course could rely on alternative routes such as the interminable Northern Distribution Network (NDN) from Riga in Latvia to Termez in Uzbekistan, which connects via a bridge over the Oxus to Afghanistan. But NDN is not only long but also impractical; it does not allow too much cargo; and the Uzbeks forbid the transport of lethal weapons.

As for the Manas base in Kyrgyzstan, that's only for troops coming in and out, and for storage of jet fuel.

The bottom line is that Islamabad knows the Pentagon simply cannot conduct the AfPak war without the Karachi-Torkham (300 trucks/tankers a day) and Karachi-Chaman (200 trucks/tankers a day) routes delivering like clockwork.

So if you break the balls of the Islamabad establishment to a tipping point and Taliban networks will have a free hand at attacking US/NATO convoys to Kingdom Come. Compare it with Beijing acknowledging Pakistan's "contribution and sacrifices in the war against terrorism".

On message

Beijing actively helped Islamabad's nuclear weapons program. Next August, China will launch a satellite into orbit for Pakistan. Roughly 75 per cent of Pakistan's weapons are made in China. Soon 260 Chinese fighter jets will become the core of the Pakistani Air Force.

Even before Beijing delivered the message that Pakistan's sovereignty shouldn't be messed about, the Pakistani military had already delivered their own message.

It concerned that most photographed rotor of the stealth Black Hawk helicopter that crashed beside Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. The Pakistanis threatened they would let the Chinese tinker with it - and that would certainly yield some ace reverse engineering.

It didn't happen. But still they didn't get the message in a Washington whose leeway over Islamabad is a strategic rent that goes basically to Pakistan's military. If the US congress would cut it - threats abound - there's no question Beijing would be delighted to make up the difference.

Washington may still have a sterling opportunity to get the message next month, when the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meets in Astana, Kazakhstan. There's a strong possibility that Pakistan may be enthroned as a full member, upgraded from its current status of observer.

This means, in practice, Pakistan as a member of the still embryonic Asian answer to NATO. An attack on any NATO member is an attack on them all, according to its charter. The same would apply to the SCO. Ladies and gentlemen, draw your conclusions - and start dancing to the sound of the Sino-Pak shuffle.

Pakistan Army Attacks back at the MURTIDS ! Watch video !

2011-06-02T09:08:00.003-04:00

Watch how Pakistan Army strikes back. Pakistan Army using what they call lame tactics to get the Queen Bee. God be with them and we will Inshallah defeat the Murtids.

http://sawantspeak.blogspot.com/2009/10/pak-army-torture-exposed.html

The video says it all ! Pakistan army strikes at the inner core. Get the PICTURE!

Prelude to the Attack on PNS Mehran Naval Base Karachi !

2011-05-31T17:27:00.001-04:00

Al-Qaeda cells operating within the Navy got busted and Al-Qaeda set out to teach Pakistan Navy a lesson ! Unbelievable how Jihadi Pakistani Armed forces have become. Lets cleanse them from these forces and bring back the glory of Pakistani armed forces !

This attack is being dubbed as the turning point between the Jahidi forces in the Armed forces and Jihadi groups

Al-Qaeda carried out the brazen attack on PNS Mehran naval air station in Karachi on May 22 after talks failed between the navy and al-Qaeda over the release of naval officials arrested on suspicion of al-Qaeda links, an Asia Times Online investigation reveals.

Pakistani security forces battled for 15 hours to clear the naval base after it had been stormed by a handful of well-armed militants.

At least 10 people were killed and two United States-made P3-C
Orion surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft worth US$36 million each were destroyed before some of the attackers escaped through a cordon of thousands of armed forces.

An official statement placed the number of militants at six, with four killed and two escaping. Unofficial sources, though, claim there were 10 militants with six getting free. Asia Times Online contacts confirm that the attackers were from Ilyas Kashmiri's 313 Brigade, the operational arm of al-Qaeda.

Three attacks on navy buses in which at least nine people were killed last month were warning shots for navy officials to accept al-Qaeda's demands over the detained suspects.

The May 2 killing in Pakistan of Osama bin Laden spurred al-Qaeda groups into developing a consensus for the attack in Karachi, in part as revenge for the death of their leader and also to deal a blow to Pakistan's surveillance capacity against the Indian navy.

The deeper underlying motive, though, was a reaction to massive internal crackdowns on al-Qaeda affiliates within the navy.

Volcano of militancy
Several weeks ago, naval intelligence traced an al-Qaeda cell operating inside several navy bases in Karachi, the country's largest city and key port.

"Islamic sentiments are common in the armed forces," a senior navy official told Asia Times Online on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the media.

"We never felt threatened by that. All armed forces around the world, whether American, British or Indian, take some inspiration from religion to motivate their cadre against the enemy. Pakistan came into existence on the two-nation theory that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations and therefore no one can separate Islam and Islamic sentiment from the armed forces of Pakistan," the official said.

"Nonetheless, we observed an uneasy grouping on different naval bases in Karachi. While nobody can obstruct armed forces personnel for rendering religious rituals or studying Islam, the grouping [we observed] was against the discipline of the armed forces. That was the beginning of an intelligence operation in the navy to check for unscrupulous activities."

The official explained the grouping was against the leadership of the armed forces and opposed to its nexus with the United States against Islamic militancy. When some messages were intercepted hinting at attacks on visiting American officials, intelligence had good reason to take action and after careful evaluation at least 10 people - mostly from the lower cadre - were arrested in a series of operations.

"That was the beginning of huge trouble," the official said.

Those arrested were held in a naval intelligence office behind the chief minister's residence in Karachi, but before proper interrogation could begin, the in-charge of the investigation received direct threats from militants who made it clear they knew where the men were being detained.

The detainees were promptly moved to a safer location, but the threats continued. Officials involved in the case believe the militants feared interrogation would lead to the arrest of more of their loyalists in the navy. The militants therefore made it clear that if those detained were not released, naval installations would be attacked.

It was clear the militants were receiving good inside information as they always knew where the suspects were being detained, indicating sizeable al-Qaeda infiltration within the navy's ranks. A senior-level naval conference was called at which an intelligence official insisted that the matter be handled with great care, otherwise the consequences could be disastrous. Everybody present agreed, and it was decided to open a line of communication with al-Qaeda.

Abdul Samad Mansoori, a former student union activist and now part of 313 brigade, who originally hailed from Karachi but now lives in the North Waziristan tribal area was approached and talks begun. Al-Qaeda demanded the immediate release of the officials without further interrogation. This was rejected.

The detainees were allowed to speak to their families and were well treated, but officials were desperate to interrogate them fully to get an idea of the strength of al-Qaeda's penetration. The militants were told that once interrogation was completed, the men would be discharged from the service and freed.

Al-Qaeda rejected these terms and expressed its displeasure with the attacks on the navy buses in April.

These incidents pointed to more than the one al-Qaeda cell intelligence had tracked in the navy. The fear now was that if the problem was not addressed, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) supply lines could face a new threat. NATO convoys are routinely attacked once they begin the journey from Karachi to Afghanistan; now they could be at risk in Karachi port. Americans who often visit naval facilities in the city would also be in danger.

Therefore, another crackdown was conducted and more people were arrested. Those seized had different ethnic backgrounds. One naval commando came from South Waziristan's Mehsud tribe and was believed to have received direct instructions from Hakeemullah Mehsud, the chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistan Taliban). Others were from Punjab province and Karachi, the capital of Sindh province.

After Bin Laden was killed by American Navy Seals in Abbottabad, 60 kilometers north of Islamabad, militants decided the time was ripe for major action.

Within a week, insiders at PNS Mehran provided maps, pictures of different exit and entry routes taken in daylight and at night, the location of hangers and details of likely reaction from external security forces.

As a result, the militants were able to enter the heavily guarded facility where one group targeted the aircraft, a second group took on the first strike force and a third finally escaped with the others providing covering fire. Those who stayed behind were killed.

(The Journalist Saleem Shahzad who exposed the contacts between the Pakistan Navy and Al Qaeda was found dead June 1, 2011 in Gujrat. ISI is suspected of abducting him but ISI has denied the charge).

Drones or Ababeels ? God Sent ? Nothing Happens without Gods Will so Stop the Groans !

2011-05-29T04:38:00.003-04:00

The advocates of wounded pride and injured sovereignty lose sight of the critical fact that these actors of the “Islamic internationale” who use Pakistan as a springboard of Islamic revolution the world-wide are the first and foremost violators of the country’s sovereignty.

Ever since the WikiLeaks revelation that the army chief requested for drone attacks, there are many ‘hurt’ egos and protests doing the rounds. Very few it seems are willing to take into consideration why the attacks are a timely necessity. Our current anti-drone mindset is simply strengthening the agenda of the extremists, and we should very wary of representing views that protect and serve the interests of the terrorists who are holding a gun to our future.

First, we must not lose sight of the fact that large swathes of areas in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas lie beyond the state’s control. These places remain under the control of foreign and local terrorists, who over the years have eroded the state’s writ, administration and intelligence gathering abilities by decimating maliks and political agents and heavy-handed terrorist activities all over Pakistan. As it is, years of negligence from the government has rendered Fata impoverished, shoving the people there away from the mainstream country, at times from even those who share the same culture and language in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Today, we don’t have adequate human intelligence to know what is going on our own soil. Take, for instance, the fact that the ‘rumour’ of Hakimullah Mehsud’s death in a drone attack could not be confirmed for weeks due to lack of ground intelligence; the same can be said about the mystery in which the death of Baitullah Mehsud’s was shrouded in for days.

Drones hone in the audio visual signatures of the terrorists while depending critically on real-time information about the targets from human intelligence that the US has developed. The unmanned aerial vehicles are targeting known terrorists and neutralising the existential threat to Pakistan and to the larger world. The ruthless and barbaric Baitullah Mehsud topped the long list, comprising Abu Laith al-Libi, Abu Sulayman Al-Jazairi, Hamza Rabia, Midhat Mursi, Abu Akash, Mohammad Hasan Khalil al-Hakim, Rashid Rauf, Abu Zubair al-Masri, Usama al-Kini Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan. Each and every single one of them was decapitated by drone attacks.

Briefing journalists in Miranshah, General Officer Commanding 7 Division, Maj-Gen Ghayur Mehmood, who is in charge of the troops in North Waziristan, had confirmed the deaths of many ‘hard core’ elements with a sizeable number of them being foreigners. “Conceding there have been a few civilian casualties, he added the drone attacks also had social and political repercussions,” the news report read.

Without denying the collateral damage, it is also an uncomfortable truth that most of those dying in the attacks are mostly “facilitators” hiding and working for the terrorist network and not ordinary innocent victims of senseless terror attacks across the country.

It is a folly to think that terrorism can ebb with mere negotiations. The experiences in South Waziristan and Swat are enough to convince everyone of the terrorists’ duplicity when they would violate every accord and use commitments to gain time, strengthen and strike back. The destruction of schools and enforcing a primitive, alien and tribal sociology is an ugly manifestation of their ideology. But this is not to sideline the importance of negotiations which need to be conducted only from a position of strength and only at the stage when the terrorists have been rooted out so as to afford the moderates in their ranks an opportunity to join back the society and start anew.

The advocates of wounded pride and injured sovereignty lose sight of the critical fact that these actors of the “Islamic internationale” who use Pakistan as a springboard of Islamic revolution the world-wide are the first and foremost violators of the country’s sovereignty.

Many Pakistanis are confused and may be myopic, unable to differentiate between good and evil: they are tormented over the deaths of “terrorists and their facilitators” but ignore the 35,000 killed across the country for no crime of theirs. May be no fault of theirs; apparently the establishment’s ‘good and bad’ Taliban policy has backfired, as those considered assets for our foreign policy are coming to haunt us. The attack on GHQ and a host of others apparently do not seem to have convinced our security establishment of revisiting their outdated policy of harnessing the “assets”. Security analysts believe attack on PNS Mehran by well trained “fidayeen” carried signatures of such groups. It is this very mindset which has confused people to blame external forces rather than to look internally.

The drone strategy needs to be however discussed under a different light. It must be realised that the UAVs are tactical and offer short-term benefits but allows the space for intervention by local security agencies. A space that shrunk and then became non-existent over the last few years! Can anyone deny that Baitullah’s death did not provide some leverage or that Hakimullah’s death was a blow?

Would you rather have the militants culled in a remote region where the casualties from them can be contained, versus in a city such as Quetta where the US had long-held that the terrorists have moved and a strike there will increase the number of dead?

Indeed, that would result in an unacceptable greater civilian death toll causing political and civilian backlash.

We need to move on from debating whether drones are right or wrong. It is about time people come out of the injured pride and wounded sovereignty cliché prevailing these days and end the hypocrisy over drone strikes. You can’t have your cake (read “zero terrorism”) and eat it too (read “no collateral damage”). The debate has to centre on a long term counter-terrorism policy in which the security establishment willfully participates.

Pakistan in Total Disbelief on Terrorism ! When will Pakistan Transform from a Nation to a Society ?

2011-05-27T08:01:00.015-04:00

Most Pakistanis are in disbelief and under a spell on terrorism which is wreaking havoc in their land of the pure. They cannot believe that the very Islamists they trained have turned against them ! Army officers are not following orders to kill Islamists who in this case are terrorists because they think that they might be committing a sin. The enemy within is getting stronger and a huge rift in the armed forces is brewing ! Can Pakistan leash the Islamists ?
Watch how Pakistan Army Strikes back !
href="http://sawantspeak.blogspot.com/2009/10/pak-army-torture-exposed.html">

The picture says it all - I shouldn't even write more. These Ultra Right is at it again and what they are holding on that placard is unbelievable 'Living one day like Osama bin Laden is equal to living like an army commander for 10 years'. This is the mindset and that's what Pakistan is dealing with but here is the good news- This is Pakistan's 5% and they will be routed again in the next elections. In the last elections they got less then 5% vote and all of Pakistan voted Left or Centre Right.

This is the most difficult article I have ever written. Trying to gather infomation and trying to read the mind set of the a certain Pakistani populous has been very difficult for me. Even though the people on the far right in Pakistan are like 5% but they have influenced the mind set of a major chunk of the population especially north of Pakistan. Its like a tug of war talking to them and trying to explain where I am coming from. First of all they will tear you apart if you call them on the Right. They do NOT want to be labelled right even though their mind set is like Ultra far Right(Read KKK).

Criticising even pro-violent Islamists to them is like walking on ice where they are about to push into a pitfall of Anti-Islam or Anti-Pakistan. The Ultra Right here like any where else is the custodian of the religion and the Nationalism even though in Paksistans case its the enemy within or the Islamists. Under no circumstances they will believe that 'God fearing faithful ultra right pious devout 5 times praying Mullahs' are creating havoc by training suicide bombers. NO amount of arguements is going to convince them that we really have a problem here with the pro violent Taliban, LeT etc.

Thank God for the free 90 plus channels have started to harp my tune on the enemy within. Believe me the conspiracy theorist are having a hay day here and everything in Pakistan is very coordinated and the theorists are just killing me. Everthing is America and Wests doing and even the planes that were destroyed was an American act. I was like that doesn't make sense since the US is ready to replace the planes that were destroyed in the attack at the Mehran Base.

Its like wading through a sea of conspiracy theories and then every day its a new one but the Right is not ready to believe that its the TTP bombing Pakistan. Their belief is that NO Muslim can send bombers in Pakistan to kill fellow Muslims. Its like an oxymoron for the Right.

But let us differentiate with the other 95% that do believe that we really have a problem. Pakistan has to pull up its socks and deal with terrorism with an iron fist even if that means alienating the ruthless right. We have to write off the 5% crazy mullah but we can reign in the 15% fence sitters. Fence sitters are just watching the show but sway either way either because they are poor or vulnerable. But the slide towads violence has to stopped NOW.

What needs to be done in Pakistan to tackle terrorism ?

Pakistans biggest problem is the dysfunctional Police system. 99% of Pakistanis DO NOT trust the police. The West should fund and modernize the police system in Pakistan. Imagine NYC without an effective police system and now imagine Pakistan with thousands of gun trotting Mullahs trying to impose their own misinterpreted Islmic laws. They Police in Pakistan is corrupt, ill equipped and the training does not go far enough. A new structure has to be built with forensic labs and investigators. Pakistan doesn't have an effective forensic lab to tackle crime or terrorism. Investigators need to be hired enmass to control violent crimes to control the lawlessness.

I am amazed to see how disillusioned and confused Pakistanis are about terrorism. They cannot believe that the very Taliban they nurtured with US and Saudi help would turn against Pakistan instead of India. They are waking up to a very changed scenario but most of them are in still in disbelief that the bearded, devout, 5 times a day praying pious Muslims have turned against the citadel of Islam. After talking to literally hundreds of Pakistanis during my stay here I am just dumb founded how deaf Pakistanis have become and cannot see that these Islamists are destroying Pakistan. They Taliban and other terrorist organisations regard the Pakistani army under whatever pretext their enemy number one.
History in a nut shell ::
When Zia UL Haq took over the helm of affairs in Pakistan in the late 70's he started to promote Islamists in the armed forces. The trend stopped right after he was gone but the damage had been done. There were a spate of recruitment in the low ranking soldiers at that time who have become entrenched into the armed forces. Now there are widespread claims that these Islamist soldiers challenge orders from their peers against the Talibaan and LeT etc.

Why Israel is Successful in defeating terrorism ?
Our new terrorist policy should be what Israel enacted following a spate of suicide bombing by Palestinians in mainland Israel.
As part of the 2nd Intifada, the IDF adopted a policy of house demolition of suicide bombers in response to a wave of suicide bombings. Israel justified the policy on the basis of deterrence against terrorism and eye for an eye after negotiations failed. This collective punishment turned out to be good deterrence against suicide bombers who had killed 1000's of Israelis and the houses of Israelis living in mainland Israel. This policy right or wrong turned out to be a huge success and the suicide bombing declined even before the barrier was built to keep the terrorists out.
In February 2005 Israel ordered an end to the demolition of houses for the purpose of punishing the families of suicide bombers unless there is "an extreme change in circumstances". However, house demolitions continue for other reasons. In 2010, 315 Palestinian-owned structures have been demolished in East Jerusalem. 402 people have been displaced and about 1,296 people have been otherwise affected.
There has be some other punitive measures that would deter the suicide bombers, because right now it’s like a walk in the park for them with no repercussions
in the North Western, which is the epicenter of terrorism in Pakistan . Family Honor and sanctity of women are both very sacred to them and that should be used as a weapon by the ISI. A policy needs to be formulated not just against terrorists but also supporters and sympathizers of terrorists. Mass arrests and of families and detention should be organized on mass scale against the whole village that produces suicide bombers.
Madrassas :
Madrassas have biggest the migraine for peace loving Pakistanis. Madrassas or Quranic schools have become a breeding ground for terrorists and their sympathizers. Pakistan needs to come to grips with this menace this very instant to keep sanity alive. All Madrassas should be closed down for a month and cleansed and every teacher needs to be reappointed under a government scrutnized and NGO supported syllabus. All unlicensed madrassas should be banned first and later converted into a police station with a regular primary school teaching regular subjects.
All madrassa teachers should be screened and along with their students should be put under probation. That means they have to report to a probation officer every Friday to make sure they are not getting influenced or brainwashed. They should be informed about the repercussions that their families would endure in case they try an adventure.
Iron Fist :
I know these are iron fisted tactics but we really do need a tyrant to deal with these crooked terrorists. They see no mercy and we have make new rules to enforce the law. NOW is the time to set up Kangaroo courts, secret detentions centers, top secret cherry picked elite force for interrogations and an clamp down like Pakistan has never seen before. The clamp down on MQM in the 90's should look like baby talk. Pakistan really has to put its foot exactly where its mouth is.

Any thing short of these will not get us anywhere and we will reel to something like Liberia !

Guess who got arrested for the PNS Zafar Karachi attack. My greatest fears are being reinforced over and over ! NO Afia Siddiqui, thanks to her arrest in the US, was not involved this time around ! Pakistani intelligence operatives arrested a prayer leader of a seminary at Faisalabad on Friday for alleged links to the terrorist attack on a naval airbase late on Sunday night in Karachi that killed 10 security personnel, sources said.

The operatives of intelligence agencies raided the Deobandi madrassa at Siana Chak village in Faisalabad district of Punjab province and nabbed Qari Qaisar, the prayer leader, sources told PTI.

The arrest was made on the basis of information linking Qaisar to the terrorists who stormed PNS Mehran, the Pakistan Navy's main air station in Karachi.

Qaisar, who is also linked to a banned organisation, was taken to an undisclosed location for interrogation, the sources said.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on PNS Mehran, saying it was carried out to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden in a US raid on May 2.

The terrorists killed 10 security personnel and destroyed two maritime surveillance aircraft during the brazen attack that embarrassed the military.

Four of the attackers were killed or blew themselves up while two more reportedly escaped.

(to be continued)

Adding another one to Osama Bin Laden Assassination Conspiracy Theories !

2011-05-24T06:32:00.003-04:00

Why we’ll never see dead Osama bin Laden
What really happened?

Like a lot of conspiracy theories here is another regarding OBL's assassination.
But this one kinda makes sense !

In August 2010 after Pakistani authorities shared intelligence with US about the compound in Abbottabad, US after its own intelligence gathering ascertains that the compound is occupied by Osama’s children. Compound surveillance continues through the next year in anticipation of capturing Osama bin Laden.

In January 2011 the young CIA contractor who is given the charge of Pakistan Station Chief works “extra hard” to gather clandestine information related to ISI and Al Qaeda relationship.

The contractor, now infamous as Raymond Davis the “American Rambo” receives a call from one of his assets, early morning on January 27 about a high value target. But the asset refuses to lay out details on phone or to leave the Lahore city, where he had gone underground. Raymond Davis hires a rent a car and drives to Lahore, while his security detail follows him in a bullet proof Land Cruiser.

Raymond Davis is able to loose his Islamabad’s ISI “detail” by leaving in am unmarked rented car. The ISI agents falling for his trap follows the embassy’s Land Cruiser. Raymond Davis arrives at Lahore one hour earlier than his detail and meets with the asset. The asset gives him some pictures of an intelligence building at Tarbela and recording of a phone call. Listening to the phone call, Raymond Davis realizes the gold mine he had struck, and immediately calls his security detail which had also reached Lahore, knowing if ISI reaches him first, he would not leave Lahore alive.

Next hour when the security car catches up with Raymond Davis, the ISI bosses realize that Raymond Davis had given them a slip earlier in the morning and in couple of hours he did in Lahore, he might have got some important information. Resultantly, they put two contractors on his tail. Raymond Davis seeing a tail fears the worst and shoots them both in the back, at a traffic stop, without logically realizing that there was no way ISI could have known what he was holding.

His security detail which was close behind rushed to his “rescue”. However, by this time police had chased and arrested Raymond Davis, while the security Land Cruiser running over pedestrians escapes towards US consulate compound in Lahore. ISI officers quickly reach the scene and confiscating the memory sticks realize Raymond Davis has unearthed a deep secret which even their immediate bosses didn’t know about.

The sensitivity of information rattles the entire echelons of the ISI and even its own officers are sent under house arrest while the relevant cell steps forward. At that time even some of the top intelligence officers of the secretive ISI outside the relevant cell did not know that Osama bin Laden had died and his body was kept frozen at Tarbela. Young Raymond Davis had unearthed the biggest secret of the century, somehow. But now the Pandora’s Box had been opened. Pak top brass knew it had only a few days or weeks at best to capitalize Raymond Davis’ arrest before US get the intel.

In the next six weeks Pakistan plugs all leaks related to Osama’s death and makes sure that maximum gains are made for Raymond’s release. However,when Raymond Davis is released on March 16, his debriefing results in a tsunami of US policy, personal agendas and fueling of political rivalries. Everyone in the US chain of command now wanted to use the information to further personal goals from General
Petreaus to President Obama. On March 17, knowing that Pakistan had lost its trump card General Pervaiz Kayani releases a press statement in which he critically criticize drone attacks, first from him. From then on Pak Military raised its stance against drone attacks, fearing that US now might target its nuclear assets. While in USA, politics was at its full swing. General Petreaus wanted to get the buckle for Osama bin Laden’s death on his belt for his future political ambitions, while President Obama wanted the credit to help his sliding popularity. While the tussle continued, the other issue still pending was how to confirm Osama’s death.

In the next one month, nearly every week a top US official visited Pakistan, everyone meeting with General Kayani trying to convince him to hand over Osama’s body. While the stance from Pakistan remained, “Osama, Who?” It was a first in the history that so many US top officials had visited and met with a military chief of a foreign country in such a short time. Seeing nothing getting through the top military brass of Pakistan, US started a political and media campaign on the sides to put extra pressure on Pak Military.

Politics within Obama Administration was also at its full swing. Petraeus was pulling all the strings to take the credit, while trying to lay out a plan to get Osama bin Laden’s body out of Pakistan. President Obama on the other hand in one smooth move decided to “promote” Petraeus to the head of the CIA. The news got out in the first week of April that Petraeus was being transferred to the CIA. While at the main front, Obama continued to pressurize General Kayani and General Pasha and on April 5, Obama Administration submitted a report to the Congress that Pakistan government had no clear strategy to triumph over militants. Alongside the report the media campaign against Pak Military and the ISI continued.

The second week of April began with a bang for top Pak Military brass. On April 7, Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and White House advisor wrote a report arguing that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are not only a deterrent to India but also to USA. The obvious had now become clear that Obama Administration has indirectly sent a clear threat to Pakistan’s nuclear assets. The timing of the report was perfect with Centcom Chief Gen James Mattis meeting with General Kayani next day. In the meeting General Mattis asked about Pakistan’s cooperation in capturing Osama bin Laden.

This was ironically one of typical Hollywood thriller scene. Pakistan knew that US knew that Pakistan knows that US knows that Osama is dead. But Pakistan continued the naive game of “Osama Who?” while US continued to play the game that “Osama must be captured”. General Mattis leaves with veiled threats and stresses that Pakistan must do more to against the Al Qaeda and Taliban, or indirectly saying that Osama bin Laden must be handed over.

For the ten days US waits and sees how Pakistan responds to the threats, but Pakistan acts by burying its head in the sand – see no evil, hear no evil. Obama Administration ups the ante and on April 18 on Pakistan’s Geo TV, Adm. Mike Mullen said Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence “has a longstanding relationship with the Haqqani Network.That doesn’t mean everybody in the ISI, but it’s there.” Again, international media had its field day against Pakistan’s ISI and its links with Taliban.

After putting pressure on General Kayani, Adm. Mike Mullen meets with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Khalid Shameem Wyne and General Kayani on April 20. Admiral Mullen again demands indirectly that Pakistan needs to help USA in locating Osama bin Laden. Pakistan’s response was again, “Osama, Who?” Admiral Mullen however, left with another threat that if they came to know about Osama bin Laden’s location they would go ahead and take unilateral action. This is the same message which President Obama repeated in his announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death, when he said, “We will take actions in Pakistan, if we knew where he was.”

In response to continued threats from USA, Pakistan starts taking back its air bases from US in an attempt to avoid launching of any operation from its own soil. As a result on April 22 the news appears that Pakistan had taken back Shamsi Airbase from CIA/US forces. While Obama Administration was piling pressure on Pakistan, General Petraeus visited Pakistan on April 26 and met with General Kayani openly asking him to hand over Osama bin Laden, otherwise get ready to face the consequences. Same day Washington also critically attacked Pakistan Army’s counter-terrorism efforts. General Petraeus left with a clear message that unless Pakistan hands over Osama, US forces would be forced to take action over Pakistani soil. Pakistani Military knowing that US knew that Osama bin Laden was dead couldn’t understand Obama Administration’s continued stance on capturing Osama bin Laden. General Petraeus left with the ultimatum that either Pakistan handed over Osama or US would get him.

Same day meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) is held at Rawalpindi, one week ahead of schedule at the Joint Staff Headquarters. The top brass discussed the Osama issue and decision is reached to work out the Obama’s strategy leading to continuous threats for capturing Osama bin Laden alive, even after knowing that he was dead. While in Pakistan intelligence community starts using all of its sources to reach to the bottom of US’ demand of capturing Osama bin Laden. On April 28 President Obama signs General Petraeus’ transfer to CIA and next day signs the orders to attack the Abbottabad compounds. Thus Osama bin Laden’s credit is assured to President Obama.

On 29 April after President Obama signed the orders to “bring back” Osama bin Laden,Pakistani security agencies get a report that another order had been signed which had authorized US forces to neutralize Pakistan’s nuclear assets, if needed. The report was nothing short of seeing a death angel for the top Pak Military brass. Seeing the imminent threat, General Kayani tried his last shot when on 30 April 2011 he clearly stated in his Youm-e-Shuhada address: “Pakistan is a peace-loving country and wants friendly relations with other countries and our every step should move towards prosperity of the people. But we will not compromise our dignity and honour for it”. However, it didn’t stop what was about to come 24 hours later.

As night fell on Sunday, 1st May four choppers from a US Afghan base at a low altitude towards its destination in Abbottabad, to the same compound where Osama’s children were in the hiding. Without any detection courtesy of their latest stealth technology and Pakistan’s outdated technology the choppers continued over the Pakistani territory. Ironically, ten years ago a Pak Air force air commodore had raised concern about the outdated radar technology citing that US or worse India could fly helicopters into the country and take out nuclear installations and in reply he was shown the boot while no upgrades to the systems were made.

Anyway, the four choppers made it to the compound in Abbottabad. It is then that PakArmy was notified that they have a choice. Either face an entire barrage of US choppers attacking Pak nuclear assets or hand over Osama’s body. In the meanwhile the small gun battle at the Abbottabad compound continued and to give the drama some authenticity the US forces torched one of their own choppers. Pressed for time a Pakistani helicopter flew from Tarbela carrying dead body of Osama bin Laden which was stored in a cold storage there. While at Abbottabad Pak Army soldiers encircle the entire area around the compound within five minutes of the start of fire fight. The firefight continued for 35 more minutes, waiting for the Pakistani helicopter. Once the Pakistani helicopter reached the compound the three US choppers and the Pakistani helicopter flew towards the Afghan border, this time without the need to fly below the radar detection altitude.

Next day, the world woke up to the news that Osama bin Laden was dead and President Obama had delivered what President Bush and Dick Cheney couldn’t. But the Pak Military brass did not wake up, because they never slept the night before.

Lotte Pakistan Plans to Spend $500 Million to Increase Chemical Production

2010-09-24T14:45:00.003-04:00

Lotte is aconglomerate and one of the largest food and shopping groups in Japan and South Korea. This $500 million investment come in right after China's announced that its exporting Pakistan a 1000 MW Nuclear Plant !

Lotte Pakistan PTA Ltd., the nation’s only producer of pure terephthalic acid, plans to spend $500 million to increase output as demand rises for the chemical used in making polyester.

“The investment may be in another plant producing the same product in Pakistan,” Asif Saad, chief executive officer of the company, said in an interview in Karachi yesterday, without giving details. Lotte Pakistan is yet to decide a timeframe for the investment, Zain Talpur, a company spokesman, said today.

Demand for pure terephthalic acid may increase as textile makers use more polyester after the nation’s worst-ever floods destroyed cotton standing in fields, according to Syed Abid Ali, a research analyst at Arif Habib Securities Ltd. in Karachi. A jump in cotton prices to a 15-year high this month may also boost polyester demand.

Pakistan, the world’s third-largest cotton user, may import as much as 50 percent more of the fiber this year after floods damaged crops, Muhammad Arshad, a vice president at the Pakistan Central Cotton committee, said this month. The South Asian nation is the world’s fourth-largest cotton producer and textiles account for two-thirds of its overseas shipments.

Flooding since July 22 caused $7 billion of damage across the nation and 20 million people were displaced, according to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Lotte Pakistan’s shares, which have climbed 7.9 percent this year, rose 0.6 percent to 8.45 rupees at 9:21 a.m. on the Karachi Stock Exchange. The company doubled its profit in the quarter ended June 30 to 1.26 billion rupees ($14.6 million).

The company is 75 percent owned by South Korea’s Lotte Group which bought a majority stake in Pakistan PTA Ltd. in September 2009, according to the company’s website.

China to build 1000 MW Nuclear Plant in Chashma, Pakistan !

2010-09-21T09:05:00.004-04:00

Long trusted Pakistan's friend China going to help Pakistan in the power shortage crisis. China to build 1000 MW Nuclear plant in Chashma which is part of the deal signed in 2003 to build 10 nuclear plants in Pakistan.
Chashma I is a 300 MW Plant which has already completed.
Chashma II the 650 MW plants is near completion.
Chashma III and IV will be 1000 MW plants.
KANUPP-II, Karachi is under negotiations.

China gave its firmest government confirmation yet of plans to build two new nuclear reactors for Pakistan, but a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said she did not know about talks over a bigger reactor deal.

The spokeswoman Jiang Yu said China plans to help Pakistan expand its Chashma nuclear energy complex in Punjab by building two reactors in addition to one already operating and another nearing completion.

Her comments also suggested Beijing may see no need to seek approval for the two new Chashma reactors from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), an international council of governments, some of whose members have voiced qualms about the deal.

“This project is based on an agreement signed between the two countries in 2003 about cooperation in the nuclear power field,” Jiang told a regular news conference, citing plans to build the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors of about 300 megawatts each at Chashma.

“China has already notified the International Atomic Energy Agency about the relevant details, and invited the IAEA to exercise safeguards and oversight of this project,” said Jiang.

Up to now, Chinese government officials have been tight-lipped in public about the planned new units at Chashma, although the Chinese companies picked to build them have announced contract signings.

Jiang's statement that the new reactors come under a 2003 agreement may ruffle other countries that have pressed China to seek a waiver for them from the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a 46-member consensus-based body that seeks to ensure nuclear exports are not diverted to non-peaceful purposes.

The expansion of China's nuclear power ties with Pakistan has magnified unease in Washington, Delhi and other capitals worried about Pakistan's history of spreading nuclear weapons technology, its domestic instability, and about the potential exceptions created in international non-proliferation rules.

Jiang was also asked about the China National Nuclear Corp's statement on Monday that it is in talks to build a 1-gigawatt nuclear reactor for Pakistan, in addition to the four smaller Chashma units built, being finished or planned.

But she had less to say on this.

“We don't understand this matter. You can make further inquiries with the company,” Jiang said.

Pakistan is a long-standing partner of China, and has been suffering chronic power shortages.

To receive nuclear exports, nations that are not one of the five officially recognised atomic weapons states must usually place all their nuclear activities under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency, say NSG rules.

When the United States sealed its nuclear agreement with India in 2008, it won a waiver from that rule from the NSG after contentious negotiations in which China raised misgivings.

Washington and other governments have said China should at least seek a similar waiver for the planned new reactors in Pakistan.

But China now appears positioned to argue that the two new units at Chashma were part of an agreement made before it joined the NSG in 2004, and so do not need another waiver.

Beijing stayed quiet about Chashma at an NSG meeting in June and has not publicly sought an exemption.

Poverty Reduced by 50% during Musharraf Rule - World Bank Report

2010-08-08T12:45:00.001-04:00

ISLAMABAD: A World Bank survey has revealed that poverty in Pakistan was reduced by 50 percent on consumption-led growth of the economy under the rule of the former president, Pervez Musharraf.

“The percentage of the people living below the poverty line in Pakistan fell from 34.5 percent in 2001/02 to 17.2 percent in 2007/08,” World Bank said in its Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) paper, based on a survey conducted in fiscal year 2007/08. The bank is going to provide $6 billion to Pakistan on the basis of CPS findings.

According to Planning Commission officials, the PPP-led government asked the commission to conceal the results of the survey because the poverty started rising after the Musharraf’s regime.

According to the WB survey, poverty in urban areas fell from 22.7 percent in 2001/02 to 10.1 percent in 2007/08. In rural areas, it declined from 39.3 percent in 2001 to 20.6 percent in 2007/08, it said.

“This progress was a result of growth in real per adult consumption expenditure and declining inequality from 2005/06 to 2007/08,” the report said.

Key human development indicators of educational attainment, health outcomes and unemployment rates also corroborated these figures, the officials said.

The report showed that the pace of poverty reduction varied across provinces. Poverty in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa steadily declined from 1998/99 onwards. “In Sindh and Balochistan, it recorded sharp rises in 2001/02 and 2005/06, possibly owing to weak agriculture performance in those years,” the report said.

The reduction in poverty in KP is particularly noteworthy as officials believe that it was facilitated by higher remittances through both foreign and domestic channels. “The large volatility in poverty suggests that a substantial portion of Pakistan’s population is vulnerable, living close to the poverty line, and could fall into poverty as a result of shocks,” the report said.

The overlap between vulnerable and poor households is low as about 60 percent of the highly vulnerable population does not belong to the poorest 20 percent. This means that a significant share of the non-poor population is as vulnerable as poor households, it said.

The WB report conceded that the gains in poverty reduction may have been partly reversed in the wake of the recent economic crisis.

“Food and fuel prices rose by 23.7 and 18.4 percent, respectively in the review period, resulting in a 21 percent reduction in the purchasing power,” it said.

The 2007/08 household survey results also suggest that poverty started rising towards the end of the fiscal year.

Officials said that the impact of the recent economic downturn on poverty levels in the country will only be known when the next household survey is conducted.

The Task Force on Food Security estimated that poverty headcount increased to 33.8 percent in 2007/08 and 36.1 percent in 2008/09. This means that about 62 million people were below the poverty line in 2008/09.

Data suggests that between 2005 and 2009, over 12 to 14 million people may have been added to the ranks of the poor in Pakistan. This would translate into an increase in poverty from 22.3 percent of the population in 2005/06 to between 30-35 percent in 2008/09,” the report added.

Pakistan Motorcycle Production Passes One Million Units

2010-08-04T12:08:00.004-04:00

What should have happened in the 70's is happening now but better late than never. Motorcycles are finally 'Made In Pakistan'. Local manufacturing of motorcycles has made motorcycle rates immune from the variations in Dollar and Yen currency rates ! Pakistani manufacturers of Chinese and Japanese motorcycles crossed a one million mark. Japanese makes loose their share of the Pakistani market to 51% to the Chinese. Now only if the Chinese can help local brands of Cars break the near monopoly of the Japanese.

The Chinese very cunningly transferred technology to the Pakistani manufacturers to to eat up the Japanese share of the market. At the start of this century, 99 percent of the market share was with the Japanese brands which shrunk to 51.5 percent, while the local Chinese brands have a share of 48.5 percent.

The production of motorcycles in the country crossed one million units during the first eleven months of recently passed fiscal year 2010-11.Pakistan automobile brand members dominated by Japanese brands accounted for over 670,000 units while the non-members, mostly Chinese models produced over 400,000 unites from July-May (2009-10), according to Engineering Development Board (EDB).

Chinese motorcycles are making fast inroads in the local market against the Japanese brands, the EDB sources said.

Honda with sales of over 438,028 units till May this year was on top, followed by Yamaha that produced 113,288 units, the sources said while quoting Pakistan Automobiles Manufacturing Association (PAMA) statistics. The sources said that even in PAMA members, the next three largest producers are local brands using Chinese technology, adding that each of them produced more units than the Japanese brand of Suzuki. On the top is Hero that has produced 31,210 units till May and enjoys 4.5 percent share in the PAMA production, the data revealed.

The production of the company grew by 69 percent against 18,388 units produced in 2008-09, they said adding that only eight local, Chinese brands and three Japanese brands were PAMA members. The Chinese motorcycle producers have cumulatively produced over 114,000 motorcycles this year the total motorcycle production is estimated by the industry circles at around 1.1m units this year.

The sources said that more than 56,750 Japanese motorcycles rolled in during the first 11 months of the fiscal year 2009-10 adding that the local brands with Chinese technology produced 514,000 units, including around 35,000 three wheelers.

The high deletion in motorcycles has facilitated the local entrepreneurs to launch their own brands and not worry about imports.

Paradigm shift in Pak-Afghan relations !

2010-07-01T09:42:00.003-04:00

Pakistan scores a major victory in Pak-Afghan relations with the green signal to train Afghan troops.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has agreed to send a group of military officers to Pakistan for training, a significant policy shift that signals deepening relations between the long-wary neighbours, a major US newspaper reported.

“The move is a victory for Pakistan, which seeks a major role in Afghanistan,” the Washington Post said in a Kabul datelined report.

According to the report, 300 Afghan soldiers are currently being trained under bilateral agreements in other countries, including Turkey and India.

The report claimed officials in both countries have become increasingly convinced that the US war effort there is faltering.

Afghan officials said Karzai has begun to see Pakistan as a necessary ally in ending the war through negotiation with the Taliban or on the battlefield, the paper reported.

“This is meant to demonstrate confidence in Pakistan, in the hope of encouraging them to begin a serious consultation and conversation with us on the issue of the Taliban,” Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Karzai's national security adviser, said of the training agreement.

The previously unpublicised training would involve only a small group of officers, variously described as between a handful and a few dozen, but it has “enormous symbolic importance” as the first tangible outcome of talks between Karzai and Pakistan's military and intelligence chiefs that began in May.

Some key US officials involved in Afghanistan said they knew nothing of the arrangement.

“We are neither aware of nor have we been asked to facilitate training of the Afghan officer corps with the Pakistani military,” Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, head of the Nato training command in Afghanistan, said.

Washington has spent $27 billion to train and equip Afghan security forces since 2002, and President Obama's war strategy calls for doubling the strength of both the army and police force there by October 2011 to facilitate the gradual departure of US troops.

This week, Gen. David H. Petraeus, confirmed Wednesday as the new US and Nato war commander, said the United States wants to “forge a partnership or further the partnership that has been developing between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

In addition to taking military action against alleged Taliban sanctuaries inside its borders, Petraeus said, it is “essential” that Pakistan be involved “in some sort of reconciliation agreement” with the insurgents.

US officials are generally pleased with the rapprochement between Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the rapid progress of the talks has given some an uneasy feeling that events are moving outside US control.

While building Afghanistan's weak army is a key component of US strategy, more than 300 Afghan soldiers are currently being trained under bilateral agreements in other countries, including Turkey and India.

Pakistan has been pushing for months for a training deal, and Spanta said that a “limited” number of officers would be part of the new agreement. Details were still under discussion, but a senior Pakistani government official said the program was expected to begin “soon.”

Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington and an advocate of a Pakistani training program, said the plan could expedite joint operations between the two militaries and reduce suspicions about Pakistan within the Afghan army.

“This is a major move,” Nawaz said. “It will have a powerful signalling effect in both countries.”

Analysts and officials see a broader thaw in Afghanistan-Pakistan relations over the past year. Pakistani scholarships have been accepted by a number of Afghan university students, and Pakistan is training Afghan civilian officials, Spanta said.

“We have seen a paradigm shift in the relationship,” said Mohammad Sadiq, Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan. “And of course, both sides are benefiting from it.”

Déjà vu : Afghanistan-ISI join hands to bring peace !

2010-06-29T09:07:00.004-04:00

India tried to bloster non-Pushtoon Abdullah Abdullah during the previous Afghanistan elections. Now Hamid Karzai wants to undermine the Tajiks and give more control to the Pushtoons. ISI is backing Hamid Karzai starting a new chapter in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations.

Pakistani proposals for peace talks between President Hamid Karzai and an insurgent commander have triggered political tensions inside Afghanistan that analysts warn could dangerously destabilise the country.

Western officials say Pakistan's ISI spy agency has offered to negotiate with Sirajuddin Haqqani – an al-Qaida linked commander – as part of a broader initiative to find a find a settlement to the conflict.

Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, and the head of the ISI, Lieutenant General Shuja Pasha, are due to arrive in Kabul tomorrow for their third meeting with Karzai in recent months.

Frosty relations between the two sides have thawed in recent months; about 10 days ago reports emerged from Pakistan that the ISI was offering to "deliver" the Haqqani network, which is based in North Waziristan in the tribal belt.

Today a suspected CIA drone attacked a compound in North Waziristan, killing at least three people, in the second strike in as many days. At the same time al-Jazeera television reported that the talks were so advanced that Karzai had met Haqqani in the presence of Kayani and Pasha – a report that officials denied emphatically.

But the very notion of Pakistani-sponsored talks has sparked consternation among Afghanistan's ethnically fractured opposition, who fear the rapprochement with Islamabad will see them excluded from any future political settlement.

"None of the players believe in the current strategy," opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah told the Guardian. "Karzai is going down the drain and taking the international community with him.

"If he thinks he can give [the Taliban] a few ministries and a few provinces, they will simply take those provinces and then force him out."

Abdullah said he was appalled that the Afghan president had recently referred to the Taliban with the affectionate "jan" suffix. "Talib-jan is how you would refer to your dearest young son – it would be considered too soft to use on a teenager."

Three weeks ago Karzai's intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, and his interior minister, Hanif Atmar, quit in protest at the new Pakistan policy. Both men are Tajiks; Saleh was previously a leading member of the Northern Alliance that helped topple the Taliban in 2001.

Michael Semple, a regional expert, said he was alarmed at the speed with which the political class was fissuring.

"Sane people, who've been part of this process all along, are now saying the country won't survive till the end of the year," he said.

The proposed Haqqani talks have also annoyed US officials, who complain that Karzai is increasingly excluding them in favour of direct dealings with Pakistan. "Karzai hasn't done the groundwork for a deal. What happened with Saleh shows that there's a lot of consternation out there," said one western official.

The ISI, which has long been accused of harbouring the Taliban inside Pakistan's long western border, insists it is not manoeuvring to return the group to power in Afghanistan. An official said policy was to seek a political settlement involving all Afghan factions. "We can live with a hostile Afghanistan, as long as it is peaceful and stable," he said.

Relations between Karzai and Pakistan are thawing rapidly. Pakistani officials have begun to speak warmly of a figure they previously disparaged. The ISI offered him "unconditional support on any and all decisions he makes about the future of Afghanistan," the official said.

Despite the intense speculation, a senior Nato official in Kabul said progress towards a deal was "pretty tentative", adding there was "no real substance in terms of talks and what a deal with the ISI might look like". But he said that with a huge fight against "their own Taliban" the Pakistanis were reluctant to divert soldiers to tackling sanctuaries enjoyed by the Afghan Taliban. And although Karzai has tempered his anti-Pakistan rhetoric in public, he still distrusts the Pakistanis. "If anything, rapprochement between the two sides is frustratingly slow," he added.

It is not clear whether the ISI, for all its reputed influence, is able to "deliver" the Taliban or Haqqani group that easily. One western official said that while the agency has a strong relationship with the military groups, it was not clear whether it extended to "command and control".

"It's like Iran and Hezbollah," said the official. "It's much easier to judge when they are both moving in the same direction. But that is not always the case."

Semple, the analyst, warned that as players to the conflict jockey for position, some were engaging in "disinformation warfare" to influence public opinion. So far, he said, "the story with Haqqani talks is that it's just a story."

Pakistan is beginning to turn a corner in civil-military relations

2010-05-19T23:26:00.000-04:00

Pakistan is beginning to turn a corner in civil-military relations, American scholar and author Dr Daniel N. Nelson said on Wednesday while speaking about ‘understanding civil-military relations.’ The event was organised by the US Consulate.

Dr Nelson added that more needed to be done to ensure civilian democratic control over the military. The military and intelligence agencies must reveal their budget, and be available for parliamentary inquiry and testimony. Prolonged militancy could endanger civil-military relations by engaging the army in combating terrorism and diverting scarce resources towards it instead of addressing societal and economic needs, he said. Eliminating militancy and terrorism was therefore imperative so that civilians could turn their attention towards the basic needs of the people and promote democratic control over military and intelligence agencies.

Dr Nelson was of the opinion that five factors ñ laws, change of culture, structure and process, transparency and budgetary control ñ were vital for establishing control of civilian elected government over ‘all national security structures.’ While dictators have termed laws and the Constitution as pieces of paper and burnt them, it was essential for the president or the prime minister to be the commander of the armed forces. He added that it was also vital that generals not be nominated from one particular ethnic group.

Norms or values can be changed only by determining whether the army should be in-charge or subservient; whether it should control the defence ministry or listen to a civilian minister. There have been times even in the USA where army generals considered themselves important and were even elected as presidents.

The US passed the ‘National Security Act’ in 1947, the year when Pakistan became independent, to put the CIA under the control of civilians, Dr Nelson said, adding that there were times, especially during the Korean war, when relations between the president and the army chief became strained, prompting President Truman to fire the army chief. This, Dr Nelson said, was a fight to ensure democratic control over the army.

When the intelligence agencies gave misleading information about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, President George Bush appointed a commission to ‘restructure’ the intelligence agency, resulting in the creation of the post of ‘director of national intelligence’ to ensure ‘external surveillance’ over intelligence agencies. Transparency and openness, Dr Nelson said, were vital ingredients for establishing civilian control over the military. This could be achieved through the promulgation of the Freedom of Information Act, and hearing and testimony by the legislature where high level officials of the intelligence agencies should appear to testify. He said that budgetary control of intelligence agencies was also essential, even though it has been observed that the intelligence apparatus terms its budget as secret. Dr Nelson, who now heads a think tank’ Global Concept and Communications’ in Virginia, said that all this required civilians to also undergo the same scrutiny.

A number of developing countries, including Muslim countries such as Indonesia and Turkey, have gone to the ‘next level’ where now there were strong chances of a stable democracy. African countries, such as Ghana, which suffered seven successive coups have also graduated to the next level.

Referring his recent talks with two Pakistani army generals, Dr Nelson said that the generals also did not want to be in-charge of civilians as it required ‘too much time and too much money.’ He admitted that the USA supported military regimes during the Cold War out of fear of communism.

About the army’s corporate interests, Dr Nelson recalled that even US President Eisenhower once warned against the implications of the ‘power of the military industrial complex.’

China's Pakistan Corridor

2010-04-30T00:46:00.004-04:00

Even though Pakistan is fighting its war on terror China is investing in Pakistan's economy like there is no tomorrow. China's main interest in the treacherous territory of Balochistan are the copper mines and the Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea.

In the Pakistani province of Balochistan, South Asia and central Asia bleed into the Middle East. Bordered by Afghanistan, Iran and the Persian Gulf, and well endowed with oil, gas, copper, gold and coal reserves, Balochistan is a rich prize that should have foreign investors battering at the gates. But for a half-century it has been the exclusive playground of the Pakistani government and its state-owned Chinese partners. China would prefer it to stay that way.

China is Pakistan's oldest military and political ally, but in the last two decades it is the economic component of the alliance that has taken center stage. Pakistan, and in particular Balochistan, is China's physical link to its sizable investments in Iranian gas, Afghan hydropower and Gulf oil. Explains Andrew Small, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund, the Sino-Pak relationship "matters more now, because of India's economic growth. Pakistan being a trade and energy corridor means that possible pipelines and projects [in Pakistan] have a strategic significance beyond the specific investments." Chinese control of Pakistan's commodities corridor can "bind India down in South Asia, restricting its capacity to operate elsewhere."

Chinese companies have poured at least $15 billion into Baloch projects: an oil refinery, copper and zinc mines and a deepwater port at Gwadar, in the Gulf of Oman. "They wanted Gwadar to be another Dubai," says Khurram Abbas, the port's managing director, "to capture the transit trade with countries that are landlocked, like Afghanistan, and to encourage transshipment trade from the Persian Gulf to East Africa."

China's Tianjin Zhongbei Harbor Engineering has invested $200 million to build the first three berths and plans to invest a total of $1.6 billion to expand the port in the future. But business at Gwadar has been slow. Though the three berths have the capacity to handle $2 billion worth of cargo a year, the port saw only $700 million in 2009. "The challenge," says Abbas, "is that Gwadar is not yet linked to the rest of the country. The government was supposed to provide road connectivity. Without roads there can be no commercial activity [in Balochistan]. And we need commercial activity, investors to set up factories around Gwadar, to get cargo for the port."

China is taking matters into its own hands, starting to build a highway from Gwadar to the capital of Balochistan, Quetta, on the Afghan border, where it will connect to Pakistan's national highway network, and from there to the Karakoram Highway that leads into China. China's Harbor Engineering Corps is also working on a new airport at Gwadar, due to open in 2013.

Infrastructure is not the only challenge that Chinese investors in Balochistan face. The province is a key battleground in the wars currently threatening Pakistan. Quetta is rumored to be hiding wanted leaders from the Afghan Taliban. Small towns in the Baloch heartland, meanwhile, are a launchpad for a decades-old separatist movement that capitalizes on populist resentment of federal agencies and foreign investment Chinese firms can usually weather these threats. Explains the German Marshall Fund's Small, "They are less concerned about security than the U.S. because they have faith in the Pakistani military's ability to look out for their interests, a level of faith that Chinese workers will get privileged levels of protection even amidst destabilizing [political] circumstances." Unsaid: China is willing to play in the bribery culture traditional to the area.

Moreover, China recruits local figures as managers. Muhammad Sanjrani, the managing director of China's Saindak copper mine in Chagai, Balochistan, is also the head of the local tribe, with historic control of the Chagai region, and has worked to sell the project to the populace.

Beijing is willing to play hardball to protect its position in Balochistan. That's a lesson learned the hard way for Tethyan Copper, a joint venture between Canada's Barrick Gold ( ABX - news - people ) and Chile's Antofagasta. In 2006 Tethyan signed a deal to survey, and then develop, the Reko Diq reserve in Balochistan, estimated to hold $70 billion in copper and gold.

Though the provincial government holds a 25% stake in the venture, the deal was signed between the federal government and Tethyan's foreign execs, and no prominent tribal authorities are involved. As a result, the mine has been unusually unpopular, exacerbating threats to other foreign investments in the province, including China's highway project.

In January the Baloch government, struggling politically and looking to appease separatist hardliners, announced it would cancel Tethyan's license and force investors to absorb a $3 billion loss. Almost immediately the U.S. intervened, putting pressure on the Pakistani central government to dissuade Quetta from doing this. U.S. diplomats believe the sanctity of the Tethyan deal is essential to its efforts to encourage Western investment in Pakistan as a counter terror tool.

For China, however, American intervention was an alarm bell, confirming longstanding suspicions in Beijing that Pakistan's alliance with the U.S. in Afghanistan would come at the expense of China's relationship with the Pakistani military establishment and its exclusive access to Pakistan's wealth and strategic location.

But the confrontation between Pakistan's central government, responding to U.S. pressure, and a more intransigent provincial leadership also presented China with an opportunity. The giant Metallurgical Corp. of China, which controls the Chinese stake in the Saindak site, bid to take over the Reko Diq site from Tethyan, too.

Though the provincial and federal governments have yet to agree, MCC made a compelling case. In private meetings with Baloch leaders the Chinese representatives agreed to build a railroad and a power plant in Balochistan as well as to waive any requirements for sovereign guarantees. Says a frustrated William N. Center, the U.S. State Department's foreign commercial attaché in Pakistan, "These are terms that no private company could compete with."

Push to the Sea
A highway from Gwadar to Quetta will serve as a pipeline for China. Metallurgical Corp. of China, a stakeholder in the Saindak copper mine, is aiming to take over Barrick's Reko Diq site.

Reko Diq :

Reko Diq is a small town in Chagai District, Balochistan, Pakistan, in a desert area 70 kilometres north west of Naukundi, near to the Iran-Afghan border.

Reko Diq, also the name of an ancient volcano, literally means sandy peak, but this is something of a misnomer. It could be called Tangav Diq, or gold peak, because according to development expert Syed Fazl-e-Haider, below the sands lie some 12.3 million tons of copper and 20.9 million ounces of gold. The copper-gold deposits at Reko Diq are believed to be even bigger than those of Sarcheshmeh in Iran and Escondida in Chile.

Reko Diq is a large copper-gold porphyry mineral deposit on the Tethyan belt, located in southwest Pakistan in the province of Balochistan in which Barrick holds a 37.5% interest. A pre-feasibility study was completed in third quarter 2009; a full feasibility study is being finalized and is under review and progress continues with the expansion studies and the baseline environmental and social impact assessment which is expected to be completed in the first half of 2010.

Barrick’s share of measured and indicated and inferred gold resources are 9.5 million ounces1 and 6.4 million ounces1, respectively and its share of measured and indicated and inferred copper resources are 11.7 billion pounds1 and 8.4 billion pounds.

China to build two 650-MW Nuclear Reactors in Pakistan - Chashma-3 and -4.

2010-04-28T23:43:00.005-04:00

After the completion of 300 MW Chashma-I and Chashma-II Nuclear reactors China today signalled building of two more Nuclear Reactors. Pakistan Deal Signals China's Growing Nuclear Assertiveness

A mum US watches the pending Sino–Pakistan reactor deal turn into reality and reflects the growing confidence and assertiveness of China’s nuclear energy program. Contrary to guidelines adopted in 1992 by nuclear equipment supplier states in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), China is poised to export two 650 MW Nuclear power reactors to Pakistan. This transaction is about to happen at a time when China’s increasingly ambitious nuclear energy program is becoming more autonomous.

Guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), representing 46 NPT states, call on parties to the NPT not to supply nuclear equipment to non–nuclear-weapon states without comprehensive IAEA safeguards, including Pakistan. China joined the NSG in 2004.

The United States and other NSG states may object to the pending transaction but they cannot prevent China from exporting the reactors. Senior officials in NSG states friendly to the United States said this month they expect that President Barack Obama will not openly criticize the Chinese export because Washington, in the context of a bilateral security dialogue with Islamabad, may be sensitive to Pakistan’s desire for civilian nuclear cooperation in the wake of the sweeping U.S.–India nuclear deal which entered into force in 2008 after considerable arm-twisting of NSG states by the United States, France, and Russia. The United States may also tolerate China’s new nuclear deal with Pakistan because Obama wants China’s support for United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran this spring.

China’s Civilian Nuclear Industry On The March:

The pending Sino–Pakistan reactor deal reflects the growing confidence and assertiveness of China’s nuclear energy program as it establishes a track record of reliability in reactor construction and operation. Chinese nuclear entities are wary of interference from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in their programs and are keen to establish their freedom of action vis-à-vis cooperating foreign governments and firms. China within a few years also wants to become a global nuclear equipment exporter.

If China succeeds, ten years from now it will likely become the world’s second-biggest nuclear power generator after the United States. After years of bilateral disputes over nonproliferation issues, in 1998 the U.S. Congress allowed a 1985 Sino–U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement to enter into force. After that, U.S. nuclear cooperation with China dramatically increased, culminating in China’s 2006 selection of a consortium of companies led by Westinghouse to build four AP1000 power reactors in China. Westinghouse bested bidders from France and Russia in a competition set up by China to determine which of the three would provide the technology blueprint for the future standardized development of China’s nuclear power industry.

China chose Westinghouse after it agreed to transfer to China ownership of the technology for the new and untried 1,000-MW reactor. China then awarded contracts to Westinghouse and its partners to build four AP1000s in China. The first two are scheduled to be finished in 2013. Westinghouse scored another coup when in 2008 China selected AP1000 for China’s first raft of inland power reactors.

Westinghouse’s apparent emergence as primus inter pares among foreign reactor vendors in China in 2006 was linked to the fortunes of the State Nuclear Power Technology Co. (Snptc). It was set up by China’s State Council of Ministers to take charge of technology selection and transfer for China’s future nuclear power program, after two decades during which China organized a handful of “boutique” reactor projects in cooperation with Canada, France, Japan, and Russia.

China also does not share NRC’s view that a terrorist attack on reactors, using a hijacked passenger aircraft as a weapon, is a realistic enough scenario to warrant modifying the design. Right now, China operates only eleven reactors representing about 9 gigawatts (GW) of installed generating capacity, but these have established a record of reliability, and have convinced China’s leaders that nuclear power is safe, efficient, and profitable. Fed by galloping energy demand and concerns for global warming among Chinese leaders, China’s appetite for nuclear power is now increasing. In 2005 China expected to have 40 GW on line by 2020. Chinese officials and executives now routinely assert that by 2020 China will have a total installed capacity over 70 GW. If China succeeds, ten years from now it will likely become the world’s second-biggest nuclear power generator after the United States.

Shortly after China selected Westinghouse to shape its nuclear future, rival Areva made a separate deal with China to build two of its new EPR reactors in Guangdong Province in China’s southeast, where French nuclear firms have been engaged since the late 1980s. Unlike Westinghouse, Areva also offered China a suite of fuel cycle technology options, and French officials hoped that a mammoth fuel cycle deal would coax China to continue building the EPR.

In line with plans by China to build more reactors, China promulgated that it would follow the path of France, Russia, and Japan and embark on commercial-scale plutonium separation from China’s spent fuel, and recycle of the plutonium as reactor fuel. Areva offered China to help set up a reprocessing industry in China, modeled on its own experience in France. More recently, Russia has made a counteroffer to do the same, vowing to integrate Chinese labs into advanced fuel cycle R&D work now ongoing in Russian centers.

China’s nuclear power program has become more aggressive, politically organized, and independent of its foreign partners in the wake of recent changes in China’s decision-making structure. China will certainly build more reactors than it anticipated when beginning in 2003 it organized the competition leading to selection of Westinghouse. But many or most of these set up this decade will likely not be AP1000s or EPRs but instead be based on the original French design built in Guangdong and now dubbed China Pressurized Water Reactor or CPR-1000. To meet China’s higher targets for more nuclear capacity, China is now replicating these CPRs.

Rumors in Beijing circulated last month that China will therefore go back on its plan to permit Westinghouse to build all of the first group of inland power reactors in the country. Chinese officials won’t confirm that, but utility executives―including at China Power Investment Corp. (CPI), a major AP1000 investor—said that China through 2020 will shift resources away from more AP1000s and instead toward cookie-cutter construction of the CPR at many Chinese locations, including at inland sites.

In the meantime, the ambitious construction schedule for the U.S.-designed reactors in China has come under heavy pressure.

In part out of Chinese concern to keep construction on track, China’s nuclear regulator, the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA), will not agree to a proposal, favored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Westinghouse, to modify the design of the containment structure of the AP1000 to provide improved protection against an air crash. In the United States, NRC, after a design review prompted by post-9/11 concerns about terrorist threats, asked Westinghouse to change the design of a shield building which is part of the containment and to use stronger materials. Westinghouse then urged China to also follow that advice.

China will not do that, Beijing officials said last month after consultations with Westinghouse and U.S. regulators. “China will build Revision 15,” the AP1000 design version originally approved for construction in both the United States and in China, one official said. “It will not approve Revision 17,” which incorporates the changes sought by NRC and Westinghouse, he said.

Changing the AP1000 design now would require construction in China to be halted and delayed. China also does not share NRC’s view that a terrorist attack on reactors, using a hijacked passenger aircraft as a weapon, is a realistic enough scenario to warrant modifying the design.

The Westinghouse project has encountered other challenges which, so far, have not caused schedule delays. Last year, a key firm which is part of the technology transfer program, China First Heavy Industries (CFHI), failed to produce forgings to the required quality standard for the AP1000. Project executives said CFHI had difficulty handling the demanding steel material called for in critical components. The schedule was not set back because a Westinghouse partner in Korea, Doosan, had a stock of prototype forgings it had made earlier. The AP1000 has also encountered problems in main coolant pumps, which are of a unique design. Chinese officials said last year that further deployment of the AP1000 would depend on successful demonstration of these pumps, which were a critical feature of the passive cooling system billed as one of the key advantages of this reactor model. According to diplomats there have also been some Chinese bureaucratic delays for certain AP1000 project approvals.

Fed by galloping energy demand and concerns for global warming among Chinese leaders, China’s appetite for nuclear power is now increasing.
Nearly immediately after partnering with Westinghouse, Snptc demanded the U.S. firm aggressively localize AP1000 production at a pace Westinghouse would not agree to, including for safety reasons. Snptc and Westinghouse then compromised, but utility investors say that the AP1000 program cannot go fast enough to localize and at the same time supply China’s growing nuclear power needs, and that China has continued to pressure Westinghouse to accelerate the localization program. Because production of CPRs in China is already highly localized after about 15 years of Chinese experience, domestic politics in China favors building more of these reactors.

Snptc also wants Westinghouse to increase the power of the reactor to 1,400 MW and then to 1,700 MW, matching the EPR. According to Snptc last month the 1,400-MW design will be ready for construction by 2013. Many foreign executives are skeptical that schedule will hold up.

China’s nuclear power program has become more aggressive, politically organized, and independent of its foreign partners in the wake of recent changes in China’s decision-making structure. Those at the top of this pinnacle are now watching how Snptc delivers in tandem with Westinghouse.

Ten years ago Chinese central planners began looking at uranium as their chosen future fuel to meet breakneck demand for base load electricity. But Premier Zhu Rongji, who was skeptical, kept the lid on.

Under Zhu, who was replaced by Wen Jiabao in 2003, the biggest player in nuclear energy decision making was the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA), which answered to the Committee for Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (Costind), an organization which supervised all defense-related industry. Under Zhu, Costind and CAEA began losing power, especially after China in 1998 established the General Armaments Department (GAD), now one of four departments of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). As GAD’s authority increased, Costind’s and CAEA’s diminished.

Two years ago, China set up a brand new organization to take command of China’s energy policy, including nuclear policy, the National Energy Administration (NEA). It is headed by Zhang Guobao, who strongly favors nuclear power development and who is also Vice-Chairman of China’s leading planning agency, the National Development and Reform Council (NDRC). NEA has largely supplanted CAEA, and it reports to Li Keqiang, China’s First Vice-Premier, a likely successor to Wen Jiabao.

NEA—which is staffed by about 170 experts, including fewer than 20 responsible for nuclear matters—cooperates with NDRC on setting planning targets, but NEA decides which reactors will be built, at what sites, and which state-owned enterprises will get contracts. It, Chinese officials said last month, will favor construction of more CPRs, and will also support China’s biggest nuclear SOE, the China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC) with a total payroll of over 100,000, in exporting more reactors to Pakistan.

Possible Considerations in a China-Pakistan Deal :
China has long assisted Pakistan’s nuclear energy program. In 1991 CNNC contracted with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) to build Chashma-1, a 325 MW power reactor. It was finished and began operating in 2000.

In 2004, China joined the NSG. China then explained to the NSG that a longstanding framework agreement with Pakistan committed China to provide a second reactor, Chashma-2, more research reactors, plus supply of all the fuel in perpetuity for these units. Chashma-2 construction began in 2005.

Chashma-2 is scheduled to be finished in 2011. To keep CNNC at work in Pakistan thereafter, CNNC and PAEC negotiated terms for two 650-MW reactors, Chashma-3 and -4.

In 2006 Pakistan urged China to approve the new project but China was not keen to do so. Pakistan diplomats said then China was holding back because it was not clear that the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal would be approved by both governments and by the NSG.

Chinese officials said last month that export of the reactors to Pakistan would be justified in consideration of political developments in South Asia, including the entry into force of the U.S.–India deal and the NSG exemption for India.
After the U.S.–India deal was approved and India’s NSG exemption entered into force without any Chinese objections in 2008, China’s policy evolved to support demands by Pakistan for compensation, but China did not expressly advocate awarding Pakistan a broad exemption from NSG trade sanctions matching India’s.

NSG country representatives last week said they expect that the Obama administration will accept a limited amount of additional Chinese nuclear commerce with Pakistan as a price for getting Chinese support on UN Security Council sanctions against Iran in weeks ahead. Some suggested that the United States would also enlist China in this regard to persuade Pakistan to drop its opposition to negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, which Pakistan has said it could not accept because the U.S.–India deal had tilted the nuclear balance in South Asia in India’s favor.

As long as Pakistan resists outside initiatives which would limit the autonomy of its strategic nuclear program, and because China is believed to be hiding behind Pakistan in avoiding making a firm FMCT commitment in light of China’s strategic dilemmas with the United States, it is doubtful whether China would have effective influence on Pakistani decisions to halt fissile material production.

Mindful that the NPT’s 189 parties will convene a Review Conference on the status of the treaty in May, European diplomats told Chinese counterparts last month that the NSG will currently not agree to exempt Pakistan from NSG sanctions, regardless of Pakistan’s demands for such a step during bilateral security talks with the United States.

Senior NSG diplomats said this month that they expect that soon after China has completed political and contractual arrangements for the reactor sale to Pakistan, China will inform the NSG of its planned transaction. The matter could then be taken up by the NSG as an agenda item or point of business at a future NSG meeting. So far no NSG meetings are scheduled in 2010 prior to an annual plenary meeting in New Zealand in late June.

The U.S. State Department, in line with its response to a 1998 reactor export from Russia to India, continues to hold that a new reactor export by China to Pakistan would be contrary to both NSG and U.S. policy, but whether the United States would record an objection at the NSG or encourage other NSG states to do so would be up to President Obama following interagency discussions and consultation with foreign governments including Pakistan and China.

If the United States were not to register opposition to China’s new exports, that would signal the United States under Obama was prepared to brush off an important nuclear nonproliferation norm on grounds of political expediency.
Chinese officials said last month that export of the reactors to Pakistan would be justified in consideration of political developments in South Asia, including the entry into force of the U.S.–India deal and the NSG exemption for India. Western diplomats said China would not strongly favor an NSG exemption for Pakistan matching India’s because that would not additionally benefit Chinese industry and because Pakistan, compared to India, is a limited nuclear power market with far less infrastructure and far fewer financial resources.

China in 2004 did not claim that more power reactors after Chashma-2 would be “grandfathered” by the prior Sino–Pakistan nuclear accord, and China has argued instead that there are compelling political reasons concerning the stability of South Asia to justify the exports. China will therefore not justify the transactions on the basis of any confidential commercial agreements between China and Pakistan, NSG state representatives said.

Should any NSG party object to these Chinese exports, the NSG would have no recourse to prevent the transaction, because its guidelines are not legally binding, leaving a decision to abide by the guidelines up to each sovereign member state.

Notification by China of intent to export reactors to Pakistan will prompt an internal debate among NSG members over whether to “jointly reconsider their common safeguards requirements” under paragraph 5 of the NSG guidelines, because the Sino–Pakistan transaction came to fruition just two years after the United States, France, and Russia firmly pressured many supplier states to grant India a broad exception to NSG trade rules.

A long term remedy could be provided...by making significant changes in the rules governing the world’s nuclear nonproliferation and trade regime.
In support of the U.S.–India deal, former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei in bilateral meetings with NSG states in 2007 and 2008 urged the NSG to eventually lift NPT sanctions against both Pakistan and Israel.

U.S. diplomats beginning in 2005 held out to Pakistan a distant promise that it would be exempted from the NSG safeguards requirements, but they weren’t counting on having to make the hard choices faced by the United States concerning Pakistan and China on many fronts in 2010. Still, if the United States were not to register opposition to China’s new exports, that would signal the United States under Obama was prepared to brush off an important nuclear nonproliferation norm on grounds of political expediency. Since NSG states are awaiting leadership from the United States on how to eventually respond to China’s challenge of the rules, tacit U.S. acquiescence would seriously damage the NSG’s credibility as a rule maker for nuclear trade.

A long term remedy could be provided—as Switzerland in 2008 suggested in explaining its approval of the NSG exemption for India—by making significant changes in the rules governing the world’s nuclear nonproliferation and trade regime. But the breach created by the U.S.-India deal, which would be opened wider by Chinese export of reactors to Pakistan, will not be easily closed because, as stated by paragraph 16 of the guidelines, “unanimous consent is required for any changes in the guidelines.” In the meantime, as global nuclear trade surges, NPT suppliers will be encouraged to ignore the rules.

$1.9 billion Nuclear Deal with China. Nuclear Deal with the US a matter of time : Indian Abroad

2010-04-01T23:27:00.001-04:00

WASHINGTON, March 30: A US nuclear deal with Pakistan is simply a matter of time, says a report distributed on Tuesday by the India Abroad news service.

The New York-based news agency, widely used by publications in India, disputed speculations that Pakistan made little gains in last week’s strategic dialogue with the US.

The report claimed that when the Pakistani delegation to the strategic dialogue asked for nuclear power plants, the US response was that “this could be discussed”.

“The US has nothing to lose by signing a nuclear deal with Pakistan. In fact, it will gain by nuclear trade with Pakistan, which will have no qualms about meeting the American conditions,” the report said.

“US diplomats say that the good thing with Pakistanis is that they do what they are asked to do, while the Indians would give twenty reasons why it cannot be done.”

The report also claimed that the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the International Atomic Energy Agency board would also succumb to the US pressure as they did after Washington signed a nuclear deal with New Delhi.

The report noted that more than a year ago a US think-tank study suggested that a nuclear deal for Pakistan was desirable on the same ground that worked in the Indian case -- a partly regulated Pakistani nuclear system would serve the cause of non-proliferation more than a totally unregulated one.

The report pointed out that during the Afghan war, US presidents had repeatedly certified that Pakistan had no nuclear weapons, when they knew well that China was filling Pakistan cupboards with fissile material.

“If Chinese collaboration did not hurt the US then, there is no reason why it should hurt the US now?” the report asked.

The Indian media also claimed that Pakistan had finalised its own civilian nuclear deal with China.

The media noted that an agreement was reached last week before Islamabad’s high-level strategic talks with Washington. The deal calls for China to provide loans and technical aid to Pakistan to build two atomic power facilities, the Daily Times reported. Informed sources said Beijing would loan Pakistan more than 80 per cent of the project’s $1.9 billion cost.

The news agency also reported that while the US would not do mediation in Kashmir, it would bring pressure on both India and Pakistan to shelve the issue, if not to resolve it. “The US position remains that the solution of Kashmir is ‘LoC Plus’, with the ‘Plus’ left undefined.”

During the Kargil conflict, the report noted, the then US President Bill Clinton was as adamant that India should not cross the LoC as he was about Pakistan withdrawing to the LOC on their side. “Available reports indicate that this is exactly what India and Pakistan are seeking through the back channels.”

On the Kashmir issue, the report noted, the US could gain more by appearing not to intervene as it did not need to take the blame for delay or failure. Yet, “the US DNA will be visible all over the place if a solution breaks out”.

The biggest gain for Pakistan from the Washington parleys, according to the report, was the roadmap, drawn for America’s exit from the Pak-Afghan region by 2011.

“This will involve greater Pakistani war efforts, for which Pakistan will be compensated by a speedy disbursement of the Coalition Support Fund,” the report added.

“But more importantly, Pakistan has received assurances that no dispensation in Afghanistan will be inimical to Pakistani interests and that Pakistan will have a say in the determination of the future of the region.”

The report warned: “India would definitely not be part of the new order if the US could help it. Pakistan’s gains in this area are considerable. This is where the relationship between the US and Pakistan has turned into a partnership and Foreign Minister Qureshi has become ‘a happy man, a satisfied man’.”

Pakistan to get Shadow Drones and 18 F-16's from the US !

2010-03-30T00:38:00.002-04:00

Pakistan is scheduled to get 18 of the Block 52 F-16s, Oliver Hazard Perry Class frigate by fall and is expected to receive Shadow Drones within a year, a Pentagon official has said. Islamabad is set to receive all this military help under the enhanced US-Pakistan strategic cooperation.

"I would like to think that we would get them (Pakistan) within the year," the official said on Monday. "Shadow (Drone) is one of the things that they had asked for, and as we expanded and talked about other UAV platforms to be able to use is when they said: Well, let's take a look at them and then let's make sure we're picking the right one," the official said, adding that Shadow drones may in fact be the right platform at the end of the day.

In the last three years, the US has provided 14 F-16s, five fast patrol boats, 115 self-propelled howitzer field artillery cannons, more than 450 vehicles, hundreds of night- vision goggles, day and night scopes, radios, protective vests and first aid items to Pakistan's security forces. "Other significant military assistance to be provided later through this year through our Foreign Military Sales and Foreign Military Financing programs includes the delivery of the first batch of 18 of the Block 52 F-16s scheduled for the Pakistan Air Force, to arrive sometime this summer; and an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate, the first for Pakistan Navy, this fall," the official said.

In fiscal year 2008, the US provided in excess of USD 1 billion as grants to Pakistan in security assistance and training. It, then, doubled in the last fiscal to just over USD 2 billion, and the figure is now projected to surpass this year.

"This significant commitment highlights the importance we place on our strategic long-term relationship and support for Pakistan," the official said, while observing that this was being done to assist Islamabad in the fight against terrorism.

The Obama Administration values Pakistan's strategic insight when it comes to Afghanistan and the region, and continues to consult their leaders closely, as exemplified by numerous visits by senior US officials to Islamabad, the official said. "Pakistan, is a key ally, and we face a common enemy and a common goal: a stable and secure Pakistan and the region," he added.

The Pentagon official said Pakistani officials were recently shown models of some drones in Afghanistan so that they would articulate their requirements. However, the US would not provide Pakistanis with drones having strike capabilities. "On the strike capability of drones, it's not US policy to be able to give any lethal capabilities with any of the drone technology that we do for any of the countries," the official said in response to a question.

Pakistan Growth Time Line !

2010-02-11T20:55:00.001-05:00

Pak Economy in 1999 was: $ 75 billion
Pak Economy in 2007 is: $ 160 billion
Pak Economy in 2008 is: $ 170 billion

GDP Growth in 1999: 3.1 %
GDP Growth in 2005: 8.4 %
GDP Growth in 2007: 7 %
GDP Growth in 2009: 2 %

GDP Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in 1999: $ 270 billion
GDP Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in 2007: $ 475.5 billion
GDP Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in 2008: $ 504.3 billion

GDP per Capita Income in 1999: $ 450
GDP per Capita Income in 2007: $ 926
GDP per Capita Income in 2008: $1085

Pak revenue collection 1999: Rs. 305 billion
Pak revenue collection 2007: Rs. 708 billion
Pak revenue collection 2008: Rs. 990 billion

Pak Foreign reserves in 1999: $ 1.96 billion
Pak Foreign reserves in 2007: $ 16.4 billion
Pak Foreign reserves in 2008: $ 8.89 billion
Pak Foreign reserves in 2009: $ 14.4 billion

Pak Exports in 1999: $ 8 billion
Pak Exports in 2007: $ 18.5 billion
Pak Exports in 2008: $ 19.22 billion

Textile Exports in 1999: $ 5.5 billion
Textile Exports in 2007: $ 11.2 billion

KHI stock exchange 1999: $ 5 billion at 700 points
KHI stock exchange 2007: $ 75 billion at 14,000 points
KHI stock exchange 2008: $ 46 billion at 9,300 points and $20 billion at 4,972 points
KHI stock exchange 2009: $ 26.5 billion at 9,000 points

Foreign Investment in 1999: $ 301 million
Foreign Investment in 2007: $ 8.4 billion
Foreign Investment in 2008: $ 5.19 billion

Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) in 1999: 1.5%
Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) in 2005: 19.9%
Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) in 2007: 8.6%
Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) in 2008: 4.8%

Debt (External Debt & Liabilities) in 1988: $ 18 billion
Debt (External Debt & Liabilities) in 1999: $ 39 billion
Debt (External Debt & Liabilities) in 2007: $ 40.17 billion
Debt (External Debt & Liabilities) in 2009: $ 50.1 billion

Debt servicing 1999: 65% of GDP
Debt servicing 2007: 28% of GDP
Debt servicing 2008: 27% of GDP

Poverty level in 1999: 34%
Poverty level in 2007: 24%

Literacy rate in 1999: 45%
Literacy rate in 2007: 53%

Pak Development programs 1999: Rs. 80 billion
Pak Development programs 2007: Rs. 520 billion
Pak Development programs 2008: Rs. 549.7 billion

Beginning of the End for Zardari Presidency !

2010-01-26T00:53:00.003-05:00

The countdown to the post-Zardari era begins

A poster and reputation in tattersTHE Supreme Court of Pakistan has made its intention clear. It wants to turf Asif Zardari from the presidency and compel him to return the wealth that he has allegedly looted and stashed away in Switzerland. In a 287-page judgment released late on January 19th the court explained why it had ruled the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) unconstitutional. The NRO, promulgated by the ousted dictator, Pervez Musharraf, in 2007, cleared Mr Zardari and his wife, the late Benazir Bhutto, of all corruption cases against them. The court’s lengthy arguments pave the way for challenges to Mr Zardari’s right to sit in parliament.

Morality, said the court, cannot be divorced from the constitution. In order to be a member of parliament, a person must be of “good character”. So anyone commonly known to be disreputable can be chucked out even if there is no conviction against him. Mr Zardari ’s reputation, fairly or not, is that of a “Mr 10%”.

The Supreme Court cited at length the successful legal battles fought by the governments of Nigeria and the Philippines with the Swiss authorities in their bids to get back the billions looted by Sani Abacha and Ferdinand Marcos. It has ordered Mr Zardari’s government to apply to the Swiss authorities to reopen the money-laundering case against Mr Zardari and Ms Bhutto.

Political pundits foresee the end of Mr Zardari’s presidency. He has thundered about a conspiracy against his “people’s government”, alluding to a nexus between the army, the judiciary and a section of the press. The army resents him as too soft towards both America and India. His efforts to bring the generals under civilian control have earned their hostility. The judges are on the warpath. And the opposition is fanning the conflict, hoping for a mid-term election and the rout of Mr Zardari’s party.

The court battles ahead are going to be nasty. Sooner rather than later, the army is likely to step in try to break the deadlock between the judiciary and the executive. Pakistan’s enduring tragedy, however, is that its record is no better than that of the civilians.

Turkey to build $20 billion Turkey-Pakistan Rail Link !

2010-01-25T23:55:00.001-05:00

Turkey interested in building Diamer-Bhasha Dam

Pakistan and Turkey agreed on Monday to undertake a $20 billion project to upgrade a railway link from Islamabad to Istanbul, basically to speedily transport cargo from Pakistan to Turkey and ultimately to Europe.

This was decided in a meeting between President Asif Ali Zardari and his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul. The meeting continued for over an hour as President Abdullah Gul said three companies of his country were interested in constructing the Diamer-Bhasha Dam in Pakistan.

President Zardari is on a four-day visit to Turkey to attend the Trilateral Summit as well as the Istanbul Summit on the Afghan issue, besides discussing bilateral matters with Turkish leaders.

The five-year rail project envisages to curtail travel time between Islamabad and Istanbul, via Tehran, from the current 11 days to ultimately three-four days, as a track between the two cities already existed, but the facilities available requires an upgrade.

Emphasising that Pakistan and Turkey needed to intensify cooperation in various fields, with a focus on economic ties, President Zardari said the rail link of Pakistan with Turkey, via Tehran, would play a crucial role in achieving these objectives.

“Transportation of cargo by air has become expensive, while sea trade is normally slow,” President Zardari said. “So, the cargo rail link could provide a quick option to expand economic ties between the two countries as well as with Iran.”

A comprehensive presentation was given to the Pakistani and Turkish presidents on the 6,566-kilometre rail project from Islamabad to Istanbul, via Tehran, with 1,990-kilometre track situated in Pakistan, 2,570-kilometre track in Iran and 2,006-kilometre track in Turkey.

“This rail link will strengthen Pakistan’s economic as well as people-to-people contacts with not only brotherly Muslim countries, but also with the European countries,” said President Zardari, who floated the Islamabad-Istanbul cargo train idea last year when an experimental train was run on the route on August 14.

He stressed that the areas around the rail track should also be developed, so that benefits of increased trade could be passed on to the respective people. Zardari stressed the business community of Turkey to not only enhance trade ties with Pakistan, but also to take advantage of the lucrative investment opportunities in his country.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul said that besides constructing the Diamar-Bhasha Dam through its private sector, Turkey also planned to open a branch of a Turkish bank in Pakistan, probably in Islamabad.

China to help Kyrgyzstan join Pakistan via Karakoram Highaway !

2009-12-08T02:39:00.001-05:00

ISLAMABAD (APP) - Kyrgyzstan is working on possibility to establish direct road links with Pakistan through Karakoram Highway to further improve bilateral trade and economic relations between the two countries.
Negotiations to this regard are in process with China, said Bektur Asanov, Ambassador of Kyrgyz Republic during his visit to ICCI. He expressed the hope that with the development of direct communication channels, bilateral trade will increase by 10 times between Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan .
He said both countries have signed a Total Taxation Agreement to protect mutual investments and expected that it will boost the confidence of investors and enhance bilateral business and investment activities between the two countries.
He said Pakistani textile products were very popular in Kyrgyz Republic and called upon Pakistani businessmen to look for setting up textile industries in Kyrgyzstan .
He said Kyrgyzstan has now shifted its focus from Western world to South Asia as it perceives for itself great business and trade potential in this region.
He said that in a bid to promote two-way trade, an exhibition dedicated to Pakistani products is being arranged in Bishkek in January and invited Pakistani businessmen to ensure their maximum participation in that exhibition.
The concept of this exhibition is to attract attention of Kyrgyz customers to the high quality and vast variety Pakistani products, he added.
Zahid Maqbool, President ICCI said that although Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan enjoy friendly and cordial relations and are tied together under the umbrella of Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) and Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), but the business and economic relations between the two countries do not correspond to their respective potentials.
He said that joints efforts were needed to improve trade relations between the tow countries to exploit the existing potential for mutual benefits.
He said Pakistan was a highly profitable investment destination as it offers unlimited investment potential in different sectors of its economy which he said are supported by good incentives for investors including a liberal trade regime, full protection of investments, unlimited repatriation of profits, an educated workforce and direct access to state authorities.
To take advantage of these opportunities, Kyrgyz businessmen should redouble their efforts to explore investment opportunities in Pakistan , he emphasized. He identified textiles, oil and gas exploration, hydropower generation, light engineering and financial sectors as potential areas for mutual cooperation between the two countries.

Dubai or Debtai ? The rise and fall of Dubai ! Will Dubai Allow Vegas Style Gambling ?

2009-11-29T00:41:00.009-05:00

All that glitters is not Gold. The country built on loans ! Dubai or as I call it Debtai has its image tarnished after the country defaults on its $87 billion loan. Governments can run commercial operations (as is the case in Dubai). They can bail out commercial operations (as we've seen in the West). But who bails out the governments themselves when they go bankrupt like what has happened in Dubai ?

Rumours are afloat that the Rulers of Dubai are considering allowing gambling in the debt ridden State. Dubai has all the ingredients of becoming a Middle Eastern version of Las Vegas ? Lets watch as the rulers of Dubai are shoved into a corner. Watch for the ads -Atlantis Dubai - Casino and Hotel !

Even though Dubai is on the brink of collapse its still expecting 8 million tourists a year. Dubai has become a tourist heaven because of its bargains and deals. Desperate for business Dubai is advertising 24/7/365 sunny days and Five Star hotels on half the price. Its the number destination for Europeans in the Winter.

From the pinnacle of the world economic boom to the brink of bankruptcy, Christopher Davidson of Durham University explains some of the background to the glittering city in the desert.

The inability of the government of Dubai to refinance the massive debts incurred by its largest state-owned company, Dubai World, has sent shockwaves throughout the world prompting many observers to ask not only how severe the economic crisis is, but also what exactly is Dubai and who is in control of it?

This time last year, Dubai was making headlines for entirely different reasons.
It was the opening party of the non-Casino version of Atlantis hotel, the star attraction of the city's man-made palm-shaped island. Organisers spent millions on the fireworks and even more on the celebrities.

As the sky exploded overhead, broadcast live around the globe, it was Dubai's message to the world that it had arrived. But as Dubai's elite sipped their champagne, the financial crisis was already beginning to take its toll in the West. For Dubai, this was the last night of extravagance before the credit crunch came knocking. And so, 12 months on, the headlines are very different. But who spoiled the party, and how?

IS THIS WHOLE COLLAPSE THING A GIMMICK

Observers looking at the whole Dubai crisis smell a rat. The rulers took loans for everything they were building in Dubai. Offering builders free land or sea as down payment the rulers got $87 billion of loans from banks all over the world.

The banks invested heavily in real estate projects. The rulers kept most of the money and hoarded all the income from these investments.

Some insiders believe that the rulers are setting the stage to allow gambling in Dubai. Staging themselves by defaulting on their debt they are looking for a reason to allow 'limited' gambling in Dubai on in the hotels that are off shore. Most hotels built in Dubai are on artificial islands and are not on mainland Dubai, UAE. The rulers are trying to follow the example of Mississippi in the US. The conservative State of Mississippi in the US also allowed gambling on hotels that were offshore. These hotels were built on reclaimed land in the Gulf of Mexico and were off the mainland US.

The critics are sceptical the way this debt default has folded. All of a sudden the rulers of Dubai do not have $87 billion ? The critics smell a rat and most believe they need a reason to allow gambling in this Islamic nation. Gambling is banned in Islam and the elders in the ruling family are against allowing gambling in Dubai.

WHAT APPARENTLY WENT WRONG IN DUBAI

Dubai does not have the enormous oil wealth enjoyed by its neighbours such as Abu Dhabi. Its main source of wealth has historically been as a port.

Although frequently described as a city state or even as a country in its own right, Dubai is a constituent member of the federation of United Arab Emirates along with six other emirates.

The main share indexes in the UK, France and Germany had all fallen by more than 3% on Thursday. But after falling further in early trade on Friday, the UK's FTSE 100 closed up 1%, and both Germany's Dax index and France's Cac 40 ended more than 1% higher.

Certain London-based hedge funds who had bet on Dubai World being bailed out could have an uncomfortable few weeks ahead. Those close to the company have suggested that various refinancing options have been on the table for at least a month, although details have not been revealed until now.
A six-month suspension on interest payments is believed to be the most likely option.
David Buik, senior partner at BGC Partners, said: "You can't just say to the world: 'I don't want to pay my debts'. There is no income coming in from any of these properties. I think this is shocking PR."

The news shook markets that are recovering from the collapse of the US housing market and contagion that threatened to rupture the global financial system last year.
It was the timing of the announcement as much as the lack of clear information that heightened nerves. The first news emerged late on Wednesday, as the Muslim world was preparing for its Eid celebrations.
It also coincided with the closedown of the world's most important share market, with US markets winding down for Thursday's Thanksgiving holiday.
Uncertainty of the scale of banks' exposure to Dubai hit banking shares at first. However, bank shares recovered strongly throughout Friday morning.
Threat to confidence. The biggest underlying fear is that Dubai's problems could reignite the international financial turmoil of the credit crisis.

WHAT IS DUBAI WORLD?
The emirate's flag bearer in global investments
Has a central role in the direction of Dubai's economy
Assets include DP World, which caused a storm when trying to take over six US ports
Property arm Nakheel built The Palm Islands and The World developments

Chris Skinner, chairman of the Financial Services Club, said: "We're very heavily interlinked. Dubai is the key financial centre in the Middle East."
Any knock to economic confidence could lower global demand for a whole range of commodities, including oil.

Dubai, which has less oil money than many of its neighbours, became a trading and tourism hub with global ambitions. Dubai World, the conglomerate that led the emirate's expansion, had $59bn (£36bn) of liabilities as of August, a large proportion of Dubai's total debt of $80bn. Its subsidiary Nakheel was the builder of the landmark palm tree-shaped island developments off Dubai.

Atlantis Hotel Dubai:

Will the Atlantis in Dubai remain the non-casino kosher version of the Atlantis Hotel ? Critics do not believe that ! Look what Atlantis Dubai has to offer !

Atlantis's the latest word in Gulf excess - a sprawling $US1.5 billion ($A1.8 billion) resort boasting a $US25,000 ($A30,044.50)-a-night suite and dolphins flown in from the South Pacific, all atop a palm tree-shaped island.

Inspired by the legend of the lost continent, the resort offers "experiences that are new to the Middle East," said its president and managing director Alan Leibman, in line with the emirate's penchant for superlatives and drive to become a top tourist destination.

At Atlantis, this includes water thrills, a marine habitat and more than a dozen restaurants run by world-class chefs including Japanese sushi mogul Nobu Matsuhisa and Michel Rostang of France.

The first guests were welcomed this past week at the site on Palm Jumeirah, one of three palm tree-shaped man-made islands emerging off the coast of Dubai.

The opening even as construction work continues on Palm Jumeirah underscores Dubai's race to more than double the number of visitors to 15 million by 2015.

One of seven emirates making up the United Arab Emirates, Dubai already hosts one of the world's most exclusive hotels, the sail-shaped Burj al-Arab, dozens of other luxurious seafront hotels, and the "Burj Dubai," Arabic for Dubai Tower, the world's tallest skyscraper.

With a distinct desire to offer the tallest and biggest, Dubai will also have the world's largest shopping mall.

And the Atlantis fits right into the picture, as "an entertainment destination that is truly different to anything that exists in the resort category in the region," aid Leibman.

But that might not be for long. Scores of other ambitious ventures are underway or in the pipeline, including Dubailand, a series of billion-dollars entertainment and leisure projects touted as the Middle East's very own Orlando, which will include a Universal Studios theme park.

The "Palm" islands face competition on their own turf from "The World", a cluster of some 300 artificial islands looking like a blurred vision of the planet's nations.

Developed by Kerzner International as only the second such resort after the Atlantis-Paradise Island in the Bahamas, Atlantis-The Palm cost 1.5 billion dollars and has 1539 rooms at rates ranging from US$700 dollars to a staggering US$25,000 for some suites.

The hotel opened on schedule despite a recent fire which ravaged its lobby, though the pomp and ceremony have been put off until the formal inauguration in November.

According to the management, the hotel is nearly fully booked. But although Dubai has become a regional business and tourist hub, promoters said they are targeting the US, European and Asian markets and do not expect clients from the Middle East to fill up more than a quarter of the establishment.

"Aquaventure", a water playground of over 18 million litres of water, is accessible to visitors for prices ranging from A$64 for children to A$75 for adults. The waterscape features water slides with names such as "Leap of Faith", including two which catapult riders through shark-filled lagoons.

Atlantis' marine habitat will be stocked with thousands of marine animals and include a "Dolphin Bay".

But one of the main attractions which promoters are counting on to draw crowds faced with a wide choice of entertainment in Dubai are the resort's top-end restaurants run by world-class chefs.

"What I'm offering here is authentic French cuisine, not a bit of everything. I am a champion of tradition" in French cuisine, said the two-star Michelin chef Rostang of his French Brasserie.

Environmentalists have long criticized both Palm Jumeirah island and some of the features of the Atlantis hotel. And analysts wonder if global financial turmoil will crimp Dubai's big hopes for tourists.

Dubai is not blinking. The 113-acre resort on the artificial island off the coast is among the city-state's biggest bets that tourism can help sustain its economy once regional oil profits stop flowing.

"You don't build a billion-and-a-half dollar project just anywhere in the world," said Leibman.

With its own oil reserves running dry, Dubai hopes to woo those eager to make money and those who know how to spend it - even as much of the global economy sours.

For years, the emirate - one of seven semi-independent states that make up the United Arab Emirates - has been feverishly building skyscrapers and luxury hotels.

A key piece of the strategy has been to cultivate an image in the West as a sun-kissed tourist destination despite its intense summer heat, conservative Muslim society and dearth of historic sites.

Among the daring projects are an indoor ski slope, the as-yet-incomplete world's tallest skyscraper and a growing archipelago of man-made islands such as Palm Jumeirah - the smallest of three such projects planned.

Much of the focus at the Atlantis, modeled on a sister resort in the Bahamas, is on ocean-themed family entertainment. The resort has a giant, open-air tank with 65,000 fish, stingrays and other sea creatures and a dolphinarium with more than two dozen bottlenose dolphins flown in from the Solomon Islands.

The hotel's top floor aims squarely at the ultra-wealthy. A three-bedroom, three-bathroom suite complete with gold-leaf, 18-seat dining table is on offer for $25,000 (A$30,000) a night.

Environmental groups and some people in the Solomons protested the sale of the dolphins to the resort as well as the 30-hour plane flight to get them to Dubai.

Dubai's development has long been criticized by environmental activists, who say the construction of artificial islands hurts coral reefs and even shifts water currents. They also point to growing water and electricity consumption.

Developers seem undaunted. For the moment, the Atlantis shares the island only with rows of high-end houses and construction sites. But other international names are set to move in.

Donald Trump plans a hotel straddling the center of the tree-shaped island's "palm," and the storied QE2 ocean liner will become a hotel and a tourist attraction docked alongside its "trunk." An 1,800-seat theater nearby will house a permanent Cirque du Soleil show beginning in summer 2011.

"Palm Jumeirah in and of itself will become one of Dubai's major tourist attractions," said Joe Cita, chief executive of Nakheel's hotel division.

Boosting the number of attractions on the island will not only entice more visitors, but also persuade them to spend more time and money in the city, he said.

By 2010, Dubai aims to attract 10 million hotel visitors annually, up from about seven million in 2007. Atlantis alone will increase the city's hotel capacity by three per cent.

So far, demand appears strong. The Middle East had the highest hotel occupancy rates in the world during the first half of the year, with Dubai leading the region at 85.3 per cent, according to professional services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

Dubai also had the highest room rates in the region, although revenue growth is slowing, Deloitte noted.

Atlantis' backers are optimistic they can fill its 1539 rooms despite the economic uncertainty wracking some of the world's richest economies. Their focus is on well-heeled travelers from Europe, Russia, Asia and elsewhere in the Middle East.

"People will still take family holidays," Leibman said. "Dubai is still good value when you're paying in pounds, (or) you're paying in euros."

Nakheel, the developer, and Kerzner, the hotel operator, are both privately held companies and do not release sales data. Leibman said demand from tour groups looks strong well into the first part of next year.

Yet Marios Maratheftis, head of regional research for the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan at Standard Chartered Bank in Dubai, said there is "good reason" to be concerned that global financial problems could hit Dubai's tourism industry. Nevertheless, he said, the city's long-term outlook remains positive.

Kerzner has grown increasingly close to Dubai in recent years. In 2006, the company took itself private in a $3.8 billion deal partially bankrolled by a division of Nakheel's state-owned parent, Dubai World. Nakheel retains a large stake in the company.

Nakheel's hotel division has expanded rapidly. The company's holdings include New York's Mandarin Oriental, the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, and the W Hotel in Washington.

Its parent also owns a minority stake in MGM Mirage Inc. and is teaming with that casino operator and Kerzner to build a multibillion-dollar casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

But don't expect to find roulette wheels at Dubai's Atlantis. Islamic prohibitions against gambling ensure casinos remain off limits.

Millions of dollars have been invested in Sheikh Mohammed's passion: thoroughbred racehorses. In Newmarket, he owns Dalham Hall stud farm and Godolphin stables. The sheikh's 4,000 acres in Ireland make him the largest farmer in the country. He also owns 7,000 acres of paddocks in Britain and 5,000 acres of farmland. Other assets owned by Dubai investors include:

* The QE2, currently moored in Cape Town

* The Adelphi on the Strand and the Grand Buildings in Trafalgar Square

* A 20 per cent stake in Cirque du Soleil, the Canadian circus troupe

* Budget hotel chain Travelodge

* A stake in Merlin Entertainments, which runs Alton Towers, Madame Tussauds and the London Eye

* Scottish golf course Turnberry

* Chris Evert tennis clubs in the US

* A ski resort in Aspen, Colorado

* A 21 per cent stake in the London Stock Exchange

* Ports and ferries group P&O

Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan ! Pakistanis look the other way !

2009-11-25T13:08:00.003-05:00

Conservative Newspaper blows the whistle on Blackwater's presence in Pakistan ! The whistle got louder and louder but Pakistanis look the other way sending a clear message 'go get then all'. Without a doubt Blackwater has raised eyebrows in Pakistan but the silent majority in Pakistan are happy and wish that Blackwater gets the job done !

There is funny side to Blackwater's presence in Pakistan. Home owners in Pakistan are running after the real estate agents who are the authorized by Blackwater to rent their homes. Its a stampede to rent their houses. There have been instances where owners have moved out to rent the houses they are living in !

Blackwater's presence in Islamabad shows Pakistan's resolve on destroying the Taliban. Pakistan is persuing a much supported policy of - Do whatever it takes to destroy the Taliban. 120 million Pakistani voters demonstrated this desire by voting for secular parties in the last election. Left Leaning PPP and secular MQM and ANP won hands down. Religious parties won in less then 15 seats. The message was clear - 200,000 gun trotting Taliban cannot hold the 7th largest Nation in the world on ransom.

Jeremy Scahill, independent journalist, Democracy Now correspondent, and author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.” His latest piece for the Nation magazine is “Blackwater’s Secret War in Pakistan.”

"Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan" (The Nation)
AMY GOODMAN: Writing in The Nation Magazine, journalist Jeremy Scahill, Democracy Now! correspondent has revealed Blackwater is secretly operating in Pakistan under a covert program that includes planning the assassination and kidnapping of Taliban and Al Qaeda suspects. Blackwater is also said to be involved in a previously undisclosed U.S. military drone campaign that has killed scores of people inside Pakistan. Blackwater operatives have been working under a covert program run by the Joint Special Operations Command, the military’s top covert operations force. The previously undisclosed JSOC operations would mark the first known confirmation of U.S. military activity inside Pakistan.

A military intelligence source said Blackwater operatives are effectively running the drone bombings for both JSOC and the CIA. The CIA drone program is already public knowledge. But the military source says some of the deadliest drone attacks in attributed to the CIA were actually carried out by JSOC. The article also reveals Blackwater operatives have taken part in ground operations with Pakistani forces under a subcontract with a local security firm. The operations have included house raids and border interdictions in northwest Pakistan and other areas.

Blackwater has also been given responsibility for planning JSOC operations in Uzbekistan. The Nation reports the program has become so secretive the top Obama administration and military officials have likely been unaware of its existence. Independent journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill broke the story for The Nation Magazine. He joins us in our New York studio for its first television interview since the article’s publication last night. Jeremy, welcome to “Democracy Now!” Lay out what you have learned so far.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well Amy, just by way of background, we do know that beginning in 2006, the Bush administration struck a deal with the Pakistani government that would allow U.S. Special Operations forces from the Joint Special Operations Command to enter Pakistan with the understanding that there were, "Following the target, " the target being Osama bin Laden and his top deputies. As part of that agreement, the Pakistani government insisted they have the right to A, deny that the United States had permission to enter the country and B, be able to condemn U.S. actions in their country as a sort of a violation of their sovereignty. But the understanding was struck in 2006. What I understand now from the military intelligence source and another U.S. military source that confirmed what I was initially told by the military intelligence source, is that in fact there are active covert operations on an ongoing basis that are not just about targeting Osama bin laden. What we understand now is the Joint Special Operations Command, which from 2003-2008 was headed by General Stanley McChrystal, who has now been promoted and is the head of all US forces and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and is pushing for a very large troop increase, he ran that program from 2003-2008. Now its being headed by Admiral William Craven, who is the head of all JSOC operations. So, you have on the one hand the allegation from these military sources that JSOC has coverts bases throughout Pakistan, that they are running a drone bombing campaign runs parallel to that of the CIA, and that Blackwater forces have been at the center of this operation, according to my sources, since at least 2007. And as part of the work they’re doing for JSOC and Pakistan, I am told they are essentially an intelligence cell, if you will, that is planning strikes, gathering intelligence, as well as planning operations inside of Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

My sources said when they are working, when Blackwater guys are working for an elite division of the company that is been known as Blackwater Select, that they’re not doing the actual killing in these operations, but rather they are doing the planning of these operations. And Amy, what this really is, is an outgrowth of a trend that we saw very early on in the Bush administration following September 11th, where the Vice President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld circumvented the military chain of command, went directly into JSOC, and essentially separated JSOC from the military and started using JSOC to commit what my source said were some of the “darkest acts.” They also set up a parallel agency to the CIA was called the Strategic Support Branch, the SSB. The SSB called information resources from the CIA and the DIA, but for the first time, took the realm of covert operations out of the exclusive hands of the CIA, and essentially created a parallel, clandestine force that would report directly to Rumsfeld, and directly to Dick Cheney. And this Blackwater program is an outgrowth of that separating of JSOC from the broader military chain of command, and that is why my sources say there are senior figures within the military and the a administration right now that may be unaware of it because as he said, “They are not in the circle of love.”

AMY GOODMAN: “Not in the circle of love?”

JEREMY SCAHILL: That is the phrase that was used twice by the military intelligence source that I spoke to. What we are seeing now, and I also talked to Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was the Chief of Staff to then Secretary of State Colin Powell. And he described, he first of all, when I talked about this, said the program would not surprise him, and that he was very disturbed when he sees execute orders the coming out ,saying that JSOC is essentially above the Special Operations Command and the Special Operations Command is essentially in a support role for these JSOC teams. So, what I am told is that this program is so compartmentalized, that there are probably very top-level people that are unaware of it, and in fact, what my military intelligence source says, is that Blackwater personnel that are working as part of this program, and have worked as part of this program, have been given rolling security clearances above their actual security clearance. Let me break that down a minute. You have guys that can work on these operations that maybe have a low-level of security clearance in terms of the amount of intelligence that they are able to see. What this program allows for is that these individuals are given temporary security clearance to of access to very sensitive intelligence, intelligence and even members of Congress that oversee intelligence matters don’t have access to. That was one of the things that concerned the individuals that spoke with me for this story.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill what has been the response of Blackwater? What has been the response of U.S. military, the White House, to your investigation?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Blackwater said to me in a statement, and I had several back and forths with Blackwater, spokesperson Mark Corallo. And what Blackwater told me is that Xe Services, which is one of the new iterations of Blackwater has only one quote “employee" in Pakistan. And as I kept writing them back and said, “What about contractors, subcontractors, affiliates, other names that I wouldn’t be aware of,” they said we have no operations whatsoever inside of Pakistan. My sources say that is not true. I also received a call yesterday, as I was going to press, from individuals I had not called. I received a call from Admiral Mike Mullen’s office, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was a bit surprising to me, because I had not called Admiral Mullen’s office, so when a U.S. citizen gets a call from the military, especially from the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, its a bit jolting. And they would not tell me how they got wind of the fact I was doing the story, or how they got my number. But I spoke to the spokesperson for Admiral Mullen, who told me they do not comment on current operations one way or the other. I was also told by a defense official that on background, not for attribution of the name of the individual, that this is not true, that there is no current arrangement with Blackwater for these types of services, and that there never has been. The White House did not return e-mails or phone calls in the process of doing the story.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, you point out in your article that the U.S. corporate media has largely ignored the fear and mistrust that Blackwater has generated in Pakistan. Earlier this month, the Taliban played on those fears when it denied responsibility for several bombings and in fact accused Blackwater of carrying them out. This is Azam Tariq, a spokesman of the Tehreek e-Taliban.

Azam Tariq: I want to tell the people of Pakistan and the Muslim nations, that the Tehreek e-Taliban are not responsible for the bombings. But Blackwater and Pakistan’s spy agency are behind them. Those who fight with the Americans are against the Tehreek e-Taliban and have blood on their hands, and we will fight them to the end.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, your response?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I mean you always have to take these kinds of declarations with a grain of salt, thereis incredible propaganda, and I do not have any evidence to suggest what that man is saying is true. I will say this, the Pakistan Intelligence Services have long had a reputation for using proxy forces to carry out actions that are ultimately are sanctioned by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. So, there certainly is a history in Pakistan of false flag operations. But, I don’t have any actual information or intelligence on the claims of the Taliban. But, certainly people that have closely monitored and followed Pakistani politics, particularly the history of the ISI and other organizations, they are regularly involved with unsavory organizations, that they are classified by many individuals as a terrorist organization. So, what we are in Pakistan right now certainly is a situation where the Pakistani intelligence services are playing multiple sides of the equation. I think would be very difficult to rule out Pakistani intelligence from much of anything in Pakistan these days.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, talk about who Blackwater is working for, or working with in Pakistan. Of course, Pakistan a country the United States has not declared war on.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. One interesting thing that happened in the course of this story, I talked to a former Blackwater executive that is familiar with Blackwater’s operations in the region. And when I asked them to confirm for me what the military intelligence sources said, namely that the Blackwater guys are not doing the actual killing in Pakistan, he told “That is not entirely accurate,” then proceeded to tell me about an arrangement that Blackwater had made with a Pakistani company called Kestral, that is headed by a man named Ali Bagg. The Blackwater executive told me, that Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater, is close with the owner of this Pakistan firm that is sort of like a Blackwater and logistical firm wrapped up into one. This is a company the works for Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and Pakistan the government and does a very robust business in war contracting and servicing the war in Afghanistan as well.

And my understanding is that Blackwater is working for this company on a subcontract in a configuration that has Blackwater operatives going out technically as advisers with these paramilitary style forces from this company, and that they are doing as you said in the intro, border interdictions in the Northwest frontier province and elsewhere and the former Blackwater executive told me the line often gets blurred and that you do have Blackwater guys and other westerners that act the participate in operations that are the portrayed in the international media as Pakistan forces carrying them out.

And the agency that Blackwater forces are supporting is a federal paramilitary force in Pakistan that’s under the Ministry of the Interior there, called the Frontier Corp. The military intelligence official confirmed the Blackwater executives account ,or at least the specific allegation that Blackwater is working with the Frontier Corps. The benefit of this is it allows the Pakistani government to say, “We’re not using any Western forces to do these things,” because the technicality is that there subcontracted by a Pakistani firm that is working with the official Pakistan forces.

AMY GOODMAN: The lobbyist for Kestrel you report?

JEREMY SCAHILL: I’m sorry Amy, I didn’t hear you.

AMY GOODMAN: The lobbyist for Kestrel you report?

JEREMY SCAHILL: You’ve actually done shows on this individual, he’s sort of a famed neocon and former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roger Noriega, who is well known to Democracy Now! listeners. In October, Roger Noriega was hired as a lobbyist by this Pakistani company. They paid his firm Vision Americas $15,000, they paid another from that appears to be little more than an affiliate of Roger Noriega’s firm, called Fire Creek Limited, an equal amount of money to lobby the State Department, US-AID, the Congress, on defense and foreign-policy issues and on services that Kestrel could provide that are of interest to the U.S. government.

Another player at Roger Noriega’s firm Vision Americas is Christina Rocca, who for years during the Bush administration was one of the top people shaping Pakistan and Afghanistan policies. She is a former CIA operations official. So, this company has hired some pretty powerhouse figures that have a long history, in the case of Christina Rocca’s affiliation with Vision Americas, with Pakistan directly. So it all sort of leads towards this continued neoconservative view of US foreign policy and they picked some of the top people in that world to become their K-Street lobbyists.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, explain who is behind the drone attacks in Pakistan, who has been killed, and talk about legality here.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. The CIA of course has been running a drone campaign in Pakistan going back years into the Bush administration. When President Obama took office on January 23, he ordered his first drone strike inside of Pakistan. There were two strikes in North and South Waziristan, and has bombed Pakistan regularly ever since. In fact, Vice-President Joe Biden, part of his strategy reportedly is calling for escalation of these drone strikes. This has caused some controversy because there of a large numbers of civilian deaths as a result of these bombings.

And technically, the operations of the CIA need to be reported to Senator Dianne Feinstein and others on the intelligence committee. and there was a controversy this summer because Leon Panetta ran up the hill and said he had cancelled the CIA assassination program and that sort of put the drones in an intense focus on the hill. What I am told now though, is that there is actually and has been for some time, a parallel drone strike program that is being run by the Joint Special Operations Command and that these JSOC drone strikes are sometimes done with very little regard for how many civilians may die in the pursuit of one quote unquote "Bad guy,”

In fact, my military intelligence source said to me if there’s one guy we’re trying to hit and there are 34 other people in the building, 35 people are going to die that day. And he said part of the reason why these strikes are happening is because JSOC works on a classified mandate and they really don’t care because they are not going to go to the Hill and talk to Congress about it and they are not going to face consequences, and its an open secret no one wants to talk about.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, you say Blackwater employees maybe posing as USAID workers?

JEREMY SCAHILL: I said they may be posting as aid workers, I didn’t specify any organization. I think that we have a situation right now in Pakistan where it is very dangerous for people that actually are there to aid in humanitarian projects, and this has long been a history. When you have non-civilian forces that pose in any way as aid workers of any kind, I think you create a dangerous situation for the well-meaning individuals that go to very difficult and dangerous countries in an effort to help local populations that are suffering tremendously as a result of war and poverty. My understanding from the military intelligence source is Blackwater personnel have at times posed as aid workers.

AMY GOODMAN: Word is President Obama is now going to be announcing the expansion of war in Afghanistan. Over 30,000 U.S. troops. Can you put this all, your expose, in a broader context?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well of course, right now you have the top two figures running, prosecuting the Afghan war from the military side are both from the Joint Special Operations Command and I think what we are seeing is essentially an incredible rise of the power of JSOC within the official military command structure. You--I think what we are seeing is, the beginning, of what is one of the much more dramatic escalation of forces in Afghanistan, because my understanding is that part of the president’s plan he’s authorizing, there’s essentially going to be an equal number of contractors that are deployed along those thirty thousand or so troops that we now understand the president is going to be announcing.

Of great concern to everyone in that region is that Pakistan is increasingly, the war in Afghanistan is increasingly bleeding over into Pakistan. And, now with the revelation that the U.S. has actual covert operations there, these operations could be viewed in the words of my military intelligence source, as a, “Lilly pad,” a jump-off point. He called it the Jamestown of the new millennium, in Pakistan and predicted there’s going to be more intense involvement of U.S. military within the borders of a country that we have not declared war against.

AMY GOODMAN:Jeremy Scahill, I want to thank you for being with us, for breaking this in the national broadcast on “Democracy Now!” Your piece came out in The Nation Magazine last night online, and of course we will link to it. Jeremy Scahill is an independent journalist, Democracy Now! correspondent, and is a Puffin Fellow at the Nation Magazine.

Pakistan's First Fashion Week Changes Headlines on Pakistan !

2009-11-15T23:27:00.005-05:00

Western reporters try to stereo type Pakistan on Pakistan's First Fashion Show !

Click here to Watch on Youtube !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6LJBitkBf8&feature=player_embedded

Pictures on Youtube on the Fashion Show !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vluBHWYVsrk

Dawn Morning Show on The fashion Week !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVig3NC7KY4&NR=1

Conan O'Brien Comments on Pakistan Fashion Week enrages Pakistani Designers :
Response to Conan O'Brien comments about Pakistan Fashion Week by Fifi Haroon.

Pakistan Fashion Week :
Dear Mr O'Brien, I have watched your show for several years in Pakistan and now tune in to see the Tonight Show on CNBC in London . I think you're an extremely funny man; there is always something to be said for an unexpected mix of wry humour and a cockatoo haircut. A few days ago, while watching your monologue on the Tonight Show I caught a reference to the first ever Pakistan Fashion Week, followed by much laughter from the audience (A Fashion Week in Pakistan?). You wondered aloud what we could possibly show at this surprising event, and speculated that this was probably a catwalk of the latest "Burqas." While I hate to disillusion you - and those of a more Taliban disposition - it was quite the opposite. Short sassy skirts using traditional embroidery inventively, revealing evening gowns with bare midriffs and a fashion faux pas here and there - yes. But sorry, no burqas! For a change, most of the western Press seems to have realised what was going on. "Pakistan fashion week defies Taliban with non-Islamic dress," claimed The Telegraph, "Organizers soldiered on to show the world that, despite the violence all around them, they can and will have fashion beyond burqas and go about life as usual," said NY Mag and CNN reported that the "heavy cloak of security" in a country where bombings and Taliban rants are de rigeur helped make Pakistan fashion week a success. Pakistan's fashion industry may be small compared to its huge garment and textiles industry (guess where your Calvin Klein underwear really comes from?) but it is influential, often iconoclastic and thriving. And it manages to do that in a country where showing bare arms and your navel can often be as much of a political stance as a fashion statement. It is also an industy I have worked in as a stylist and Fashion show organizer for over two decades, so trust me when I say that while you can accuse us of being elitist (not everyone can afford high fashion or indeed have the inclination/daring to wear it), and ocassionaly self absorbed like Fashion people anywhere, please never throw allegations of Burqa wear our way. We wouldn't wear them without our Manolos in any case. So while we would readily laugh at your burqa punch line, and understand that humour must be given licence, it is important for us to object to yet another stereotypical image of Pakistan being thrown out an an unsuspecting American public. Perhaps this email may at least help you get the slant right in time for next year's Pakistan Fashion Week. Regards, Fahimeh Fifi Haroon
By:Fifi Haroon

Sofitel Hotels to Build 27 Storey 5 start hotel and Mall in Karachi !

2009-11-13T12:34:00.005-05:00

New five-star hotel to be established in Karachi

KARACHI: Karachi city is soon to have another five star hotel named Sofitel which is upgrading its status in the destination lists of business and leisure travelers, the under construction hotel has already started attracting new foreign investments.

Sofitel Towers and Shopping Mall, a hotel chain managed by Accor the European leader in hotel and tourism industry, is expected to complete by 2011.

“Pakistan is potential hub of foreign direct investment and there is dire need to cater future demands of prestigious and luxurious five star hotels,” said Abdul Rehman Naqi, managing partner, Sofitel.

He said it was after a long time that a new international hotel chain was being introduced in Karachi.

Sofitel Tower and Shopping Mall Karachi, a 110m (361 ft) high building with 27 floors will have a food court, a five-story shopping mall and a four-story basement car parking with a capacity of over 500 cars.

For the first time in Pakistan, very high quality construction material is being used and every aspect of the construction is being undertaken according to international standards, even details like location of Karachi with reference to Seismic Zone has been taken into consideration and the hotel will be earthquake proof as concrete pillar and steel reinforcements have been used even in bricks construction for the first time in Pakistan on such a high scale. staff report

Election : Gilgit-Baltistan - 8 Languages, 10 Ethnic Groups, 6 Districts, 4 Religious sects - 24 National Assembly Seats !

2009-11-09T19:10:00.024-05:00

With almost 2 million inhabitants Gilgit-Baltistan is a very diverse region of Pakistan. The population of this new autonomous region is divided in 4 of the Islamic faith - Shia's constitute 35%, Sunnis 35%, Ismailis 25% and Noorbukshies are 5%. Gilgit Baltistan will have 24 constituents seats in the National Assembly plus 6 Women seats and 3 Technocrat seats.

Gilgit-Baltistan is divided into six districts called Hunza-Nager, Gilgit, Koh-e-Ghizer, Ghanche, Diamir and Skardu.

Gilgit-Baltistan :

On September 7, 2009, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan signed what was called the Gilgit- Baltistan Empowerment and Self-Governance Order 2009 granted self-rule to the people of the former Northern Areas, now renamed "Gilgit-Baltistan," by creating, among other things, an elected legislative assembly

Gilgit :
Gilgit which is known as Dardistan and it includes 4 Districts Astore, Diamer,Gilgit and Ghizar. Major cities are Gilgit, Chilas, Hunza and Gahkuch

Baltistan :
Baltistan includes the districts of Skardu and Ghanche. Major cities are Skardu and Kaplu.

People in Gilgit :

The people belong to the Dardic race and are closely connected with Chitralis in race, culture and language. They are mostly followers of Ismaili sect headed by the Agha Khan (Muslims).

History :
This region was conquered by Maharaja Gulab Singh’s son, Maharaja Ranbir Singh between 1846 and 1860. Thousands of Dogra soldiers lost their lives in the campaigns that led to the conquest of this inhospitable but strategically very important region. The whole Dardistan including Gilgit has been merged with Pakistan and is governed by the Pakistani Central Government. This area has not been included even in the so called “Azad-Kashmir” (literally means Free/Liberated Kashmir)

Neighbours :
Gilgit-Baltistan borders the Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan to the northwest, China's Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang to the northeast, the Indian-controlled state of Jammu and Kashmir to the south and southeast, the Pakistani-controlled state of Azad Jammu and Kashmir to the south, and Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province to the west.

Population :
Gilgit-Baltistan population is very diverse. 35 per cent Shias, 35 per cent are Sunnis, 25 per cent Ismailis, and 5% Noorbukshies .

Elections :

The Legislative Assembly will have 24 members, who will be elected directly and in addition, there will be six women and three technocrat seats. In order to empower the Council and the Assembly on financial matters there would be a consolidated fund.The budget of the area would be presented and approved by the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly.

Voting Pattern :
The voting pattern is yet to be determined but Sunnis, Shias and Ismailis have divergent voting trends. None of them are in allied to each other in any way.
Shias generally support the PPP and Ismailis in Karachi support the MQM. 35% Sunnis with this diverse of a group might vote in all directions including the PML-N, MQM, PPP and maybe PML-Q. Its yet to be seen where Noorbukshies would swing towards. 25% of Baltistan constitutes of Noorbukshies.

Judges :

The Chief Judge of the Appellate Court will be appointed by the Chairman of the Gilgit-Baltistan Council on the advice of the Governor, and other judges will be appointed by the Chairman on the advice of the Governor after seeking the views of the Chief Judge. The number of judges will be increased from three to five. A Gilgit-Baltistan Public Service Commission, a separate Auditor-General and an Election Commissioner will be appointed.

The judiciary of the Northern Areas consists of district courts and a chief court, whose decisions are final.

Gilgit-Baltistan Districts and Division :

The Gilgit-Baltistan is divided into six districts called Hunza-Nager, Gilgit, Koh-e-Ghizer, Ghanche, Diamir and Skardu. These districts are grouped into three agencies or Divisions called Diamir with headquarters at Chilas, Gilgit with headquarters in Gilgit Town and Baltistan with headquarters in Skardu Town.

Population (2008) 1,800,000 (Estimate) Density 20.7/km² Area 72496 km²

Ethnic Groups :
There are eight ethnic groups : Baltis, Yashkuns, Moghal, Kashmiris, Pathans, Laddakis and Turks.

Languages :
The Shina language (with several dialects) is the language of 40% of the population, spoken mainly in Gilgit, throughout Diamer, and in some parts of Ghizer.
Balti dialect, a sub-dialect of Ladakhi and part of Tibetan language group, is spoken by the entire population of Baltistan.
Wakhi, spoken in upper Hunza, and in some villages in Ghizer.
Khowar is the major language of Ghizer.
Burushaski is an isolated language spoken in Hunza, Nagar, Yasin (where Khowar is also spoken), in some parts of Gilgit and in some villages of Punyal.
Domaaki is spoken by the musician clans in the region.
Pashto is also spoken by a small minority.

People who live in Gilgit Baltistan, despite that region's being referred to as part of Kashmir, do not speak Kashmiri or any of its dialects.

Sects and Religious diversity :
The four major religious sects are Sunnies, Shias, Ismailies and Noorbukshies. Sunnies are mostly in Daimer, Astore and Gilgit districts. The majority of Shias are in Skardu. Ganche Division has majority Nurbakhshi (80%), Sunnis and Shias are evenly divided with 10%. The Ismalies are mostly in Ghizer district and in Hunza sub-division of Gilgit district.

The sect-wise breakdown of population :

Population Demographics :

Gilgit District :
Gilgit Capital :

Gilgit city and division – 60% Shia, 40% Sunni;,
Nagar II : 100% Ismaili
Nagar I : 100% Shia
Gojal : Sunni, Shia and Ismailis
Aliabad : Sunni, Shia and Ismailis

Ghizar :
Capital : Gahkuch

Hunza –100% Ismaili; ,
Punial – 100% Ismaili;
Yasin – 100% Ismaili;
Ishkoman –100% Ismaili;
Gupis – 100% Ismaili;

District Daimer :
Capital Chilas :

Chilas – 100% Sunni;
Darel/Tangir – 100% Sunni;

District Astore :

Astor – 90%Sunni, 10% Shia;

Baltistan – 55% Shia,20% Sunni, 25% Noorbukshies
Divisions :

Shigar (Captial Skardu)
Rondu
Gultari : 45% Shias, 30% Sunni, 25% Noorbukshie
Kharmang : 45% Shias, 30% Sunni, 25% Noorbukshie

District Ganche :
Kaplu : 80 % Noorbukshies, 10% Sunnis, 10% Shias
Mashabrum : 80 % Noorbukshies, 10% Sunnis, 10% Shias

Ethnic Run Down of the Gilgit-Baltistan area :
There are eight ethnic groups:
Baltis,
Yashkuns,
Moghal,
Kashmiris,
Pathans,
Laddakis and
Turks.

Interesting Facts :
Demographics of Baltis as an ethnic group: Shia' denomination (13%), Nurbakhshi (80%) and Sunnis (7%).

Noorbakshi : An order of Islamic Sufism. The core message of Nurbakhshism are complete elimination of all evil desires and immoralities of human nature from one’s self; total submission of one’s wills before God (by following the Qur'an Sunnah and Ahlibeit) and finally love and peace for the whole mankind. Nurbakhshis inhabit Baltistan and Ladakh regions of J&K, as well as a large number of Noorbakshis are native to Iran, Kurdistan and Central Asia.

Terrain :
Each district can boast of at least one lofty peak. Out of 14 over 8,000 meters high peaks on earth, 4 occupy an amphitheater at the head of Baltoro glacier in the Karakoram range in Northern Pakistan. These are; K-2 or Mount Godowin Austin (8,611 m, world's second highest), Gasherbrum-I (8,068 m), Broad Peak (8,047 m) and Gasherbrum-II (8,035 m). There is yet another which is equally great, Nanga Parbat (8,126 m), located at the western most end of the Himalayas. In addition to these mountains, there are 68 peaks over 7,000 m and hundreds others of over 6,000 meters.

The Northern Pakistan has some of the longest glaciers outside Polar region; Siachen (72 km), Hispar (61 km), Biafo (60 km), Baltoro (60 km) and Batura (64 km)

Geography :
Division- Baltistan :
District, Ghanche, Area (km²) 9,400 ,Headquarters Khaplu.
District, Skardu ,Area (km²) 18,000 ,Headquarters Skardu

Division - Gilgit :
District, Astore, Area (km²) 8,657, Headquarters Gorikot. Gorikot lies on the historic junction where roads link to Rattu axis and Tarisheng Base camp-Nanga Perbat and other axis leads to Gudai - Chilum & Deosai Plains linking Astore to Skardu.
District , Diamir, Area (km²) 10,936, Headquarters Chilas
District , Ghizar, Area (km²) 9,635 ,Headquarters Gahkuch
District, Gilgit ,Area (km²) 39,300 ,Headquarters Gilgit.

Books and Resources :
Sectarian War: Pakistan’s Sunni-Shia Violence and its links to the Middle East.
Demographics of Pakistan.
Languages of Pakistan.

Italy to provide $10bn credit line ! Korean companies to Invest in Pakistan !

2009-10-19T04:56:00.004-04:00

Pakistan has raised eyebrows again. Even with terrorism concerns the 7th largest country in the world brings in more foreign investment from Asia and Italy !

Italian government has agreed to provide a credit line equivalent to $10 billion for Italian investors willing to invest in Pakistan.

This was stated by the chairman, Board of Investment (BoI), Saleem H Mandviwalla, at a press conference here on Saturday.

BoI chairman, who accompanied President Asif Ali Zardari during his recent official visit to Italy, said talks with Italian Embassy for materialising this credit line have now been initiated.

He expressed the hope that the fund would be ready in the next six months.

He said that this credit line has been promised by the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, in response to the request of President Asif Ali Zardari during a bilateral meeting in Rome.

Mandviwalla said this request was well received by the Italian premier and Mr Berlusconi also promised that he would bring a large delegation of leading Italian investors to Pakistan.

He hoped that this fund will help boost Italian investment in Pakistan in a big way.

The BoI chairman said that leading Italian companies have shown keen interest in having joint ventures in Pakistan during a meeting with the President of Pakistan.

He pointed out that Pakistan-Italy Chamber would be established in the next two years.

Talking of his meetings with leading South Korean firms, including Daewoo, Hyundai, LOTTE and K Water, he said they are keen to invest in Pakistan.

The chief executive of LOTTE has indicated that his company was willing to invest at least $10 billion in Pakistan by way of acquisitions in the next five years.

They have already purchased Pak PTA and planning to invest another $300 million to acquire food and raw material companies in Pakistan, he added.

Similarly, the BoI chairman said that K Water was willing to construct dams in Pakistan and Korean Electric Power Company was interested in power generation and distribution in Pakistan.

Pakistan gets New F-16's from the US !

2009-10-14T20:27:00.003-04:00

The latest F-16's can carry a heavier and larger payload of weaponary and would increase Pakistan's capability to haul Nuclear weapons !

The US has unveiled the first of 18 new F-16s being produced for Islamabad amidst a furore in Pakistan over the tough anti-terror conditions attached to a bill to provide $7.5 billion worth of non-military aid over the next five years.

Officials including the chiefs of staff of the US and Pakistan air forces were on hand to witness the event at Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth, Texas, facility Tuesday.

Air Chief Marshal Rao Quamar Suleman, Chief of the Air Staff, Pakistan Air Force (PAF), accepted the first F-16 Block 52 aircraft on behalf of Islamabad. Also present were Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, and other senior officials.

Suleman said the roll out shows that the programme is 'on track' despite it experiencing many ups and downs.

The US government was represented by Kay Granger, a House member from Texas and Gen. Norton Schwartz, Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

'Peace Drive is the flagship of modernisation for Pakistan's Air Force. It is the latest configuration of the best fourth generation multirole fighter available in the world today,' said John Larson, vice president of F-16 programmes for Lockheed Martin.

The aircraft order is designated as 'Peace Drive I', continuing a long tradition of naming F-16 international sales programmes with the word Peace.

The programme raises the total number of F-16s ordered by Pakistan to 54.

The Pakistan Air Force received its first F-16, in the Block 15 F-16A/B configuration, in 1982. Pakistan has been operating Lockheed Martin aircraft since 1963, when it received C-130B airlifters.

The Peace Drive I order is for 12 F-16Cs and six F-16Ds, all powered by the Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 engine.

The first aircraft - a two-seat F-16D model - will be delivered to the US government (as agent for Pakistan in the Foreign Military Sales process) in December, with the remainder following in 2010.

Pakistan 'No 1' among emerging markets peers !

2009-10-14T19:26:00.001-04:00

Pakistan stands at number one position for providing highest equity returns and dividends to local and foreign companies on their reported earnings and profitability within emerging markets of Asia, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America, The Nation deduced from IMF report on Monday.
This report further indicates that Pakistan equity market has been put on the sustainable path of growth and stability since the beginning of the first quarter of calendar year, 2009.
IMF statistical output on emerging markets’ dividend-yield ratios revealed that despite witnessing slowdown in FDI and other investment inflows particularly portfolio investment, the domestic financial market is performing well in terms of offering better profits and dividends.
The divided-yield ratio in Pakistan is still stayed at 9.1 per cent since January 2009, which is most attractive and highly profitable for the local and foreign blue chip companies, operating in oil & gas exploration, petroleum refining, fertilizer and financial sectors of economy as compared to its emerging and regional markets’ peers.
IMF Global Financial Satiability Report said Czech Republic and Egypt are runners up with providing 7.4 per cent and 6.3 per cent rate of return on equities respectively.
Meanwhile, report found out that the solvency and adequacy of the banking system is somehow remaining intact. As per the financial soundness indicators compiled by report, Pakistan’s scheduled banks non-performing loans (NPLs) to total loans grew by 11.5 per cent by end-March 2009, which is number 4 amongst its emerging markets financial business counterparts of the Middle east and Central Asian regions.
Earlier, report said the immediate outlook for the financial system has improved markedly since the April 2009.
Financial markets have rebounded, emerging market risks have eased, banks have raised capital, and wholesale funding markets have reopened. Even so, credit channels are still impaired and the economic recovery is likely to be slow.

Cunning Musharraf Siphoned US Military Aid into the Pakistan Economy !

2009-10-06T20:07:00.012-04:00

Pakistan Economy went on an over drive during the Musharraf Era ! Even though critics of Musharraf are quick to shrug off the economic growth part of the 9 years of his rule but the graphs speak louder then the shrugs !

News report coming in from the West and Pakistani military reveal more about the nine years of Musharraf rule. Statements from ex-generals and the Pentagon sum up on what went on in Pakistan in the last decade.

After taking over the helm in Pakistan Musharraf strategized and siphoned Billions of Dollars of US Military aid into the ailing Pakistan Economy ! Ex-Generals authenticate news reports which claim that Military aid was funneled for mega projects in Pakistan. The claims that the diversion of money hurt the military but helped the Economy tremendously which grew at a staggering 8%.

In a related development Pentagon said that there is no mechanism to track money sent to Pakistan and US aid funds were used to buy weapons better suited to fighting India then the Taliban !

Its widely suspected that these stories have been circulated by former President Musharraf himself. Analysts say that fearing corruption Musharraf has tipped the US on how to give 'Project specific' aid to Pakistan. Relying on these reports US has mandated that all projects be audited every three months.

On the sidelines of this development Black Water with its new name Xe (pronounced Zee) has moved into Pakistan and is sub-contracting infrastructure projects all over Pakistan.

Although the above caption is bad news for US but for Pakistan its a sigh of relief that the army did not just get billions of dollars of aid. US aid was pumped into the economy and Pakistan went through an era of 8% growth during the last 6 years of Musharraf's rule.

Mega projects like the Gwadar Port, Karachi-Makran Highway, Khushab Nuclear Plant which produced a new generation of lighter fuel plutonium-based weapons, Islamabad-Peshawar Highway, Upgrading of Indus highway, Buying of land for Basha Dam, Chashma I and II Nuclear Plants etc. were all commenced. It was amazing that Pakistan's debt remained at $38 billion and dollar stood fast at Rs. 60 during the 9 years of Musharraf rule.

The US has long suspected that a majority of the billions of dollars it has sent to Pakistan to battle the Taliban has been diverted to the domestic economy and other causes, such as fighting India. However, the scope and longevity of the misuse has become clear after two army generals have claimed that between 2002 and 2008, while Al Qaeda regrouped, only $500 million of the $6.6 billion in American aid actually made it to the Pakistani military.

The generals, who spoke on condition of anonymity, had their accounts corroborated by retired and active generals, former bureaucrats and government ministers. They said former president Pervez Musharraf had served as both chief of staff and president at the time of the siphoning, making it easier to divert money to help Pakistan economically.

“The army itself got very little,” said General (r) Mahmud Durrani, who was Pakistan’s ambassador to the US under Musharraf. The military was financing the war on terror out of its own budget", which again is good news for Pakistan but bad for the US. The money was used for supporting Pakistan budget deficit and lowered Pakistan staggering $38 billion debt. Pakistan debt servicing decreased during the 9 years from 55% of the budget to 35%.

Its ironic that the details on misuse of American aid comes as Washington again promises Pakistan money. Analysts are suspecting that these stories are being implanted at this time to make sure that money is invested directly into Pakistan's infrastructure development programs. There has been talk of bypassing the Federal Government and funding the infrastructure projects directly. Legislation to triple general aid to Pakistan cleared Congress last week. The legislation also authorises “such sums as are necessary” for military assistance to Pakistan, upon several conditions, including certification that Pakistan is cooperating in stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The US is also insisting on more accountability for reimbursing money spent.

Analysts are also suspecting that the former President on the sidelines of his 'lecture tours' in the US is supporting direct funding of the projects bypassing Zardari's Government. Former President has been lecturing Think Tanks in the US, Europe, India and the Far-East discussing the war on terrorism and Pakistan.

No mechanism: But the US still cannot follow what happens to the money it doles out. “We don’t have a mechanism for tracking the money after we have given it to them,” Pentagon spokesman Lt Col Mark Wright said in a telephone interview.

Pakistan has received more money from the US’ war fund than any other nation. It is also the least expensive warfront. The amount the US spends per soldier per month is just $928, compared with $76,870 in Afghanistan. Yet by 2008, the US had provided Pakistan with $8.6 billion in military money, and more than $12 billion in all. “The army was sending in the bills,” said one general. “The army was taking from its coffers to pay for the war effort — the access roads construction, the fuel, everything.”

Indian war: Former General Durrani alleged that some of the money from the US went to buying weapons better suited to fighting India than in the border regions of Afghanistan — armour-piercing tow missiles, sophisticated surveillance equipment, air-to-air missiles, maritime patrol aircraft, anti-ship missiles and F-16 fighter aircraft. This allegation again implies that the money did get spent and there are no allegation of corruptions just siphoning the money - again a sigh of relief to Pakistanis.

Meanwhile, military spokesman General Athar Abbas said the US gave nothing to offset the cost of Pakistan’s dead and wounded in the war on terror. The hospital and rehabilitation costs for the wounded have come to more than $25 million, he said - costs that the US does not compensate Pakistan for. Another allegation talks about an hospital built with the US aid and did not end up in anyones Swiss account !

Musharraf’s spokesman, General (r) Rashid Qureshi, flatly denied that his former boss had shortchanged the army. “He has answered these questions. He has answered all the questions,” he added.

Pakistan to set up MI5 type counter Intelligence unit !

2009-10-03T21:18:00.002-04:00

Pakistan has been insisting on getting material help on new intelligence gathering techniques from the West plus UAV Drones and Night Goggles! This is major coup in its plan to reformulate a new counter intelligence agency on the pattern of MI5.

Britain will assist Pakistan to set up a counter-intelligence agency on the line of British secret service, MI5.

BBC's Richard Watson quoted senior British and Pakistani counter-terrorism officials as saying that British training and funding will be made available to the new security authority.

In the first phase, 200 experts will be employed in Pakistan, covering extremism and religious affairs, he said.

One of these will examine the alleged role in religious schools and radicalisation.

He added that there will be a new counter-terrorism strategy within six months, and research projects will be launched.

British intelligence has estimated that almost three quarters of terrorist attacks in Britain have their origins in Pakistan.

British experts fear that Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI could block progress, as it would want to remain in charge of terrorist investigations.

However, Pakistani sources insisted that the ISI is fully on board.

The Home Office in UK declined to comment on funding, but said it strongly supported the move.

Yamaha to set up Motor Cycle plant in Pakistan !

2009-09-18T14:51:00.003-04:00

Hundred's of generic Pakistani motor cycle companies making motor cycle parts makes it very cheap for Yamaha to manufacture motor bikes in Pakistan.

TOKYO: Yamaha, a leading Japanese company, has prepared a plan to make an investment of $150 million in motorcycle manufacturing on a large-scale in Pakistan.

This was stated by President of Yamaha Takashi Kajikawa in a meeting with Pakistan’s Ambassador to Japan Noor Mohammad Jadmani at the company’s headquarters at Hamamatsu.

President Takashi said that the plant would be established in National Industrial Park at Bin Qasim, Karachi.

Giving salient features of the project, Takashi informed Ambassador Noor Jadmani that the company in the first phase would assemble around 22,000 motorcycles by 2012, after that it would manufacture the motorcycles by using various domestically manufactured parts in Pakistan.

In the final phase, the company would start manufacturing motorcycle engines in Pakistan by 2017.

‘The company intends to make Pakistan a base for exports to neighbouring Asian and African countries,’ Takashi informed the Pakistani Ambassador.

The plant, he said, would provide job opportunities to about 25,000 Pakistan engineers, technicians and labourers.

The company has already submitted its proposals to the Board of Investment in Islamabad, he noted.

Ambassador Noor Jadmani, speaking on the occasion, greatly appreciated the initiative from Yamaha Motorcycle Company and briefed Takashi on the investment friendly policies of the present democratic government of Pakistan.

The Pakistan envoy also informed privileges, facilities and tax concessions offered in Exclusive Japanese Special Economic Zone being established in Pakistan.

He thanked and encouraged the Japanese to make investment in Pakistan in a big way and assured government’s complete support, assistance and patronage in this respect, according to Iftikhar Babar, Economic Minister in Pakistan Embassy.

Swine flu milder then earlier Estimates !

2009-09-17T07:00:00.004-04:00

WASHINGTON - The death rate from the pandemic H1N1 swine flu is likely lower than earlier estimates, an expert in infectious diseases said on Wednesday.

New estimates suggest that the death rate compares to a moderate year of seasonal influenza, said Dr. Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University.

"It's mildest in kids. That's one of the really good pieces of news in this pandemic," Lipsitch told a meeting of flu experts being held by the U.S. Institute of Medicine.

"Barring any changes in the virus, I think we can say we are in a category 1 pandemic. This has not become clear until fairly recently."

The Pandemic Severity Index set by the U.S. government has five categories of pandemic, with a category 1 being comparable to a seasonal flu epidemic.

Seasonal flu has a death rate of less than 0.1 percent — but still manages to kill 250,000 to 500,000 people globally every year.

A category 5 pandemic would compare to the 1918 flu pandemic, which had an estimated death rate of 2 percent or more, and would kill tens of million of people.

Lipsitch took information from around the world on how many people had reported they had influenza-like illness, which may or may not actually be influenza; government reports of actual hospitalizations and confirmed deaths.

He came up with a range of mortality from swine flu, from 0.007 percent to 0.045 percent.

Either way, having new information about how many people were infected and did not become severely ill or die makes the pandemic look very mild, he said.

"The news is certainly better than it was in May and even better than it was at the beginning of August," Lipsitch said.

H1N1 swine flu was declared a pandemic in June after flashing around the world in six weeks. Experts all said a true death rate would not be clear for weeks because it is impossible to test every patient and because people with mild cases may never be diagnosed.

This lack of information made the epidemics in various countries and cities look worse at first than they actually were, Lipsitch said. People sick enough to be hospitalized are almost always tested first.

"Yes, there's been hype, but I don't think it's been an outrageous amount of hype," Lipsitch said.

Seasonal flu is usually far worse among the elderly, who make up 90 percent of the deaths every year. In contrast, this flu is attacking younger adults and older children, but they are not dying of it at the same rate as the elderly, Lipsitch said.

US map and rate of Infections on MSNBC :
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30435064/ns/health-swine_flu

World map and rate of Infections on MSNBC :

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30485593/ns/health-swine_flu

17,000 Chinese workers from the Three Gorges Dam Project would build Daimer-Bhasha dam in Pakistan

2009-09-17T00:52:00.004-04:00

China to help build the Daimer-Basha dam after World Bank's refusal to fund the project. It would be constructed near Chilas, on the border of the North Western Frontier Province and Gilgit-Baltistan autonomous region.

Pakistan is considering another big dam project the Diamer-Bhasha Dam on the Indus River in northern Pakistan comes with an astounding price tag of over US$8.5 billion. The 200-square-kilometer reservoir would flood 100 kilometers of the Karakoram highway.

The project, after an eight-year construction period, would provide 4500 MW of electricity for the national grid, but it would not address the far more pressing issue that half of Pakistan's population (around 80 million people) have no electricity access whatsoever. Diamer-Bhasha is a costly project that would only benefit industries and wealthy Pakistanis.

Officials from the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) of Pakistan have revealed that China will most likely fund the bulk of project costs, as well as provide 17,000 workers from the Three Gorges Dam Project. It is also likely that a Chinese company will be in charge of construction, as one source from WAPDA noted that China's policy is to take responsibility for the construction of any dam project that it finances. The poor environmental and social record of China's global dam industry doubly raises concerns that impacts that would result from the Diamer-Bhasha dam might not be adequately assessed or mitigated.

The carvings that will be destroyed by the reservoir represent the great cultural flourishing and exchange of the Indus Valley region's portion of the Silk Road. The project is located in a mountainous, earthquake-prone area and there are many engineering challenges, including relocating 100 kilometers of the Karakorum highway. These factors contribute to the project's hefty price tag.

Pakistan Government Approval :

The Executive Committee of Pakistan's National Economic Council (ECNEC) on Thursday formally approved the construction of Bhasha Diamir Dam at a cost of Rs 894 billion (US$10.758396 billion).

The meeting presided over by Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin also approved 25 other development projects. Later addressing a joint news conference, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira and Minister for Water and Power, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said the project to be completed in eight to ten years will generate four thousand five hundred megawatt electricity.

Work of land acquisition will start within three months while construction work on the project will begun in October next year. The Information Minister said the concerned provincial agencies and departments have been asked to remove all obstacles to complete Diamir Bhasha Dam project on priority basis. Qamar Zaman Kaira assured the people of Northern Areas that affectees of the Dam will be compensated without delay.

Preference will be given to local skilled persons for employment in the project.

The Minister said the cost of Diamer-Basha dam is Rs 894 billion with generation capacity of 4500 MW electricity. "This would prove to be a lifeline project for the country and would meet agricultural as well as power requirements of our energy starved country," he added. The Minister congratulated the entire nation including people of Northern Areas on the approval of this mega project of national importance which would usher in a new era of socio-economic prosperity in the country.

Minister for Water and Power, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Secretary Information, Ashfaq Ahmad Gondal and higher officials of concerned ministries were present on the occasion. Kaira said in the meeting total 44 projects costing Rs. 1200 billion were presented before the ECNEC for approval, out of which 26 were accorded approval. The remaining projects would be considered and approved during the next meeting scheduled to be held within next two weeks, he added.

Giving further information about the Diamer-Basha Dam, Information Minister, Qamar Zaman Kaira said the credit of approval goes to the present democratic government which has not only approved the project but also allocated funds for its implementation.

He said Rs. 15 billion have already been allocated in the current budget for the land acquisition and compensation to the affectees of the area. Kaira, who is also holding a portfolio of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas, appreciated the cooperation and sacrifices of people of Areas during the process of approval of project.

Not a single voice was raised from the people of Northern Areas against this project and I assure them that their genuine demands regarding compensation and settlement would be addressed on a priority basis," he said while responding to a question. The Minister further assured them that first their problems would be resolved and then the work on the project would be started, adding that the priority would be given to the local people in term of employment.

Speaking on the occasion, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said the Dam will have the capacity to store 6.4 million acre water for irrigation purposes. It will irrigate additional three million acres of land and it will also help stop sediments to Tarbela Dam. He said the civil work on the project is expected to be started in October next year while work on land acquisition would be started within next three months. It would also generate 19 billion unit electricity at the rate of Rs.2.90 unit.

India matches Pakistan in violence against Women !

2009-09-16T20:50:00.006-04:00

India and Pakistan continue to laugh at each at their statistics on violence against women, child molestation and child kidnappings. Intead of forming a common task force to fight these common enemies they are involved in constant mud slinging.

Sanity should prevail and they should hit a common ground and start a plan to stop these acts of violence. Someone needs to play knock knock at Arundati Roy, Abdul Sattar Edhi, Ansar Burney and Asma Jehangir so we can atleast start as a team ?

Pakistan echos India's statistics and Bangladesh should not be any any differant. In India violence against women has also increased, according to national statistics. Between 2003 and 2007, rape cases rose by more than 30 percent, kidnapping or abduction cases rose by more than 50 percent, while torture and molestation also jumped sharply.

Pakistan : Statistics compiled by a leading women’s rights NGO show that as many as 7,733 cases of violence against women were reported by the print media in Pakistan in 2008. Murders (19.60%) and honour killings (6.10%) combined made up over a quarter of the reported cases, i.e. a total of 1,988 Pakistani women were killed. Another 22.79 per cent of the incidents were kidnappings/abductions.

Punjab, Pakistan had the highest number of overall reported cases, 4,360, in accordance with its position as the province with the largest population. Sindh, however, had the most known honour killings, 220, despite having a much smaller population.

As the morning commuter train rattled down the track, Chinu Sharma, an office worker, enjoyed the absence of men. Some of them pinch and grope women on trains, or shout insults and catcalls, she said. Her friend Vandana Rohile agreed and widened her eyes in mock imitation.

“Sometimes they just stare at you,” said Ms. Rohile, 27.

Up and down the jostling train, women repeated the same theme: As millions of women have poured into the Indian work force over the last decade, they have met with different obstacles in a tradition-bound, patriarchal culture, but few are more annoying than the basic task of getting to work.

The problems of taunting and harassment, known as eve teasing, are so persistent that in recent months the government has decided to simply remove men altogether. In a pilot program, eight new commuter trains exclusively for female passengers have been introduced in India’s four largest cities: New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta.

The trains are known as Ladies Specials, and on one recent round trip in which a male reporter got permission to board, the women commuting between the industrial town of Palwal and New Delhi were very pleased.

“It’s so nice here,” said a teacher, Kiran Khas, who has commuted by train for 17 years. Ms. Khas said the regular trains were thronged with vegetable sellers, pickpockets, beggars and lots of men. “Here on this train,” she said, as if describing a miracle, “you can board anywhere and sit freely.”

India would seem to be a country where women have shattered the glass ceiling. The country’s most powerful politician, Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress Party, is a woman. The country’s current president, a somewhat ceremonial position, is a woman. So are the foreign secretary and the chief minister of the country’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, and the new minister of railways. India’s Constitution guarantees equal rights for women, while Indian law stipulates equal pay and punishment for sexual harassment.

But the reality is very different for the average working woman, many analysts say.

Since India began economic reforms in the early 1990s, women have entered the urban work force, initially as government office workers, but now increasingly as employees in the booming services sector or in professional jobs. Over all, the number of working women has roughly doubled in 15 years.

But violence against women has also increased, according to national statistics. Between 2003 and 2007, rape cases rose by more than 30 percent, kidnapping or abduction cases rose by more than 50 percent, while torture and molestation also jumped sharply.

Mala Bhandari, who runs an organization focused on women and children, said the influx of women into the workplace had eroded the traditional separation between public space (the workplace) and private space (the home). “Now that women have started occupying public spaces, issues will always arise,” she said. “And the first issue is security.”

India’s newspapers are filled with accounts of the frictions wrought by so much social change.

Last week, a husband in Noida was brought in by the police and accused of beating his wife because she had cut her hair in a Western style. In June, four colleges in Kanpur tried to bar female students from wearing blue jeans, saying that they were “indecent” and that they contributed to rising cases of sexual harassment. After protests from female students, state officials ordered the colleges to drop the restriction.

For many years, women traveling by train sat with men, until crowding and security concerns prompted the railroad to reserve two compartments per train for women. But with trains badly overcrowded, men would break into cars for women and claim seats. Mumbai started operating two women-only trains in 1992, yet the program was never expanded. Then, with complaints rising from female passengers, Mamata Banerjee, the new minister of railways, announced the eight new Ladies Specials trains.

“It speaks of their coming of age and assertiveness,” said Mukesh Nigam, a high-ranking railway official.

Many men are not thrilled. Several female passengers said eve teasing was worse here in northern India than elsewhere in the country. As the Ladies Special idled on Track 7 at the station in Palwal, a few men glared from the platform. The Ladies Special was far less crowded, with clean, padded benches and electric fans, compared with the dirty, darkened train on Track 6 filled with sullen men. Vandals sometimes write profanities on the Ladies Special, or worse.

“The local boys will come and use the bathroom on the train,” said Meena Kumari, one of the female ticket collectors in flowing blue saris who patrol the train along with female security officers. “They do it out of contempt. They do not want the train to run.”

As the train began moving, one woman sat meditating. Nearby, an accountant read a Hindu prayer book, while college students gossiped a few rows away.

“If you go to work, then you are independent, you earn some money and can help the family,” said Archana Gahlot, 25. “And if something happens to the marriage, you have something.”

“Even on this train,” Ms. Gahlot continued, “men sometimes board and try to harass the women. Sometimes they openly say, ‘Please close the Ladies Special.’

“Maybe they think the government is helping out women and not men,” she added.

The eight new trains represent a tiny fraction of the nation’s commuter trains. Only one Ladies Special serves New Delhi, though the Railway Ministry has announced future Ladies Special service. Dr. Ranjari Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research, said the service was a politically astute move, if not a long-term solution.

“You really need to make every train as safe as the Ladies Specials,” Dr. Kumari said.

Men are hardly the only ones unnerved by the changing role of women in Indian society. Namita Sharma, 39, remembers that her mother advised her to become a teacher to balance between work and family; instead, she chose a career in fashion. Now that Ms. Sharma has a 14-year-old daughter with ideas of her own, she worries about crime.

“She has her own point of view, and I have my own point of view for her,” she said, smiling. “Let’s see who wins. She talks of independence. I am independent.”

But, she added, “Let’s talk of a secure kind of independence.”

Then the train stopped, and Ms. Sharma stood up. Asked what more the government could do for women, she laughed.

“Oh my God, it is a long list,” she said. “But I’m sorry, this is my station.”

Israelis, Palestinians present peace blueprint

2009-09-16T00:44:00.000-04:00

About time !

TEL AVIV, Israel – Jerusalem divided by a series of fences, trenches and walls. The West Bank and Gaza linked by a sunken highway. Palestinians and Israelis trading land that would require 100,000 Jewish settlers to move.
These proposals are part of a 424-page blueprint for Mideast peace presented Tuesday — the most detailed description yet of what an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal could look like.
The plan was released as a new U.S. diplomatic effort was under way to restart peace talks and ahead of meetings next week at the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
Created by teams of Israeli and Palestinian experts and former negotiators, the blueprint is meant to show it's still possible to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel, despite many setbacks, said those involved in the drafting.
"If you want to resolve the conflict, here is the recipe," said Gadi Baltiansky, a leader of the Israeli team.
The core of the plan is a Palestinian state in nearly 98 percent of the West Bank, all of the Gaza Strip and the Arab-populated areas of Jerusalem. By going into the tiniest details, it highlights the staggering challenges and expense of implementing any peace deal.
The blueprint was presented Tuesday by Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli peace negotiator, and by Baltiansky, who served as an aide to former prime minister Ehud Barak.
The Palestinian participants kept a low profile. The most senior, Yasser Abed Rabbo, now a high-ranking aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, declined comment and did not attend the plan's unveiling in Tel Aviv.
Israeli officials said the Palestinians planned their own presentation later, but it appeared the Palestinians also wanted to avoid giving the impression their government endorses the plan. Israeli government officials also declined comment.
The blueprint highlights how complex and expensive peace will be.
It had to resort to flow charts to describe a multilayered bureaucracy of thousands of international troops and monitors who would serve as referees. The partition of Jerusalem would require building border terminals inside the city and dividing a major thoroughfare between the two states.
A sunken four-lane highway with bridges and tunnels would be built through Israel to link the West Bank and Gaza, administered by the Palestinians but under Israeli sovereignty. Israeli motorists would have to carry tracking devices on designated transit routes through Palestine to make sure they didn't go astray.
The document builds on the 50-page outline of a peace deal published in 2003 by the same group, known as the Geneva Initiative. It is also close to the terms of a failed agreement suggested in late 2000 by then-President Bill Clinton.
The blueprint goes into detail on issues that were only dealt with in broad strokes in the earlier efforts.
For example, the 2003 plan said the West Bank and Gaza, which flank Israel, should be connected by a corridor running through the Jewish state. The expanded proposal describes a sunken four-lane highway with bridges and tunnels; it would also give the Palestinians the option of adding train tracks, underground fuel pipes and communications cables.
The partition of Jerusalem required perhaps the most creativity.
Earlier efforts called for Jewish neighborhoods to join Israel and Arab ones to become part of Palestine. However, traditionally Arab east Jerusalem has become a patchwork of Jewish and Arab neighborhoods since Israel captured it in the 1967 Mideast war and moved nearly 200,000 Israelis there.
As a result, the border on the blueprint snakes around neighborhoods, divvying them between Israel and Palestine. A major thoroughfare that bisects the city would become a binational road, with Israeli and Palestinian motorists divided by a series of fences, trenches, walls and greenery.
A pedestrian overpass in the downtown area, near the famed American Colony Hotel, would link the Palestinian part of Jerusalem with the Israeli sector, passing through a border checkpoint.
Huge multilevel border terminals would be built in the northern and southern areas of the city, and planners included detailed architectural drawings of the crossings.
Both sides would have access to the walled Old City with its major religious shrines, but from separate gates. The border puts the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, in Israel, while the Palestinians would get the adjacent Al Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest shrine.
The document does not have a detailed chapter on the fate of Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants, one of the toughest issues facing peacemakers. The Palestinian team leader, Nidal Foqaha, said the issue was still too sensitive.
The security annex was the most difficult to put together, Baltiansky said. He said the involvement of senior former Israeli military officials ensured the document addresses Israel's security concerns.
Israel fears Palestinian militants would overrun the West Bank after a withdrawal and launch rockets at Israel. Gaza was seized by Hamas in 2007, two years after Israel's withdrawal, and militants there have fired thousands of rockets into southern Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a future Palestinian state to be demilitarized, and the security annex lists weapons the Palestinian security forces would be banned from having, including tanks, artillery, rockets, heavy machine guns and weapons of mass destruction.
The plan also stipulates that an Israeli infantry battalion of 800 soldiers would remain in the Jordan Valley, on the West Bank's border with Jordan, for three years after all other Israeli troops have left the Palestinian territory.
"When Netanyahu speaks about a non-militarized Palestine, in this book we write exactly what it means," Baltiansky said. "We translate it into a detailed reality."
The manual is being presented to Israeli and Palestinian leaders as well as top diplomats in the U.S., Europe and Egypt in hopes they will use it as a reference once peace talks resume, organizers said.

$150 Million Gift to Children's Aims to Revolutionize Surgery

2009-09-16T00:05:00.002-04:00

D.C. Philanthropist Arranges Abu Dhabi Largess

In one of the largest philanthropic donations ever made to a U.S. pediatric hospital, Children's National Medical Center will receive $150 million from the government of Abu Dhabi -- a gift that the hospital hopes to use to dramatically change pediatric surgery.

The donation, which will be announced Wednesday morning, has the potential to transform Children's Hospital, enabling it to hire more than 100 surgeons, researchers and staff members over the next few years, hospital officials said. Its arrival amid a recession has created palpable excitement at the Northwest Washington hospital, which treats thousands of children and performs 15,000 surgeries each year.

Edwin K. Zechman Jr., president and chief executive of Children's, said the money could revolutionize not just his hospital, but also the entire field of pediatric surgery. "Pediatric surgery could look 100 percent different in five to 10 years," he said.

The money comes from the government of Abu Dhabi, one of the United Arab Emirates. The Persian Gulf country has given large sums to Johns Hopkins Medicine and other U.S. institutions. But the gift was arranged by Joseph E. Robert Jr., a prominent Washington philanthropist with deep ties to Children's and personal connections to wealthy members of the UAE's royal family.

Doctors at what will be called the Sheik Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation will collaborate across disciplines to improve surgery for children. That could mean advances such as using genetic research to personalize surgeries and pain management, bringing imaging technology directly into the operating room to guide procedures with greater precision, using nanoparticles to target tumors and, in some cases, eliminating the need for surgery altogether.

"Wow!" said Richard Redett, director of pediatric plastic surgery at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, marveling at the size of the donation and the targeting of one specialty. "This kind of gift almost never happens."

The gift, to be paid over five years, will dedicate $60 million to research and programs, $40 million to improving research facilities, $25 million for a surgical institute endowment and $25 million for other needs at the medical center. The hospital will add $100 million to $120 million of its money for doctors' salaries, new operating theaters and other expenses, bringing the amount committed to the project to more than $250 million.

The scope and ambition of the plan are the brainchild of Robert, 57, a major donor to Children's who is battling brain cancer. About a decade ago, Robert's son underwent a nearly 10-hour surgery at Children's to rebuild his chest wall. The complicated procedure, performed by Kurt Newman, was amazingly successful, Robert said. His son, now 29 and a student at American University, was strong enough to serve in the Marines.

Robert, who has made a fortune in real estate investment and asset management and has given away a fortune to local charities, donated $25 million to Children's and led a fundraising campaign for a new surgical center, which is named after him.

About four years ago, he invited Newman, Zechman and others to his home for breakfast and asked them how to turn the hospital into the premiere pediatric surgical center in the world.

"I said to Kurt specifically: 'Forget everything you've known and been taught and used in terms of the way an operating room is set up and people work together. Take a clean sheet of paper . . . think in the future perfect tense. What's it going to look like in 10 years or 30 years, and how do we speed up to get there faster?' "

Newman, senior vice president of the surgical center, said his first ideas "were pretty lame." He thought of hiring the best people. But Robert kept pushing him and others to come up with something that could transform pediatric surgery.

At one meeting, Julia Finkel, a pediatric anesthesiologist, startled everyone when she stood and demanded a dramatic overhaul of the way doctors measure and treat pain.

"She said, 'I don't want to walk into any more rooms where the children are crying and the parents are full of anxiety,' " recalled Pam King Sams, executive vice president and chief development officer of the Children's Hospital Foundation. "We need to eliminate it. And we can eliminate it."

Pain is difficult to gauge in any patient, but it's especially difficult in infants and children. Managing pain is tricky, too, because the dosing in children is far more precise than in adults. Infants seem to process pain differently, and narcotics and other treatments have different effects on people.

But by drawing on experts, Newman said, they can attack that in new ways. Finkel and others have been developing a device that measures pain. And once they can measure pain effectively, they can develop drugs to target it more effectively.

"I see that as one of the biggest potential breakthroughs here," Newman said. "I think it's achievable within the next five to 10 years" to have a hospital where pain is not inevitable. "We can eliminate that, wipe that out."

"Boy, I haven't heard anyone talk about eliminating pain," Redett said. "I've heard a lot of people talking about easing pain and suffering in health care. I don't know if that's an attainable goal or not," especially within a short time frame.

Newman still has a piece of paper on which he and Robert diagrammed some of the changes they could make to deliver care more effectively and collaborate across specialties. Robert loved the idea -- and after a presentation from Newman and others, he sent them back to draw up a detailed business plan.

Robert turned to Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, whom he had met about five years ago on a business trip when the crown prince held a dinner in Abu Dhabi for executives working on national security. They hit it off, became friends and now go on hunting trips together.

Robert pitched the idea of the surgical innovation center at the prince's home one night while they were watching TV and eating dinner.

The Abu Dhabi leader did not consent to an interview -- he has rarely spoken with Western media, a spokesman said. But Robert said the idea appealed to him immediately because he could see that it could have a major effect on children's treatment and that it could happen quickly.

"What really impressed us about Children's was their vision of a significant leap forward and rethinking pediatric care," said Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE's ambassador to the United States. "This isn't going toward buildings, to bricks and mortar and a big sign on a building -- it's going toward research in pediatric care."

The gift was made in honor of the prince's father, the late Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who founded the UAE. In addition to creating the Sheik Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation, the medical center will name its campus the Sheik Zayed Campus for Advanced Pediatric Medicine at Children's National Medical Center.

Children's is also working toward a partnership to build and operate a pediatric hospital in Abu Dhabi.

For Robert, the gift represents a triumph. Recently he received a diagnosis of the same type of brain cancer that afflicted Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). After giving away millions and raising millions more for charity, he compares his current philanthropic efforts to playing basketball at an arcade.

"I'm trying to get as many scores, put the ball through the hoop as many times as I can with the limited time I have left," he said.

At the hospital Wednesday, when the ambassador, the executives and the doctors gather to talk about how much the institute will change pediatric medicine, Robert said he will be thinking, "What needs to get done next?"

Massive Investments in Gulf countries !

2009-09-15T07:56:00.001-04:00

Following Dubai economic success all countries in the Gulf are investing in massive industrialization and infrastructure projects - Nuclear plants, artificial islands, petro-chemical plants, new Islamic Banking are all in the works.

UAE :
The UAE is on its way to award a 41 billion dollar contract to build nuclear power plants saying that the decision between the three rival bidders was too close to call, an Abu Dhabi daily said Monday. A French group led by Areva, Electricite de France, GDF Suez and Total is competing against a Japanese-American alliance of Hitachi and General Electric, and a Korean-American consortium comprising Korea Electric Power, Samsung, Hyundai and US firm Westinghouse.

The Arab world's second-largest economy, the United Arab Emirates is seeking to reduce its dependence on hydrocarbons for power generation and to boost its image as an environmentally friendly country.

US President Barack Obama approved a civilian nuclear deal with the UAE in May.

Saudi Arabia :
Saudi Arabia: Barclays Bank plans to set up a private banking operation in Saudi Arabia to tap the market for wealthy individuals in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia is 'massive in terms of percentage of GDP of the Middle East, massive in terms of number of wealthy individuals, you absolutely have to be a player there if your aspirations are to be top of the league', according to Soha Nashaat, chief executive for Barclays private banking arm in the Middle East and North Africa. 'People are now more concerned on missing out on the market rebound than they are about the downside risk,' she added.

Kuwait :
Kuwait signs $2.65bn electricity agreement to boost power capacity. Kuwait Ministry of Electricity and Water and GE Energy yesterday announced the signing of a turnkey contract that will help address the growing demand for power in the State of Kuwait.

Kuwait is building a $8 billion 615,000 b/d oil refinery at al-Zour. This refinery will be one of the world largest.

Qatar :
Qatar holds the world's third largest natural gas reserves. Qatar Petroleum and Exxon Mobil Corporation inaugurted the largest operating liquefied natural gas (LNG) production facilities in the world.

This follows the start-up of the Qatargas 2 Train 4 in the second quarter of 2009. Each is designed with the capacity to produce 7.8 million tons per year, approximately 50 percent larger than any other global liquefaction facility currently operating outside of Qatar.

The biggest gas field in the world is located in the sea between Qatar and Iran. Qatar is expanding its fleet of ships to 40 to deliver liquified natural gas to countries around the world.

World largest gas exporters to form a cartel : Russian export monopoly Gazprom, Iran's National Oil Company and Qatar Liquefied Gas Company would hold 30 per cent each in a venture to export gas around the world. Another 10 per cent stake will be reserved for the most likely clients in China or South Korea.

Watch Qatar development :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt4DF3hHDuE&feature=player_embedded

Bahrain :
The breathtaking $1 billion Amwaj Islands – a group of man-made islands reclaimed from the crystal clear blue waters off the northernmost coast of Muharraq island in the Kingdom of Bahrain - is the flagship project of Ossis Property Developers B.S.C (c). The development covers an area of some 30 million square feet, is within easy access of the heart of Bahrain’s capital - Manama, and combines residential neighbourhoods, commercial districts and spectacular leisure resorts.

LuLu Island is one of the pioneering real estate development projects in Bahrain at the heart of Manama . This man made island is a partnership between the Government of Bahrain and The Mouawad Group Inc. For Real Estate Development. 39 Residential Buildings with a total of 1217 apartments, 1 Residential Icon Tower, 49 Chalets, 65 Villas, all overlooking private lagoons, a sea water enormous natural pool, 300 room 5-star Hotel with a private Marina & Yacht Club and a Spa Village, An Aquarium, A Medical Center, A Shopping Mall, A Multi Function Exhbition Center.

China to build more Nuclear Reactors in Pakistan !

2009-09-14T16:26:00.004-04:00

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari completed his first state trip to Beijing on Oct. 17, signing a raft of new agreements with a nation he had hailed in Islamabad four days earlier as "the future of the world." China and Pakistan tied up at least 11 deals on trade and economic cooperation, infrastructure projects, agriculture, mining rights and telecommunications; they now aim to double bilateral trade, which currently stands at around $7 billion, by 2011.

The two countries have a long-standing, all-weather relationship, forged over decades of mutual animosity toward neighboring India, with whom they separately have fought wars. But Zardari's visit comes at a pivotal moment. His fledgling democracy is not only threatened by terrorism, but is also teetering toward bankruptcy. Spiraling inflation, now at 25%, has eaten into Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves at a rate of $1 billion a month and the country risks defaulting on debt repayment loans. These fiscal headaches have been compounded by a flare-up in tensions with its most vital ally, the U.S., which recently launched raids against terrorist targets in Pakistan's remote tribal areas without notifying Islamabad — actions that have triggered a firestorm of protest and clouded relations with Washington.

Enter China. With nearly $2 trillion amassed in foreign currency holdings, China's government had the largesse this week to grant Zardari an immediate soft loan of upwards of $1 billion, according to a report in the Financial Times. "As a long friend of Pakistan, China understands it is facing some financial difficulties," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang at a briefing with journalists on Oct. 16. Other new measures include the increase of access Pakistani goods will have in China's markets as well as agreements to launch special economic zones within Pakistan with tax incentives for Chinese companies.

Beyond this, Zardari's strengthening of ties with Beijing sends a clear signal to the U.S. On Oct. 8, Washington concluded a landmark nuclear energy deal with India — a pact that upset both Beijing and Islamabad, in part because it enabled India to skirt international regulations regarding the purchase of nuclear fuel, something the U.S. has ruled out offering Pakistan. Su Hao, professor of Asia-Pacific studies at China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, says China's foreign policy establishment is "highly concerned about the U.S.-India contract, because it was a unilateral decision by the U.S."

A burgeoning Sino-Pakistani alliance may check what many in Islamabad and Beijing fear to be a solidifying Indo-U.S. consensus in the region. Though no official statement from either government was made, Pakistan's ambassador to Beijing, Masood Khan, told The Nation, a Pakistani daily, that obtaining nuclear reactors and fuel for civilian nuclear technology would be the "main item" in talks with Beijing this week. Apart from being Pakistan's main conventional arms supplier, China has played an integral part in building Pakistan's nuclear weapons industry. In turn, Islamabad allowed the Chinese to build a deep-sea facility in Gwadar, a $250 million project that, once completed, will give Beijing an immensely strategic listening post on the Persian Gulf.

Still, a geopolitical Cold War is not at hand. The fate of Pakistan's government remains tightly bound to the White House, and China's booming trade with India is exponentially more lucrative than its transactions with Pakistan. Zardari's trip this week, though, is a sign of the many poles springing up in the multi-polar 21st century.

US in Direct talks with Provincial Governments in Pakistan for development Projects !

2009-09-12T20:12:00.009-04:00

Amidst fears of a massive profit taking 'Sugar shortage scam' by the Sugar Mill owners -read politicians- and suspected involvement of the Sindh Government in massive land grabbing scams in Karachi the US is keeping the Zardari Government at arms length.

US has decided to give aid directly to specific projects and work through the provincial governments in Pakistan. Following Holbrooks visit to Pakistan the Governor Sindh and Karachi Mayor arrived in the US this week for project specific talks with the US.

The United States made it absolutely clear on Friday, days before President Asif Ali Zardari is to meet President Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in New York, that bulk of the money it will provide under the Kerry-Lugar Bill will not go directly to the PPP government but to specific projects and purposes for which it is intended.

This statement was made at a State Department briefing by Jacob J Lew, US Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources, who returned to Washington on Friday morning from a trip to Iraq, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.Lew spoke specifically about the “anxiousness” in Pakistan that money should flow through the government but he almost threw cold water on these hopes.

It was the latest indication that the US government was still grappling with the issue of a huge trust deficit and would not feel comfortable with aid money getting into the hands of the PPP government despite efforts in Washington to repair and whitewash the image of PPP leaders.

Jacob Lew told the briefing: “On the question of aid, there, as any of you who have seen the press releases put out would know, they’re very much anxious to have as much of the assistance as possible flow directly to the Pakistani government.

“We made clear that we’re looking at a variety of approaches, that we certainly intend to be supportive of Pakistani ministries where the programmes are ready to accept that support effectively, but that we also needed to look at the provincial level and to work with the traditional NGO community, and it wouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all approach.”

In a blunt statement, Lew said: “The key to us was that for each of the undertakings that we agreed upon, and they had to be things that were mutually attractive from the point of view of the Pakistani government and the US government, we had to choose a method of funding that was most likely to produce results efficiently and effectively, and that the money needed to go to the purposes for which it was intended.”

The official made it obvious that instead of providing aid to the government to spend wherever it liked, they would look at the ministry projects which are ready on a case to case basis and also provide direct aid to provinces and NGOs. That is what he meant by saying that “it would not be a one-size-fits-all approach.”

The US is talking directly to provincial governments and other organisations working inside Pakistan to come up with specific projects.A top level delegation of the MQM, headed by Governor of Sindh Ishratul Ebad and Nazim Karachi Syed Mustafa Kamal, arrived in Washington on Saturday to talk directly to the State Department and other government agencies for projects in Karachi and Sindh. The visit apparently fits into the US policy of direct contacts for disbursing aid.

MQM Visit to the US :

The visit of MQM leaders has been specially authorised by the MQM secretariat in London and sources in London told The News that the channels of the Pakistan government, including the embassy, had not been used to arrange these meetings. The Pakistan embassy comments on the possibility that the embassy may have been ignored for these direct MQM contacts with US officials were not immediately available.

Jacob Lew also spoke about his visit to Pakistan in general. “We focused on a number of issues. I think, as you all know, with the Kerry-Lugar programme being worked through now in Congress and the budget process working through, in terms of the appropriations, we’re ready to take the next step and put a detailed programme out there that really goes and specifies what forms of assistance will be provided.

“In the conversations we had with the Pakistani officials ñ we met with Prime Minister Gilani, we met with Finance Minister Tarin ñ they are very much focused on not just the amount of assistance in Kerry-Lugar, but the fact that it’s a multi-year commitment. They see it as an extremely important statement from the United States that weíre thinking in multi-year terms and thinking about a programme that has integrity over a period of time.

“We had detailed discussions following up on the secretary’s interest and the issue that Ambassador Holbrooke raised when he was there recently, of an energy relationship with Pakistan, how we could work together using the assistance that we’re providing to help Pakistan address what is one of its core economic issues. We raised also the fact that itís not just a question of assistance on projects, but that Pakistan had to take some very hard steps to reform its electric utility sector in order for there to be the real opportunity for sustainable progress. I was pleased that both in the conversation with the prime minister and with the finance minister, they heard that message and they responded very positively.

The US secretary also talked about his visit to the NWFP and said there was a “great deal of interest there, much as we heard at the federal level, in having US assistance provide a basis for partnership at ñ for provincial development. ìThere also seemed to be a fair amount of capacity at the provincial level. It was ñ we were impressed that the chief minister had a very good sense of his budget, his needs, and his limitations. And you had the sense that there was the capacity to partner quite effectively.”

Lew said he also met NGO and international organisation officials on the ground and asked a lot of questions about what they saw as being the next steps.“And thereís obviously two things that theyíre focusing on. One is kind of getting the first round of IDPs back home and safe for the winter. But they also are aware that with ongoing military activities, there could be new IDPs. So theyíre kind of working on coming to some kind of closure on the current experience while knowing that there may be more ahead.

“They were all focusing on the need for ongoing food and clothing support. It was not clear, frankly, the scope of damage to be repaired. Apart from the reports we got about schools and police stations, one didnít have the sense that there had been the ability to do the detailed assessment. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are supposed to complete an assessment even this week. So we will work together as we go through that.

“I guess the conclusion that I drew from the days we spent were that the government of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan have really done an extraordinary job in dealing with millions of displaced people in a way that, from the brief time we spent there, seemed to have left considerable feeling of ñ that people had been taken care of in very difficult circumstances. And it doesnít mean that there arenít problems. There certainly are still problems. But it ñ the notion of people taking tens of people into their homes, their small homes, on very modest incomes, it just ñ people-to-people ñ gave you great respect for the outpouring of help that came from just regular people,” he said.

10,000 Chinese Engineers working in Pakistan !

2009-09-12T04:03:00.003-04:00

China increasing participation in Pakistan uplift projects

The number of Chinese engineers based in Pakistan have surged to 10,000 this year from 3,000 in 2008 working on 120 projects in different sectors of the economy. China has been increasing its involvement in projects in Pakistan by planning more activities for the future.

China is involved in a 750-kilometer railway linking the two countries from Havelian to the 4,730-meter high Khunjerab Pass in Gilgit-Baltistan, the area which has been elevated to the status of province recently. Havelian is linked with the rest of the rail network in Pakistan and the Chinese will lay track within its territory up to Khunjerab.

Analysts said that China is increasingly interesting in investing in Gilgit-Baltistan and in Pakistan's south-west where China is already involved in large development projects including Gwadar port, 7000 MW Bunji Dam in Gilgit-Baltistan, Lahore Mass Transit Bus System and Chashma Nuclear Plants I and II, JF-17 fighter jet to name a few.

A proposed Pakistan-China energy and trade corridor involving gas and oil pipelines and a rail link would start in Gwadar and enter China's Xinjiang region after running through the Gilgit-Baltistan region.

China's determination to maintain its interest in Pakistan was underlined recently by Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Lou Zhaohui who told the media in Islamabad that "We are committed to complete all the projects on which Chinese are working."

China to Build Bunji Dam in Baltistan-Gilgit !

2009-09-11T11:45:00.004-04:00

Bunji dam will be built in Shina Speaking Astore District of Baltistan-Gilgit. Astore is one of the six districts of the Northern Areas of Pakistan. The district contains the Astore Valley and is bounded to the west by Diamer District (from which is was separated in 2004), to the north by Gilgit District, to the east by Skardu District and to the south by North-West Frontier Province, Neelum District of Azad Kashmir.

Pakistan and China have signed a memorandum of understanding for construction of Bunji dam in Northern Areas that will produce 7000 megawatt power.

The agreement was signed by Saleem Mandviwala on behalf of Pakistan’s Ministry of Water and Power and Yang’an, Chairman of China’s Three Gorges Project Corporation. The ceremony was also attended by President Asif Ali Zardari, who is currently visiting China.

Earlier, addressing a business forum in Zhejiang, President Zardari offered transit facility to Chinese companies, saying Pakistan’s ports would benefit Chinese firms by giving them easy access to outside world. He sought Chinese assistance in hydel, thermal and solar power generation and invited Chinese companies to carry out feasibility studies.

“We need solar power for individual housing units and I want the Chinese to carry out study in Pakistan,”  Zardari said.

President of the institute Li Yueming said the corporation has carried out studies of a couple of medium-sized dams in Azad Kashmir. It has built over 100 such dams around the world — Africa, South America and Turkey.

In a related development Pakistan and China have signed a $1 billion accord to construct 12 dams in Pakistan in all the four provinces.

A Chinese import/export bank would furnish $700 million loans, while the remaining $300 million would be taken care of by the Planning Commission (PC).

Sources say WAPDA had prepared a feasibility report, according to which 650,000 acres of land would be brought under irrigation. An MOU has been signed in this regard between WAPDA and Axiom Bank (import/export) of China.

When contacted, Chairman WAPDA Shakeel Durrani said the Axiom Bank would provide $700 million, while the remaining $300 would be furnished by Government of Pakistan.

The work on the construction of the 12 dams is said to commence during the current year.

Astore District :
Astore lies about the massive base of Nanga Parbat, the 9th highest peak in the world. To the south of the Nanga Parbat massif lies Rama Valley, which is home to Rama Lake, with basic facilities for visitors. It has a hotel called the PTDC, constructed by the government of Pakistan. Astore valley is a unique area for tourists to visit, surrounded by the high peaks of the far western Himalaya. Nearby the two river junction the village Louze, papular for apples,aprikot, cherry and other fruits especially the wild almond oil. Louze a small village with litresy rate of about 95%, the only biggest power house for electricity supply up to 1000 kW to whole district approx since 1987, nearby Louse a peaks include Nanga Parbat, Shaigiri, Rupal Peak, Chongra Peak and Laila Peak (Rupal Valley). Astore Valley ascends from the Indus River Valley near Jaglot, Pakistan. Deosai plains are the highest plateau in himalayas and are most picturesque with a bowl shapped lake ,wild flowers,and a habitat of brown bear.The easiest route from Astore is via,Gorikot,Gudai,Chilum and then a track leads to this area with little steep hike.Its been declared a Natural park ,a special status to preserve its fora and fauna.

SALIENT FEATURES
Installed Capacity MW 7100
Annual Energy (GWh) 24000
Design Discharge m3/sec 1900
Design Head M 428
Tunnel Length KM 8.5
Height of Dam M 200

Musharraf coming back as PML-Q Head !

2009-09-11T03:28:00.002-04:00

Looks like the next Pakistani election will be 3 sided battle. PPP, PML-Q and PML-N.
Small parties the MQM, ANP, JUI-F can be the 4th front !

LONDON: Former President Pervez Musharraf has decided to formally join politics and will start his political activities in the month of December.

The former military dictator had attained some important records before leaving the presidency which he has in his custody, said sources close to Musharraf.

The record is said to have agreements made before the departure of PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia, before signing NRO with the late Benazir Bhutto, telephone tapes of Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto regarding their returns and other relevant material.

The former president could expose all the facts and figures if PPP and PML-N push him towards the wall, said the sources.

On the other hand, the top leadership of the PPP has reportedly communicated to Musharraf that the party has no intention to take any action what so ever against him.

Pervez Musharraf is planning to use the platform of PML for his political activities and efforts are underway in this regard.

Uqaab : Pakistan develops indigenous Drone !

2009-09-09T15:39:00.006-04:00

Pakistan causes a buzz with its own UAV ! Uqaab , Jasoos, Bazz and Ababeel UAV or drones developed by Pakistan ! Private Pakistani company develops unique hand-launched mini-rocket UAV, called Firefly !

The Pakistan Army recently tested an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) called Uqaab. The presence of Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on the occasion shows how seriously the Pakistani military is taking the UAV concept in the modern day battlefield. While no specifications for the new UAV were issued, the high-profile presence of senior army officers on the occasion and the publicity that followed it made it clear that the new UAV was apparently a breakthrough over what the country had earlier produced in this field. “The flight data collected indicates that all design parameters have been successfully validated,” a statement issued on the occasion said, adding: “The performance of the UAV Uqaab can be compared to any of modern state-of-the-art UAV in its category. The successful flight test is a reflection of Pakistan’s technical prowess in the field of UAV technology.”There are several companies in Pakistan that are involved in UAV production.

One Pakistani firm, Integrated Dynamics of Pakistan, has made a unique hand-launched mini-rocket UAV, called Firefly. It is a high-speed, short-range observation system that can fly for eight seconds and costs around $3,000.

Another UAV made by the same firm is called Desert Hawk, which has an endurance of two hours.Recent reports have revealed that Pakistan is also acquiring two types of UAV from Europe.

These are a German EMT LUNA short-range battlefield reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition UAV and Italian Galileo Avionica’s Falco tactical unmanned aerial vehicle (TUAV).On the other hand, Turkey and Pakistan are also working on UAVs. In this regard, a letter of intent was signed between the TAI and the Air Weapons Complex (AWC) in 2007, under which the TAI would provide electromagnetic interference and electromagnetic compatibility tests of a flight control system and communication interface units for UAVs.

There is little doubt that UAVs are becoming increasingly important day by day. The US is the leader in UAV technology, followed by Israel and the European countries. However, the gap between the Americans and other nations in the technology is enormous and could not be met any time soon. While UAVs that can fly for up to 60 hours have been developed, the Americans are working on a UAV that would be maintenance-free and have an endurance of up to five years, giving them an unlimited advantage in terms of reconnaissance. At the moment, however, one of the most advanced UAVs is the 12,110kg Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk that has a range of more than 22,000 kilometres.The Predator is yet another UAV that is being extensively used for combat and reconnaissance missions on the Pak-Afghan border and in Iraq. One report recently revealed that the US has 163 UAV programmes in operation, compared to 50 by France, 31 by Israel and 25 by Pakistan.Nevertheless, the journey to produce high-quality unmanned air vehicles is not going to be easy for Pakistan as it involves several daunting challenges.

First, it is essential that UAVs should have a very high operational reliability for the mission for which they are developed. One area in this respect is a good engine, which probably is the most difficult aspect in the designing of a UAV. Designers have to make sure that the engine can support the airframe, does not quit when it is most needed and does not give the UAV away. The engines should have low vibration and, therefore, a low signature.It should be able to support long-endurance missions over the target.Another area of operational reliability for a UAV comes from its airframe, which should be able to support the mission in all types of conditions, especially rough weather.

A different but a mammoth challenge comes in the shape of a UAV’s capability for precision-flying in terms of altitude and flight path so as not to compromise the mission. This, however, is not an easy task. The designers would have to make sure that the UAV can fly over the target for long durations and in adverse weather during day and night. An additional area would be the mating of the equipment on board, especially high-resolution cameras, the sensors.

As it is, UAVs are being developed for both military and civilian use. For example, UAVs are being used in dangerous situations like flying over active volcanoes, near hurricanes and tornadoes, regions of high radioactivity, over the poles and deserts, for fire-fighting, observation of civil disturbances and natural disasters. The result is that the UAV market is expanding at a fast pace, especially in the military sector, and is expected to reach around $15 billion by 2010. The issue of UAVs, regrettably, has also been used by the Americans to justify their attack on Iraq, duping their lawmakers and the UN. In 2002, US Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed that the Iraqis had transported their advanced UAVs to ships in the Atlantic Ocean to launch biological- and chemical-weapon attacks on the US East Coast. Iraq, meanwhile, did not have any UAVs, only a few outdated training drones. However, in December 2002, in the first-ever, though asymmetrical, dogfight, an Iraqi MiG-25 using a missile downed a US Predator.

While the armed forces have been using UAVson the border with India, the country also requires UAVs to monitor the movement of unwanted elements on its western borders, especially during the night. Also, UAVs would be greatly helpful in tracking the movement of smugglers and insurgents in Balochistan. On the other hand, the Indians, who have been concentrating on acquiring Israeli UAVs in the face of their not-so-successful indigenous programme, have been using them on the Pakistani borders. In June 2002, Pakistan shot down an Israeli-built Searcher Mark-II, which was on an Indian Air Force mission. It goes without saying that in the present geo-strategic situation, Pakistan needs to have its own fleet of modern unmanned aerial vehicles to which the future of the skies belongs

Integrated Dynamics Develops Drones in Pakistan :

Looking at the facility from outside, no one would guess what goes on within the 90,000-square-foot research facility of Integrated Dynamics (ID), a privately owned company in Karachi. There are no signboards indicating that ID is in the business of developing drone technology for military and civilian use.

Surprisingly, there isn’t even an army of security guards manning the complex as one would expect upon entering the gate. A lonesome gate keeper lets us in without a fuss. Even more startling is the ease with which R.S. Khan, ID's chief executive, states that ‘drone technology has existed in Pakistan for the last 20 years.’ Khan, who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics, is quick to clarify that his company has ‘never been asked to develop a drone which has an armed implication.’ Instead, ID develops advanced Unmanned Autonomous Vehicle (UAV) systems capable of reconnaissance missions as well as target decoys for anti-aircraft missiles. His customers, he says, include the armed forces of the country as well as foreign buyers from the US, Australia, Spain, Italy and France.

Although he may not have been asked to develop an armed drone, Khan, who previously worked as a consultant for Pakistan’s aerospace agency Suparco, points out: ‘If we consider the fact that drone development has been taking place in Pakistan for the last 20 years, I think the technology for flying long-range autonomous missions has existed for at least 10-12 years.’ Given Khan's estimations about local drone development, it is unclear why Pakistan is asking the US to handover its armed drone technology, especially that of the infamous Predator. President Asif Ali Zardari recently told the British daily Independent that the US should give Pakistan the ‘weapons, drones and missiles that will allow us to take care of’ the militant threat in the tribal areas.' ‘If you ask anyone in Pakistan involved in the business of making unmanned UAVs whether something similar to the Predator drone aircraft can be made, the answer would be yes,' explains Khan. 'I won’t say we can make it overnight or by tomorrow. But I won’t say either that it is a matter of decades. I would say that, if given the task, we can make such aircrafts in a few years.' As a technologist, Khan is hesitant to speculate as to why the Pakistan government or armed forces are not investing in home-made technology. 'I think you need to ask the policy makers that.

UAVs in Pakistan :
There are several public sector companies involved in developing UAVs in Pakistan, including the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC), Air Weapons Complex (AWC) and National Development Complex (NDC).

The PAC's Uqaab drone is in use by the Pakistan Army is being upgraded with Chinese help to carry a weapons payload. Other PAC UAVs include the Bazz and Ababeel. AWC's Bravo+ UAV is in use of the Pakistan Airforce (PAF). The PAF recently acquired an unarmed Italian drone called the Falco UAV, which is reportedly being used for surveillance and battleground assessments in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. In 2008, the Pakistan Navy also reportedly completed trials of UAVs - the Austrian Schiebel Camcopter S-100 and Swedish Cybaero - from a Pakistani frigate in the Arabian Sea.

Private sector companies are also involved in the design and development of UAVs. Apart from ID in Karachi, East-West Infinity (EWI), Satuma and Global Industrial Defense Solutions (GIDS) are in the drone-making business.

The EWI's Heliquad UAV is considered a stealth design because of its small size and Whisper Watch signals intelligence package, which is capable of picking up radio and other communication signals. ID's Nishan Mk1 and TJ1000, Vision MK1 & MK2, Tornado, Border Eagle, Hornet, Hawk and Vector are also popular models employed by the armed forces for reconnaissance missions and target practice (each model varies in range and endurance). Satuma's UAVs, with similar functionalities, are called Flamingo, Jasoos and Mukhbar. For its part, the GIDS develops the Huma-1 UAV and its own version of the Uqaab.

Even though almost all UAVs in the country have been built for military applications - reconnaissance, simulations, decoy systems, remote sensing - none of them are reported to be capable of firing arms. Moreover, none of the above-mentioned facilities are involved in large-scale, mass production of UAVs.

Saudi Arabia digs around Makkah and Madina without Archaeologists

2009-09-08T06:48:00.006-04:00

In the last decade the Saudi's have allowed archaeologists to zone in on the southwestern areas of the Kingdom. But Saudis have ignored the Islamic areas of Makkah and Madina where archaeologist are most needed to preserve Islamic artifacts. It's no wonder that the largest Islamic Museum is in London.

I have been trying to build on this story for a few weeks but I am amazed at the lack of information available on archeology and the holy cities.

Saudi authorities have started an ambitious project of building an infrastructure in the cities of Makkah and Madina to accommodate millions of pilgrims that visit the holy sites every year ! But what is astonishing that they started digging and construcion of buildings all around Makkah without Archaeologists. Is all that history under all those new sky scrappers gone for ever ? What's mind boggling that 75 to a 100 new buildings are being built. This requires digging upto 75 feet for the foundations unless they are building a basement. What we have lost is lost for ever.

Strangely enough there are no Makkahologists like we have Egyptologists. None of the Saudi Universities have academics to study Makkah and Madina like we have Egyptologists. An Egyptologist is any archaeologist, historian, linguist, or art historian who specializes in Egyptology.

But in a recent development the Saudis did allow archaeologists from the US and else where to dig up the past to excavate in the southwestern region but nothing around the holy sites of Makkah and Madina.

Saudi authorities also restricted foreign archaeologists to giving technical help to Saudi teams. Starting in 2000, they began a gradual process of easing up that culminated last year with American, European and Saudi teams launching significant excavations on sites that have long gone lightly explored, if at all.

At the same time, authorities are gradually trying to acquaint the Saudi public with the idea of exploring the past, in part to eventually develop tourism. After years of being closed off, 2,000-year-old Madain Saleh is Saudi Arabia's first UNESCO World Heritage Site and is open to tourists. State media now occasionally mention discoveries as well as the kingdom's little known antiquities museums.

"It's already a big change," said Christian Robin, a leading French archaeologist and a member of the College de France. He is working in the southwestern region of Najran, mentioned in the Bible by the name Raamah and once a center of Jewish and Christian kingdoms.

Obama Digs Urdu Poetry !

2009-09-06T00:57:00.001-04:00

If you want to make high-brow small talk at one of President Barack Obama’s cocktail parties, don’t bother brushing up your Shakespeare. Try reading Urdu poetry.

As POLITICO’s Ben Smith points out in his blog, Obama showed off his intellectual flair by evoking a standard of Pakistani culture in a recent interview with Dawn, a popular English-language newspaper in Pakistan.

“‘I would love to visit. As you know, I had Pakistani roommates in college who were very close friends of mine. I went to visit them when I was still in college; was in Karachi and went to Hyderabad. Their mothers taught me to cook,’ said Mr Obama.

‘What can you cook?’

‘Oh, keema ... daal ... You name it, I can cook it. And so I have a great affinity for Pakistani culture and the great Urdu poets.’

‘You read Urdu poetry?’

‘Absolutely. So my hope is that I’m going to have an opportunity at some point to visit Pakistan,’ said Mr Obama.”

It may sound somewhat esoteric, but this ancient form of mystical and oft-times philosophical love poetry has been popular in Pakistan and parts of India for centuries. And there are a few things to know before you try to impress the poetry-lover-in-chief.

One of the most popular poets was Mirza Ghalib, whose work dates from the mid-19th century. The still-popular art form usually features the story of a lover scorned by his beloved. And there is almost never a happy ending. “Often the beloved is often a total witch,” says Gwen Kirk, a University of Texas master’s candidate in the subject of Urdu poetry. “She breaks the lover’s heart all the time; she neglects him. It’s all about the process of trying to get closer to the beloved, and it’s got a lot of Sufi and mystical elements as well.”

The ghazal is the most common form of Urdu poetry, and, like sonnets, it follows strict rules of form: four to 12 couplets with a meter and rhyme scheme. But the similarities end there. Couplets in an Urdu poem can sometimes be completely unrelated to each other, each delving into themes that range from unrequited love to the meaning of life.

Fear not if your Urdu — one of two official languages in Pakistan — is a little rusty. Obama likely reads one of the many translated compilations of the texts, according to Kirk. Or if he is a truly savvy Urdu poetry enthusiast, he may choose to listen to the poems recited or sung, as it is commonly performed in the region.

Obama’s admission that he shares an affinity with the “great Urdu poets” may get him further in the region than most think. The language and poetry are commonly associated with Pakistan’s and India’s Muslim population, according to Kirk, and it remains intensely popular in the region — poetry recitals sometimes attract gatherings of thousands of people.

“It does show a willingness to understand that part of the world,” says Kirk.

And in general, it gives Obama further credibility as a supporter of the arts. Not only is he one of three American presidents to have poetry read at their Inaugurations, but he reads the stuff, too!

Want to dig into Urdu poetry? Here’s an example of what awaits you:

To hell with all hindering walls and doors!

Love’s eye sees as feather and wing, walls and doors.

My flooded eyes blur the house

Doors and walls becoming walls and doors.

There is no shelter: my love is on her way,

They’ve gone ahead in greeting, walls and doors.

The wine of your splendor floods

Your street, intoxicating walls and doors.

Massive Power Generation Projects in Pakistan !

2009-09-04T01:11:00.002-04:00

Managing Director Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) Tahir Basharat Cheema on Saturday said that feasibility study of Tarbela IV extension project has been completed and the development work will be started soon to generate 900 MW electricity.

Addressing a press conference, the MD PEPCO said that an estimated cost of the project is $1.2 billion while feasibility reports of 740 MW Munda Hydro power project and 840 MW Suki Kenari have also been prepared and development work on projects will start soon.

He said development work on 4,500 Diamer-Bhasha Dam will also be started in May next year with estimated cost of $ 9.8 billion while work will be started on 1,100 MW Kohala Project with estimated cost of $ 1.7 billion.

He said the government was also ready to start work on Thar Coal based project of overall capacity of 6,000 MW with estimated cost of $ 7.2 billion.

He said 225 MW Atlas Power Project will start production by end of this month while Orient power project will start in June this year to generate 225 MW.

Tahir Basharat Cheema said overall 3,060 MW electricity will be generated by end of this year which will help in improving the power situation and there will be no load shedding after 2009.

He said out of total electricity to be generated during year 2009 around 1,542 MW electricity from rental projects while 1,519 MW will be generated by independent power producers (IPPs).

He added 800 MW additional power is also likely from captive power plant.

He said the government is committed to developing indigenous resources to produce un-interrupted electricity at affordable rate to country people.

He said in year 2010 around 300 MW electricity will be generated through rehabilitation of GENCOs plants while 502 MW will be added in system in next year through hydropower in public sector.

He said 969 MW Neelum-Jhelum project will start production in 2015 alongwith other projects which are in pipeline.

Tahir Cheema said the government has fixed the target of installation of minimum 9,700 MW electricity through wind and solar energy by the year 2030.

He added 4,000 homes in over 70 remote, off-grid villages have been electrified while 300 villages in Balochistan are being electrified through alternative energy.

He said overall 7,784 villages will be electrified. He said 50 MW solar thermal power plant will also be set up in the public sector.

300 MW Nuclear plant at Chashma II project will start operation in 2010.

He said there is estimated potential of over 200 MW of electricity generation through waste in major cities of the country while current installed capacity is 35 MW.

He said the government has formulated power sector strategy to meet the country's energy needs and underpin high levels of economic growth.

He added the strategy is based on principles included affordability, energy security and financial viability with strategic approaches like involving private sector, diversifying energy mix, fostering regional approach and developing indigenous resources.

He said the company is working to address challenges like high system losses besides improving recovery campaigns particularly in selected areas

Terrorised but Resiliant Pakistan Expecting $5.627 billion Foreign Investment in 13 projects

2009-09-04T01:09:00.001-04:00

Although Pakistan is fighting a war against terrorism but a resilient Pakistan is expecting foreign Direct Investment (fDI) of $5.627 billion in 13 projects. Besides that there has been a constant stream of investors investing in Karachi Stock Exchange. KSE is on a two year high.

According to Board of Investment, the projects expecting investment include trade, construction, steel, infrastructure, automobile, telecom, power and banking sectors.
Even though Post-Musharraf foreign investment inflows have been slow but its on an upward trend.

A project of Al-Tawarqui Group of Saudi Arabia for steel manufacturing in Al-Tawarqui Steel Mill is also in the pipeline with an investment of $1 billion. An investment of $200 million and $21 million is in the pipeline for projects in trade, services and consumers products from M/s Metro Cash & Carry and M/s MAF Hypermarkets Pakistan (Pvt) Limited (Dubai) respectively.

An investment of $1 billion is in the pipeline by M/s Al Ghurair and the Giga Group of UAE for World Trade Centre, Gold Crest in DHA Islamabad and $450 million from M/s Pak-Gulf Construction Company (PGCL) for residential towers and hotel in the Centaurs in Islamabad.

A project of Al-Tawarqui Group of Saudi Arabia for steel manufacturing in Al-Tawarqui Steel Mill is also in the pipeline with an investment of $1 billion.
M/s Agility Logistics, Kuwait also invest $160 million in logistics centers Warehouses.
M/s Tianjin Renong Pesticide Industries Company and M/s Pak-China Chemical are planning $12 million investment in chemical sector.
China National Machinery and Equipment Import Export Corporation have a project in the pipeline for investing $450 to $500 million in Sonda-Jherruk Integrated Coal Mine & Power Plant Project.
A project of M/s Haier to invest $200 million in infrastructure development at China-Pakistan Economic Zone is also in the pipeline.
M/s King Long United Automotive Industry of China also wanted to invest $1.3 million in automobile sector.
Telenor Norway will invest $1.8 billion in telecom sector.
M/s Atlas Group would invest $250 million in power and $33 million in banking sector, according to BoI.

Karachi Circular Railway Project Approved !

2009-09-03T23:33:00.006-04:00

The Pakistan Railways will have 60 per cent share in the corporation, Sindh government 25 per cent and the City District Government of Karachi 15 per cent. Delays had pushed KCR project cost up to $1.58 bn.

Karachi Mayor Mustafa Kamal has plenty to celebrate. The $1.53 billion Karachi Circular Railway Project was approved by the Federal Government.

Karachi Urban Transport Company has geared up efforts to devise the resettlement action plan of the ambitious Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) project. Modification and inordinate delay had raised the project cost to $1.58 billion. Official sources said Japan’s ministry of economy, trade & industry would arrange funds for the project through the Japan Bank of International Cooperation. They said Japan had commissioned a soft loan at a nominal mark-up with a long-term payback time and a grace period of 10 years.

The system will have advanced technology to provide facilities of international standard to around 700,000 daily commuters.

“This drastic rise in the project cost is due to upgradation and time overrun to avoid cost overrunning in the end”, explains the source in the Railways. “We may end up saving some money in the end but we can’t afford running after capital.”

One of the important modifications has been added to the existing plan of reviving KCR is the elevation of the KCR tracks measuring about 20 to 22 kilometres to avoid trespassing. This split segments of elevated route will also see 11 stations being elevated.

According to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which has been constantly updating the blueprint of KCR revival, there are about 85 sites on the proposed KCR loop, where trespassing has become routine. This forced the planners to come up with an innovative solution of elevating 11 stations.

Authorities are trying to devise limited access to the stations on the KCR, thinking of allowing commuters to board trains only if they have the smart card or e-tickets. They have plans to fence the tracks forming the KCR loop in a bid to avoid accidents besides ensuring fast and smooth service.

The KUTC has plans to connect the airport to the KCR loop by laying out six kilometres of underground tracks very much along the pattern of the Delhi Metro. “We are also working on the interval between two trains called as headway to attract commuters”, an official said. “Headway in Delhi is six minutes”.

Another important feature of the revival of the KCR is the redesigning the 3.5-milometre track on the KCR loop, where the Karachi Urban Transport Company (KUTC) will create a tunnel, covering three stations between Gulistan-e-Jauhar to Gulshan-e-Iqbal. This is recommended keeping in view of the topography of the area, which is rocky.

Besides such remarkable changes in the project design, the KUTC officials also cited domestic and international recession responsible for the rise in project’s total cost, which was earlier estimated to be around $872 million.

According to the proponents of the project, the KCR is being revived through a development loan from Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC) at a highly subsidized rate of 0.2 per cent mark-up. The loan is payable within 40 years, with an initial 10-year grace period.

Since the KCR project is JBIC-funded project, the KUTC is bound to follow the Japanese and World Bank’s guidelines for resettlements. A socio-economic survey pertinent to Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) has also been sought to collect demographic conditions of the project area.

Sources at the KUTC said a JICA team is scheduled to visit Pakistan in July to meet KUTC and other top railway and finance ministry’s officials in this regard.

The KCR went off the tracks in 1997 due to heavy losses incurred by the Pakistan Railways. Amidst chaotic and often subhuman bus services, people preferred owning their own means of transport. It led the vehicular traffic swelling manifold causing severe hardships to commuters, left at the mercy of private sector buses.

Now the KUTC has been entrusted with resurrecting the KCR along the 55-kilometre tracks as a viable travel mode within the city, where travel time on bus has shot up nearly 45 per cent in a year.

Pakistan Increasing Nuclear Arsenal, Missiles Range and Deployment Capability !

2009-09-02T17:02:00.010-04:00

Pakistan is enhancing its nuclear weapon capabilities across the board by developing and deploying new nuclear-capable Cruise and Ballistic Missiles and expanding its capacity to produce fissile materials through Plutonium and Uranium for use in weapons. Pakistan is replacing its heavy uranium-based weapons with smaller, lighter plutonium-based designs that could be delivered further by ballistic missiles than its current warheads that use cruise missiles.

Pakistani missiles the Shaheen II, with its 2,000 km range. The Ghauri missile in Pakistan's arsenal has a range of 1500 km. The Hatf-III has an 800 km range.

Pakistan's Expanded Nuclear Capacity in a Nutshell :
Nuclear Weapons increased to 70 to 90.
Two new plutonium production reactors near Khushab.
Building a second chemical separation facility.
Two new Nuclear Plants 300 MW each at Chashma.
Expanding uranium hexafluoride and uranium metal are production.
Fabricating new weapons that use plutonium cores.
Development of two Nuclear capable Cruise Missile including Hatf-7 and Hatf-8.
Devleopment of Nuclear capable Ballistic missiles Shaheen, Ghauri and Gaznavi.

Fearful of its rivals Pakistan has expanded its Nuclear Arsenal. Pakistan has an estimated arsenal of about 70 –90 nuclear weapons and is busily enhancing its capabilities across the board. A new nuclear-capable ballistic
missile is being readied for deployment, and two nuclear capable
cruise missiles are under development. Two new plutonium
production reactors and a second chemical separation facility
also are under construction.

It is exceedingly difficult to estimate precisely how many nuclear
weapons Pakistan has produced, how many are deployed, and of
what types. It is equally troublesome to guess what its future plans
might be. In 1999, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimated
that Pakistan had between 25 and 35 nuclear warheads and projected
that it would have between 60 and 80 by 2020.1 Yet Rolf Mowatt-
Larssen, formerly the CIA’s top official on weapons of mass destruction
and the Energy Department’s director of intelligence and
counterintelligence during the Bush administration, recently noted
a more accelerated pace: “It took them roughly 10 years to double
the number of nuclear weapons from roughly 50 to 100.”

Although Pakistan’s arsenal is clearly increasing, several factors
suggest that it may not have reached 100 warheads quite yet. First,
Pakistan is thought to have produced approximately 2,000 kilograms
of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and 90 kilograms of separated
military plutonium by early 2008.3 While these amounts are
sufficient for between 80 and 130 implosion-type warheads, assuming
15–25 kilograms of HEU are used for each warhead’s solid core,
it is unlikely that all of this material has been turned into weapons.
Second, Pakistan does not have enough delivery vehicles to accommodate
that many weapons. Furthermore, since all of its missile and
aircraft types are dual-capable, only a portion of them may have a
nuclear mission. Third, beyond the fissile material it has committed
to weapons that are deployed or await deployment, Pakistan probably
keeps stocks for future use.

The precise amount of plutonium or uranium needed for a bomb
depends on two variables: the technical capabilities of the scientists
and engineers and the desired yield. The better the technical
capability, the less material is needed for a given yield, while higher
yields require more material. While we do not know the skill level
of Pakistani bomb designers, medium technical capabilities certainly
seem plausible, which would require approximately 20 kilograms
of HEU and 3 kilograms of plutonium for a warhead designed
to have a yield of 10 kilotons.4 Pakistan’s weapons have been estimated
to have yields of between 5 and 10 kilotons, judging by its few
nuclear tests. Pakistan claimed it conducted six tests on May 28 and
30, 1998, yet most experts concluded based on seismic signals that
there were only two tests. With warhead production probably well
underway, if not already completed, for the Shaheen II mediumrange
ballistic missile, and deployment of the Babur cruise missile
anticipated within the next few years, we estimate a current Pakistani
nuclear stockpile of about 70–90 warheads.

Following the example of other nations that have developed nuclear
weapons, Pakistan is improving its weapon designs, moving beyond
its first-generation nuclear weapons that relied on HEU. For at
least a decade, Pakistan has been pursuing plutonium-based designs.
Central to that effort is the 40–50-megawatt heavy water Khushab
plutonium production reactor, which was completed in 1998 and is
located at Joharabad in the Khushab district of Punjab. Six surface-toair
missile batteries surround the site to protect against air strikes. As
a sign of its confidence in its plutonium designs, Pakistan is building
two additional heavy water reactors at the Khushab site, which will
more than triple the country’s plutonium production.

In anticipation of this increased plutonium production capacity,
Pakistan also is expanding its capabilities to reprocess it. The Pakistan
Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology near Rawalpindi
was Pakistan’s original pilot chemical separation facility where
plutonium from the first Khushab reactor was separated. Satellite
images show a second under-construction separation facility adjacent
to the original that could handle the plutonium produced in the
two new Khushab reactors. Work also may have resumed on a partially
built separation plant that dates from the 1970s. This plant is
located at Chasma, where Pakistan operates a 300-megawatt commercial
reactor (CHASNUPP-1) and plans to build three more, one
of which is under construction. Additionally, Pakistan is expanding
its facilities at Dera Ghazi Khan, in southern Punjab, where uranium
hexafluoride and uranium metal are produced.

All of these efforts suggest that Pakistan is preparing to increase
and enhance its nuclear forces. In particular, the new facilities provide
the Pakistani military with several options: fabricating weapons
that use plutonium cores; mixing plutonium with HEU to make composite
cores; and/or using tritium to “boost” warheads’ yield (loading
the reactors’ targets with lithium 6 will produce tritium). Absent
a successful full-scale thermonuclear test, it is premature to suggest
that Pakistan is producing two-stage thermonuclear weapons, but
the types of facilities under construction suggest that Pakistan has
decided to supplement and perhaps replace its heavy uranium-based
weapons with smaller, lighter plutonium-based designs that could be
delivered further by ballistic missiles than its current warheads and
that could be used in cruise missiles. Pakistan has repeatedly stated
that it won’t break the testing moratorium that has been in place in
South Asia since 1998, yet if its neighbor India tested a weapon, Pakistan
would likely follow suit for political and technical reasons.

Nuclear command and control:
Concern about the physical security of Pakistan’s nuclear
weapons has increased in the past few
years, particularly in light of the insurgent uprisings in the northern
parts of the country. In February 2008, Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai,
the director general of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division (SPD),
who is in charge of all aspects of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons except
field operations, acknowledged that at nuclear facilities the “state
of alertness had gone up.” “We have institutionalized the structures
[overseeing the nuclear arsenal] and introduced modern technology
so there are sufficient firewalls, safety, and security built into the
chain of command, as well as into the weapons and weapon producing
facilities.”7 Then-President Pervez Musharraf later added that
the SPD and the Army Strategic Force Command has “a strength of
between 12,000 and 15,000 people.”

U.S. officials have said there is no reason to believe that Pakistan’s
arsenal faces an imminent threat. Yet their knowledge of the
arsenal is limited, as the Pakistani government has deflected U.S.
requests for more information about the location and security of the
sites, perhaps fearful that U.S. commandos might seize them if the
nation tumbles into chaos. We do not know the status of a U.S. security-
assistance program intended to upgrade the physical protection
of some Pakistani facilities and train guards, but it is apparently
behind schedule. “We are largely relying on assurances, the same
assurances we have been hearing for years,” one senior official told
the New York Times. “The worse things get, the more strongly they
hew to the line, ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got it under control.’”

We do not know what kinds of “use-control” features Pakistan
employs on its nuclear weapons. Lieutenant General Kidwai reportedly
said in 2006, “Pakistani nuclear controls include some functional
equivalent to the two-man rule and permissive action links” used
by other nuclear weapons states.10 Furthermore, the weapons are
believed to be stored unassembled with the nuclear cores separate
from the rest of the weapon, and the weapon storage areas are some
distance from the delivery vehicles, under normal circumstances.
The precise location of the storage areas is extremely sensitive
information, but U.S. officials recently provided a general picture of
the situation. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told Congress
that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons “are widely dispersed in the
country—they are not at a central location,” and senior U.S. officials
later said that most of the arsenal was south of Islamabad.

Nuclear-capable aircraft:
The Pakistani Air Force most likely
assigns its U.S.-manufactured F-16s a nuclear mission, though it
also could use French-manufactured Mirage Vs or JF-17. JF-17 was developed by Pakistan and China after US refused to give Pakistan deliveries of F-16 in the 90's.

The Pakistani Air Force deploys its F-16s with Squadrons 9 and 11
at Sargodha Air Base, which is located 160 kilometers northwest of
Lahore. The F-16 has a refueled range of more than 1,600 kilometers,
and that range can be extended if the planes are equipped with drop
tanks. The aircraft can carry up to 5,450 kilograms externally on one
under-fuselage centerline pylon and six underwing stations. The
F-16s with nuclear missions under NATO control can each carry up
to two B61 nuclear bombs, but Pakistan’s F-16s most likely carry a
single bomb on the centerline pylon because the arsenal’s uraniumbased
weapons likely are heavier than the 343-kilogram B61.
Sargodha’s weapons storage area has igloos but lacks the extra
security features that would suggest that the base stores nuclear
weapons. The assembled nuclear bombs and/or bomb components
assigned to the F-16s stationed at the base may be kept at the large
Sargodha Weapons Storage Complex 10 kilometers south of Sargodha.
Another alternative is that, fearing a first strike by India, Pakistan
stores its weapons at operational or satellite bases west of Sargodha,
where the F-16s could disperse to pick up their bombs.

Ballistic missiles:
Pakistan has three types of operational ballistic
missiles that are considered capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.
These include the short-range ballistic missiles Ghaznavi (Hatf-
3) and Shaheen-1 (Hatf-4) and the medium-range Ghauri (Hatf-5). A
fourth missile, the Shaheen-2 (Hatf-6), may soon become operational.
The solid-fueled, single-stage Ghaznavi entered service in 2004
and can deliver a 500-kilogram payload approximately 400 kilometers.
We don’t know how many Ghaznavis Pakistan deploys or keeps
in storage. The missile is believed to be derived from the Chinese
M-11 missile, of which approximately 30 were delivered to Pakistan
in the early 1990s. The Ghaznavi is launched from a four-axle, roadmobile
transporter-erector-launcher; Pakistan deploys fewer than 50
such launchers. Some Ghaznavis might be deployed south of Sargodha
at a large weapons storage facility that has 12 missile garages. Pakistan
test-launched a Ghaznavi on February 13, 2008, from an undisclosed
location as part of the army’s annual field-training exercise.
Production of the missile appears to be complete, with the last batch
reportedly delivered to the army in April 2007.13
Pakistan’s Shaheen-1 is a reverse engineered M-9 missile originally
supplied by China. The solid-fueled, single-stage missile has been in
service since 2003, can strike targets in excess of 450 kilometers—
though some observers suggest the range is closer to 700 kilometers
—and can deliver a payload of up to 1,000 kilograms. The Shaheen-1
is carried on a four-axle, road-mobile launcher similar to the one
that carries the Ghaznavi, and like the Ghaznavi, fewer than 50 such
launchers are deployed. The army last test-launched the Shaheen-1
on January 25, 2008.

Islamabad claims that its two-stage Shaheen-2 medium-range ballistic
missile, unveiled seven years ago at the Pakistan Day parade
but still under development, has a range of 2,050 kilometers and can
carry a 1,000-kilogram payload. The missile is carried on a six-axle,
road-mobile launcher, and satellite images of the National Defense
Complex near Fatehjang appear to show 15 launchers at various
stages of being equipped with their missile erector. The army conducted
two operational readiness launches of the missile on April 19
and April 21, 2008, indicating that the Shaheen-2 is close to becoming
operational.

The 1,200-kilometer medium-range Ghauri (Hatf-5) is Pakistan’s
only liquid-fueled nuclear-capable ballistic missile. First deployed in
2003, the single-stage missile can deliver a payload of 700–1,000 kilograms.
The Ghauri might be replaced by the Shaheen-2.

Cruise missiles:
Pakistan also is developing two cruise missiles
that U.S. Air Force intelligence estimates may be nuclear capable.
The ground-launched Babur (Hatf-7) has been test-launched five
times, most recently on December 11, 2007. U.S. intelligence agencies
estimate that the missile has a range of about 320 kilometers, while
media reports frequently suggest the range is from 500 to 700 kilometers.
Pakistani officials describe the Babur as a “low-flying, terrain-
hugging missile with high maneuverability, pinpoint accuracy,
and radar-avoidance features.”14 The Babur appears to be similar to
the new Chinese DH-10 air-launched cruise missile and the Russian
AS-15. The Babur is significantly slimmer than Pakistan’s ballistic
missiles, which suggests that Pakistani engineers have made progress
in warhead miniaturization, perhaps based on a new and smaller
plutonium warhead. A submarine-launched version of the Babur,
which has been rumored to be in the work, has not yet materialized.
The air-launched Ra’ad (Hatf-8), or “Thunder,” which has the
same range as the Babur, was first test-launched on August 25, 2007
by a Mirage aircraft; a second test-launch occurred on May 8, 2008.
A Pakistani military spokesman described the Ra’ad as a low-altitude,
terrain-following missile with high maneuverability and as
equipped with “special stealth capabilities” to provide “a great strategic
standoff capability on land and at sea.”

Aircraft:
F-16a/b 1,600 1 bomb (4,500)
mirage V 2,100 1 bomb (4,000)
JF-17 1,600 1 bomb (4500)

Ballistic missiles :
Ghaznavi (Hatf-3) ~400 conventional or nuclear (500)
Shaheen-1 (Hatf-4) 450+ conventional or nuclear (1,000)
Shaheen-2 (Hatf-6)* 2,000+ conventional or nuclear (1,000)
Ghauri (Hatf-5) 1,200+ conventional or nuclear (1,000)

Cruise missiles:
babur (Hatf-7)* 320+ conventional or nuclear
ra’ad (Hatf-8)* 320+ conventional or nuclear

Picturesque Northern Areas of Pakistan renamed Gilgit-Baltistan . Declared Semi-Autonomous Region !! !

2009-09-01T02:43:00.011-04:00

Beautiful lakes and mountain peaks dot the Gilgit-Baltistan area

karakoram Highway : Connecting Pakistan and China !
District map of Gilgit-Baltistan

A deafening silence from the Indian foreign office has raised eyebrows not only in Pakistan but all over the world.
Gilgit-Baltistan was not delared the 5th province of Pakistan but given a semi-autonomous package ! They will be representated in the Pakistan National Assembly with 15 elected Constituents plus 5 reserved seats for women and minorities !

The Pakistani parts of Kashmir to the north and west of the cease-fire line established at the end of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The changed border after the war later came to be known as the Line of Control. This area was divided into the Northern Areas (72,971 km²) in the north and the Pakistani state of Azad Kashmir (13,297 km²) in the south. The name "Northern Areas" was first used by the United Nations, to refer to the northern areas of Kashmir. Pakistan is connected with China with the strategic Karakoram Highway (N-5) which passes through Gilgit-Baltistan and seeps into the Kashgar, China !

Gilgit-Baltistan or the Northern Areas is the northernmost region of Pakistan. The entire area including Gilgit and Baltistan was known as the Gilgit Agency till October, 1947. This is a strategically very important region of the world, which is sandwiched between the high peaks of Hindukush and Karakorum on the north and those of western Himalaya on the south. It borders to the north with Afghanistan and China, to the south with India and Azad Kashmir and to the west with North-West Frontier, Pakistan.

Unlike the area that Pakistan calls " Azad Kashmir ," the Northern Areas are incorporated into Pakistan. A small part of Northern Areas was ceded to China by Pakistan in 1963 with the proviso that the settlement was subject to the final solution of the Kashmir dispute. India does not recognize the Northern Areas as belonging to Pakistan and calls the region encompassing Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas " Pakistan Occupied Kashmir."

The region was under the rule of the Maharaja of Kashmir for many years, which led to the common belief that it is part of Kashmir. However, the people of Gilgit-Baltistan regard themselves as being distinct from Kashmiris and many want to become the fifth province of Pakistan. The region's lack of representation in the parliament of Pakistan has placed it outside the mainstream politics of the country, which has become a major cause of frustration to the inhabitants of Gilgit-Baltistan.

The Northern Areas comprise the two districts of Baltistan and the three districts of Gilgit (where the capital is located). Hunza, an independent principality for 950 years which only came under Pakistani rule in 1974, is also located in this region. The Northern Areas collectively comprise a territory of 27,991 mi² (72,496 km²).

According to Habib R. Sulemani the Northern Areas of Pakistan is commonly known as "Gilgit-Baltistan" and this term clearly indicates the districts of Gilgit, Ghizer, Diyamer, Sikardu and Ganchay, while the term 'Northern Areas' confuses parts of the NWFP with Gilgit-Baltistan. Gilgit-Baltistan is geographically and politically more suitable than any other term.

List of Peaks located in the Region of Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir (Pakistan) !
Name Height(Metres) Mountain Range Region
1. K-2 8611 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
2. Nanga Parbat 8125 Himalaya Diamar
3. Gasherbrum-1 8086 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
4. Broad Peak 8047 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
5. Gasherbrum-1 8035 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
6. Gasherbrum-1 7952 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
7. Gasherbrum-1 7925 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
8. Disteghil Sar 7885 Karakuram Shimshal
9. Kunyan Chhish 7852 Karakuram Hisper-Nagar
10. Masberbrum NE 7821 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
11. Batura-1 7795 Karakuram Batura-Hunza
12. Rakaposhi 7788 Karakuram Nagar
13. Batura-2 7762 Karakuram Batura wall(Hunza)
14. Kunjut Sar 7760 Karakuram Hisper-Nagar
15. Saltoro Karghi 7742 Karakuram Saltoro Valley
16. Batura-3 7729 Karakuram Batura wall-Hunza
17. Trivor 7728 Karakuram Hisper-Nagar
18. Trichmir 7706 Hindu-Kush Chitral Valley
19. Chogolisa-1 7665 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
20. Shishpar Sar 7610 Karakuram Batura-Hunza
21. Silberzacken 7595 Himalaya Nanga Parbat
22. Batura-4 7594 Karakuram Batura wall-Hunza
23. Yakshin Garder 7559 Karakuram Hisper-Nagar
24. Passu Peak(VV) 7500 Karakuram Passu -Hunza
25. Pumari Chhish v 7492 Karakuram Hisper-Nagar
26. Noshaq 7429 Hindu-Kush Chitral
27. Passu Sar 7476 Karakuram Batura-Hunza
28. Malubiting(VV) 7458 Karakuram Haramosh
29. Muchu(Batura V) 7453 Karakuram Batura-Hunza
30. Sia Kangri 7422 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
31. Haramosh 7409 Karakuram Haramosh
32. Istoro-o-nal 7403 Hindu-Kush Chitral
33. Ulter-1 7388 Karakuram Batura-Hunza
34. Sherpi Kangri 7380 Karakuram Saltoro Valley
35. Saraghrar 7349 Hindu-Kush Chitral
36. Momhil Sar 7343 Karakuram Hisper-Nagar
37. Jutmo Sar 7330 Karakuram Hisper-Nagar
38. BojohagurDuanasir7329 Karakuram Batura-Nagar
39. Yazghill 7324 Karakuram Shimshal-Hunza
40. Passur Diar 7295 Karakuram Batura-Hunza
41. Malabuting(C) 7291 Karakuram Haramosh
42. Baintha Brakk 7285 Karakuram Biafo Glacier Hisper
43. Passu Peak 7284 Karakuram Passu -Hunza
44. K-6 7281 Karakuram Hushe Valley
45. Baltoro Kangri 7280 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
46. muztagh Tower 7273 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
47. Diran 7257 Karakuram Minapin -Nagar
48. Lupgar Sar(C) 7200 Karakuram Hisper-Nagar
49. Karum Koh 7164 Karakuram Shimshal-Hunza
50. Hachindar Chhish7163 Karakuram Batura -Hunza
51. Snow Dome 7160 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
52. Latok-1 7151 Karakuram Biafo Glacier-Nagar
53. Latok-2 7145 Karakuram Biafo Glacier-Nagar
54. Kampir Dior 7143 Karakuram Batura-Hunza
55. Kunyang Chhish 7108 Karakuram Hisper-Nagar
56. Udren Zom 7108 Hindu-Kush Chitral
57. Chenta Peak 7090 Karakuram Hunza Valley
58. Riakot Peak 7070 Himalaya Nanga Parbat
59. Sangemarmar Sar 7050 Karakuram Hunza Valley
60. Link Sar 7041 Karakuram Hushe Valley
61. Spantik 7027 Karakuram Nagar
62. Mulungutti Sar 7025 Karakuram Hisper-Nagar
63. Akher Chhish 7020 Hindu-Kush Chitral
64. Pamuri Sar 7016 Karakuram Batura-Hunza
65. Rakaposhi East 7010 Karakuram Bagrot Valley
66. Laila Peak 7004 Karakuram Bagrot Valley
67. K-7 6986 Karakuram Hushe Valley
68. Beka BrakaiChhok6934 Karakuram Batura Wall
69. Vigne Peak 6874 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
70. Koyo Zom 6871 Hindu-Raj Chitral
71. Dut Sar 6858 Karakuram Shimshal-Hunza
72. Angel Sar 6858 Karakuram Cocordia-Skardu
73. Latok-3 6850 Karakuram Biafo Glacier-Hisper
74. Chongra Peak 6830 Himalaya Nanga Parbat
75. Miar Peak 6824 Karakuram Bagrot-Haramosh
76. Phuparash 6785 Karakuram Nagar-Haramosh
77. Biarchedi 6781 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
78. Seiri Prokush 6771 Karakuram Batura Glacier west
79. Trango Tower 6763 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
80. Choricho 6756 Karakuram Braldu Valley skard
81. Biale Peak 6729 Karakuram Muztagh Glacier
82. Trinity Peak 6700 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
83. Mani Peak 6685 Karakuram Bagrot –Haramosh
84. Haramosh-2 6666 Karakuram Bagrot-Haramosh
85. Thui-1 6660 Hindu-Raj Kishmanja-Brughil
86. Gul Lusht Zom 6657 Hindu-Kush Lutkho Valley
87. Piaju Peak 6610 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
88. Makrong Chhish 6607 Karakuram Hisper-Nagar
89. Gonalo Peak 6606 Himalaya Nanga Parbat
90. Phuparash-2 6574 Karakuram Bagrot-Haramosh
91. Buni Zom 6550 Hindu-Kush Shishi-chitral
92. Thui-2 6523 Hindu-Raj Thui Pass
93. Ghamubar-1 6518 Hindu-Raj Darkot-Ghamubar
94. Noukasich 6496 Karakuram Batura-Hunza
95. Honbrok 6459 Karakuram Hushe Valley
96. Ghamubar-2 6432 Hindu-Raj Darkot-Ghamubar
97. Uli Biaho 6417 Karakuram Brulda River Valley
98. Koser Gunge 6401 Karakuram Baltore-Skardu
99. Namika Peak 6325 Karakuram Hushe-Skardu
100. Urdukash-1 6320 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
101. Bullah 6294 Karakuram Brulda-Skardu
102. Purian Sar 6293 Karakuram Pakore Valley
103. Mango Gusor 6288 Karakuram Brulda River Valley
104. Trango Tower(G) 6286 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
105. Gama Sokha 6282 Karakuram Brulda River Valley
106. Urdukash-2 6280 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
107. Hunza Peak 6270 Karakuram Hunza Valley
108. Marbal Peak 6256 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
109. Crystal Peak 6252 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
110. Chuchhar Sar 6249 Hindu Kush Shishi-Chitral
111. Garmush 6244 Hindu Raj Darkot-Ghamubar
112. Trango Tower (H)6239 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
113. Lobsang 6225 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
114. Blatts Yaz 6191 Hindu Raj Darkot-Ghamubar
115. Thui Zom 6159 Hindu Raj Darkot-Ghamubar
116. Bilchar Dubani 6134 Karakuram Bagrot-Haramosh
117. Urdukash-3 6130 Karakuram Baltoro Glacier
118. Chikar Zom 6110 Hindu Raj Darkot-Chatebori
119. Uli Biacho Tower6109 Karakuram Braldu River Valley
120. Tupopdan 6106 Karakuram Shimshal-Hunza

Pakistan Building Military Robots !

2009-09-01T02:05:00.008-04:00

Amidst constant echos of a failed State Pakistan has raised eyebrows with the development of next generation light weight plutonium Nuclear cruise and ballistic missiles, $1 billion Pakistan-China Joint development of JF-17 fighter jet rivaling F-16's, 'Uqaab' the indigenous drone and now military robots !

Research at the Department of Mechatronics Engineering department at the Rawalpindi based 124 acre College of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering has been key to the Robot development in Pakistan !

CEME is the largest constituent college of National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan. The college is envisaged to grow as a modern center of excellence in various fields of sciences and technology whilst enabling provision of intellectual leadership and development of indigenous technology within Pakistan.

CEME is in the forefront for the development of military robots for the Pakistan army and civilian use. In 2008, the Electrical Engineering Department of the College has found accredition as the best in the country and one of the top most in the southeast Asia region.

With tough competitive exams and selection criteria the students have lead to further enhancing the name of the college and university on the national and international fronts. The mechatronics department has gained fame through the annual all Pakistan robotics competition (NERC) which is one of the best in Asia. The computer and mechanical departments have gained wide publicity due to the quality of engineers they provide and also due to the large number of competitions that are held under their umbrella.

Robots will be armies of the future in a case of science fact catching up to fiction. “The United States is ahead in military robots, but in technology there is no such thing as a permanent advantage,” Peter Singer, who has authored books on the military said. “You have Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran working on military robots.” Singer warned that while using robots for battle saves lives of military personnel, the move has the potential to exacerbate warfare by having heartless machines do the dirty work. “We are at a point of revolution in war,” Singer said. Singer predicted US military units will be half machine, half human by 2015.

Turkey and Armenia resolve 100 year old conflict !

2009-09-01T00:08:00.006-04:00

Major conflicts that need resolution -
Pakistan-India - 62 year old conflict.
Israel-Palestine - 62 Year old conflict.
Greece-Cyprus-Turkey - 40 Year old conflict.

Major conflicts that have been resolved -
Ireland-UK
UK -Germany
USA -USSR
France -Germany
Japan -USA
Italy -UK/USA
China -Vietnam

Turkey and its neighbour Armenia have moved closer to establishing diplomatic ties after decades of bitter mistrust on both sides.

They are to hold six weeks of domestic consultations on the move after which their parliaments will vote on it, their foreign ministries announced. Negotiations on the mending of ties have been brokered by Switzerland. The two countries' dispute centres on the fate of Armenians under Turkish Ottoman rule nearly a century ago. Turkey has resisted widespread calls for it to recognise the mass killing of Armenians during World War I as an act of genocide. Anticipation of a diplomatic breakthrough has been growing ahead of a planned visit by Armenian President Serge Sarkisian to Turkey on 14 October. He is due to attend the return leg of a World Cup qualifying football match between the two countries.

'Border to open'

A roadmap for the normalisation of the relationship between the two countries was agreed in April. Hundreds of thousands of Ottoman Armenians died in 1915
The foreign ministries said the two countries had agreed to start internal discussions on two protocols: one establishing diplomatic relations and the other developing bilateral ties.

"The political consultations will be completed within six weeks, following which the two protocols will be signed and submitted to the respective parliaments for ratification," their joint statement said.

According to Reuters news agency, the Turkish-Armenian border - closed by Turkey in 1993 - will re-open within two months of the protocols coming into force. In a statement, the US said it welcomed the move and was ready to work with both governments to support the normalisation of ties. Modern Armenia, which took shape as a Soviet republic in 1920, has only had diplomatic relations with Turkey as part of the USSR. Since declaring independence in 1991, it has pressed for recognition of what it says was genocide.

Relations have also been complicated by Turkish support for Azerbaijan in its armed conflict with Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Harpoon Missiles : U.S. Says Pakistan Made Changes to Missiles Sold for Defence

2009-08-30T15:58:00.004-04:00

Pakistanis' are beyond the need to reverse-engineer Harpoon Missiles says Missile Expert !

The United States has accused Pakistan of illegally modifying American-made missiles to expand its capability to strike land targets, a potential threat to India, according to senior administration and Congressional officials.

The charge, which set off a new outbreak of tensions between the United States and Pakistan, was made in an unpublicized diplomatic protest in late June to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and other top Pakistani officials.

The accusation comes at a particularly delicate time, when the administration is asking Congress to approve $7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan over the next five years, and when Washington is pressing a reluctant Pakistani military to focus its attentions on fighting the Taliban, rather than expanding its nuclear and conventional forces aimed at India.

While American officials say that the weapon in the latest dispute is a conventional one — based on the Harpoon antiship missiles that were sold to Pakistan by the Reagan administration as a defensive weapon in the cold war — the subtext of the argument is growing concern about the speed with which Pakistan is developing new generations of both conventional and nuclear weapons.

“There’s a concerted effort to get these guys to slow down,” one senior administration official said. “Their energies are misdirected.”

At issue is the detection by American intelligence agencies of a suspicious missile test on April 23 — a test never announced by the Pakistanis — that appeared to give the country a new offensive weapon.

American military and intelligence officials say they suspect that Pakistan has modified the Harpoon antiship missiles that the United States sold the country in the 1980s, a move that would be a violation of the Arms Control Export Act. Pakistan has denied the charge, saying it developed the missile itself. The United States has also accused Pakistan of modifying American-made P-3C aircraft for land-attack missions, another violation of United States law that the Obama administration has protested.

Whatever their origin, the missiles would be a significant new entry into Pakistan’s arsenal against India. They would enable Pakistan’s small navy to strike targets on land, complementing the sizable land-based missile arsenal that Pakistan has developed. That, in turn, would be likely to spur another round of an arms race with India that the United States has been trying, unsuccessfully, to halt. “The focus of our concern is that this is a potential unauthorized modification of a maritime antiship defensive capability to an offensive land-attack missile,” said another senior administration official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter involves classified information.

“The potential for proliferation and end-use violations are things we watch very closely,” the official added. “When we have concerns, we act aggressively.”

A senior Pakistani official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity because the interchanges with Washington have been both delicate and highly classified, said the American accusation was “incorrect.” The official said that the missile tested was developed by Pakistan, just as it had modified North Korean designs to build a range of land-based missiles that could strike India. He said that Pakistan had taken the unusual step of agreeing to allow American officials to inspect the country’s Harpoon inventory to prove that it had not violated the law, a step that administration officials praised.

Some experts are also skeptical of the American claims. Robert Hewson, editor of Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, a yearbook and Web-based data service, said the Harpoon missile did not have the necessary range for a land-attack missile, which would lend credibility to Pakistani claims that they are developing their own new missile. Moreover, he said, Pakistan already has more modern land-attack missiles that it developed itself or acquired from China.

“They’re beyond the need to reverse-engineer old U.S. kit,” Mr. Hewson said in a telephone interview. “They’re more sophisticated than that.” Mr. Hewson said the ship-to-shore missile that Pakistan was testing was part of a concerted effort to develop an array of conventional missiles that could be fired from the air, land or sea to address India’s much more formidable conventional missile arsenal.

The dispute highlights the level of mistrust that remains between the United States and a Pakistani military that American officials like to portray as an increasingly reliable partner in the effort to root out the forces of the Taliban and Al Qaeda on Pakistani territory. A central element of the American effort has been to get the military refocused on the internal threat facing the country, rather than on threat the country believes it still faces from India.

Pakistani officials have insisted that they are making that shift. But the evidence continues to point to heavy investments in both nuclear and conventional weapons that experts say have no utility in the battle against insurgents.

Over the years, the United States has provided a total of 165 Harpoon missiles to Pakistan, including 37 of the older-model weapons that were delivered from 1985 to 1988, said Charles Taylor, a spokesman for the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

The country’s nuclear arsenal is expanding faster than any other nation’s. In May, Pakistan conducted a test firing of its Babur medium-range cruise missile, a weapon that military experts say could potentially be tipped with a nuclear warhead. The test was conducted on May 6, during a visit to Washington by President Asif Ali Zardari, but was not made public by Pakistani officials until three days after the meetings had ended to avoid upsetting the talks. While it may be technically possible to arm the Harpoons with small nuclear weapons, outside experts say it would probably not be necessary.

Before lawmakers departed for their summer recess, administration officials briefed Congress on the protest to Pakistan. The dispute has the potential to delay or possibly even derail the legislation to provide Pakistan with $7.5 billion in civilian aid over five years; lawmakers are expected to vote on the aid package when they return from their recess next month.

The legislation is sponsored by Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the top Democrat and Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, as well as Representative Howard L. Berman, a California Democrat who leads the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressional aides are now reconciling House and Senate versions of the legislation.

Frederick Jones, a spokesman for Mr. Kerry, declined to comment on the details of the dispute citing its classified nature but suggested that the pending multifaceted aid bill would clear Congress “in a few weeks” and would help cooperation between the two countries.

“There have been irritants in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship in the past and there will be in the future,” Mr. Jones said in a statement, noting that the pending legislation would provide President Obama “with new tools to address troubling behavior.”

Turning Point for Pakistan ! Former IB Chief's revelations shake Pakistan !

2009-08-28T15:14:00.009-04:00

Former IB Chief Revelations opens a Pandora Box on the Army and Political Parties in Pakistan !

Pakistan, the seventh largest country in the world has totally changed in the last decade. Atleast a dozen twenty four hour News Channels, Free Pro-active Judiciary and a very diverse vibrant parliament has changed Pakistan. For the first time Pakistani Politicians, Army and the Judiciary are under tremendous scrutiny. Every move is monitored by an army of journalists trying to get a scoop. From Musharraf's removal and Zardari's surrender on the reinstatement of the Supreme court judge was spearheaded by a very organized lethal press. Things may change forever for this 170 million Nuclear armed Nation.

Playing to the tune of a free Brig. Imrtiaz reveals secrets of 1990's which has opened a Pandora box. Brig. Imttiaz rants has shaken up Pakistan and has answered all the unanswered ambiguities of the 1990's. His revelations have dealt a big blow to the Army's reputation and blown the cover even from the very 'honest' politicians. Even the Kosher politician played havoc with the political system with Bribes, Killings, Lies and Deception ! Brig. Imtiaz interviews to television channels has resulted in counter revelations from his rival much to the amazement of a shocked Pakistani nation.

Brig Imtiaz recent revelations and counter revelations :
IJI was invented by the army and ISI.
IJI politicians were taken to Swat and bribed by the ISI to keep PPP from winning elections.
MQM-Jinnahpur controversy was all fake.
MQM was falsely accused of having torture cells in Karachi.
MQM refused money from Brig. Imtiaz
Army and ISI collaborated with the then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in undermining Nawaz Sharif's Government and dismissing it later.
ISI funded the Right to win elections in Pakistan in 1992 and 1994.
Affidavit names politicians who took money from ISI.
Former CJP quotes affidavit submitted by former ISI chief Lt Gen (r) Asad Durrani in court
List of recipients includes Nawaz Sharif, Abida Hussain, Pir Pagaro and Jamaat Islami.

Counter revelations by Sheikh Rashid :
Brig. Imtiaz was trying to creat a misunderstanding between Nawaz Sharif and Sheikh Rashid (former PML-Q.
Brig. Imtiaz has amassed property all over Pakistan and siphoned off money from the ISI account.

The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) gave millions of rupees to different politicians during former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan’s regime and no one has ever denied receiving money from the agency, former chief justice of Pakistan Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui said on Wednesday.

Talking to a private TV channel, Brig. Imtiaz said the ISI was an intelligence agency and should not have interfered in politics, or be used against politicians. He said former ISI director general Lt Gen Asad Durrani had informed the Supreme Court that he had given money to politicians, ostensibly to ‘convince’ them to join the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) against the PPP (Benazir's Party).

Justice (r) Siddiqui told the channel that he had said at that time that the ISI’s role should not be political. He said the case was still pending in the Supreme Court at the time of the 1999 coup. He said Lt Gen (r) Durrani had presented an affidavit in court, giving details of the money distributed to different politicians.

According to the affidavit, then chief of army staff General (r) Mirza Aslam Baig had advised the intelligence agency in September 1990 that it should give logistic support to the transfer of funds from the business community in Karachi to the IJI during the 1988 election.

According to the written affidavit of July 24, 1994, Lt Gen (r) Durrani said he was informed at the time that the step had the government’s complete support. After the orders, he said he opened a number of accounts in banks in Karachi, Rawalpindi and Quetta.

A man from Karachi named Younas Habib had deposited Rs 140 million in a bank account and the rest of the money was transferred to a special fund.

According to the affidavit, acquired by the TV channel,
former caretaker prime minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi received Rs 5 million,
former Sindh chief minister Jam Sadiq Rs 5 million,
former prime minister Muhammad Khan Junejo Rs 2.5 million,
Nawaz Sharif Rs 3.5 million, senior politician
Pir Pagaro Rs 2 million, the Jamaat-e-Islami Rs 5 million,
Mir Afzal Khan Rs 10 million,
Abida Hussain Rs 1 million,
Lt Gen Rafaqat Rs 5.6 million for managing the media campaign,
Humayun Marri Rs 1.5 million,
former prime minister Zafarullah Jamali Rs 4 million,
Kakar Rs 1 million,
Jam Yousaf Rs 0.7 million,
Hasil Bizenjo Rs 0.5 million, Nadir Mengal Rs 1 million,
Altaf Hussain Qureshi and Mustafa Sadiq Rs 0.5 million,
Salahuddin Rs 0.3 million,
smaller groups Rs 5.4 million and others received Rs 3.339 million.

Former chief of Intelligence Bureau (IB) Brig. (Retd.) Imtiaz Ahmed Friday disclosed that Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Nasirullah Babar and IB chief of PPP regime Masood Sharif carried out a more serious operation than ‘Midnight Jackal’. The operation against PML(N) was called “Midday Wolf”. Brig. (Retd.) Imtiaz Ahmed said under operation Midday Wolf 60 members of National Assembly were taken to Swat and their debts were written off.

Midnight Jackal’ was launched to overthrow Benazir.The Operation Midnight Jackal was launched to topple Benazir Bhutto’s government.He added that the operation was not a big issue, but the politicians had politicised it.

He revealed that General (r) Aslam Beg, the army chief at the time, wanted to bring a change in the National Assembly through a no-confidence motion with the help of Operation Midnight Jackal, as General Beg believed that Benazir Bhutto’s policies were contrary to those of the army. He said General Beg did not agree to Benazir’s Afghan policy. The former IB chief said after Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as prime minister, General Beg and then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan had discussed at length the possibility of replacing her, adding that the operation was also launched for that reason.

Brigadier (r) Imtiaz said his major mistake was his failure to refuse to obey General Beg’s orders. During a subsequent inquiry, General (r) Hameed Gul advised him not to speak against the army chief as that could raise questions about the army, he maintained. Brigadier (r) Imtiaz told the channel that he was retired on the directions of General (r) Naseerullah Babar.

General (r) Asif Nawaz Janjua had suspected Imtiaz of tapping the former’s phone calls, the ex-IB chief said. Imtiaz said stayed quiet throughout his service since he did not want his institution defamed. He said president Ghulam Ishaq had offered him to join his “gang” and offered him privileges, as a cold war for power was raging between Nawaz Sharif and the then president. He said he had been meeting both the leaders and tried bring them together.

The former IB chief said he was also blamed for convincing General (r) Akhtar Abdul Rehman to join then president Ziaul Haq on the flight to Bahawalpur at the eleventh hour, whereas the names of those going to Bahawalpur had already been finalised in the General Headquarters.

Jaswant Singh Calls BJP Indian Version of KKK !

2009-08-27T01:18:00.001-04:00

NEW DELHI: BJP's dissidents seem to be digging in for a long fight even as expelled party leader Jaswant Singh added another turn of phrase - apart
from Arun Shourie's "humpty-dumpty" and "Alice in blunderland" - in describing his former outfit as an Indian version of the white supramacist Ku Klux Klan.

Jaswant Singh's reference to the BJP, of which he was member for 30-odd years, as a KKK-type outfit came in an interview to a news agency. Apparently in reaction to a question on why he was sacked, the former minister said, "Please don't ask me. I am outside the magic circle of advisers or thinkers. Because I am not from the RSS, is that why? So are we a political party? Is the BJP becoming some kind of an Indian version of Ku Klux Klan?"

The former minister refused to elaborate saying, "You know what the Klan means. You don't ask me about this." His outburst seems to suggest he now sees BJP as a secretive, violent sect that has no place for leaders like him who may espouse a sense of independent inquiry. His comment might also have to do with reports that Arun Shourie was not likely to meet the same fate as Singh due to the former's proximity to the RSS.

He chose to skirt around a question about why BJP leader L K Advani was rejected by people as a prime ministerial aspirant. He said it was for the BJP veteran to reflect on this. "It would be impertinent and perhaps, to a degree also, I would be commenting on my past 30 years with him if I commented on his characteristics, political or personal," he said.

Asked if Advani was surrounded by a coterie, Singh suggested his former leader was more led than a leader. "Does he run a coterie or does the coterie run him," Singh asked. He said BJP should reflect on its relationship with RSS and be "mature enough to cut the umbilical cord".

"I feel for BJP to gain its full personality as a political organisation, they have to stand on their own feet. Now they should be mature enough to cut the umbilical cord," he said. He disagreed with Shourie's suggestion that RSS should take over the party saying it will not work. "I would like the BJP to reflect on what has happened and try to be a party of the 21st Century. They (RSS) are exclusivist. Besides, they are an organisation committed to social work," he said.

To a question on a long rope being extended to Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan and Shourie merely being asked for a clarification, he said, "I am sorry. I cannot comment on it. I was told don't come to the meeting. Of course. Good luck to Raje. But there are obviously double standards."

Asked if his expulsion was a message to other dissidents in the party, he shot back: "Am I a dissident. I am sorry. Your question suggests I am some kind of a dissident. I feel I am one of the original founding members of the party. Who felt that I had raised queries or questions? And is questioning or wondering or enquiring about the functioning of the party dissidence? So are we moving into an era of thought control?"

Asked about chances of reconciliation with BJP, Singh said, "Reconciliation to what? Reconciliation to an insult?"

He ruled out joining the Samajwadi Party, which has invited him to join it. "I am happy to be an independent." He said he was an independent member of the Parliament now representing Darjeeling constituency and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) has reaffirmed its total faith in him. "I will serve the cause of GJM and Gorkhaland. That is my karma bhoomi and my janam bhoomi is the desert. I shall serve them," he said.

He ruled out stepping down as chairman of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee following his expulsion from BJP. Singh said he had consulted the secretary general of Lok Sabha, who said that rules did not require him to step down. The Committee is a mini-Parliament and it was the prerogative of the Speaker to remove him on certain grounds which do not apply to him, he said. When told he had become chairman because BJP nominated him to it, he said, "BJP nominated me only to contest the elections."

Healthcare Systems: U.S. vs. Japan

2009-08-25T11:16:00.000-04:00

Fukuoka, Japan—No one here in this island nation of 130 million has gone bankrupt as a result of medical fees. In a country notorious for $80 cantaloupes and coffin-size hotel rooms for $200, healthcare services are remarkably inexpensive.

Although I am fully insured in the United States, my family opts to opt out while in Japan, paying full price for basic health services such as dental, ophthalmology and otolaryngology. (That's right: When's the last time you've had a routine visit with an ear doctor.)

Such services cost about $20, the same price as my co-pay would have been stateside, and we don't need an appointment.

Convenient access to healthcare, with its inherent emphasis on preventative medicine, should be the hallmark of any system.

The United States lags far behind. The well-publicized issue of millions uninsured or underinsured is only part of the story. Many more with health insurance avoid doctors, disgusted by the time-consuming and often useless process.

Sicko comparisons

Every healthcare system has its shortcomings. Japan doesn't know how it will meet the demands of an aging society. Japanese doctors themselves are calling for reforms, citing fatigue and low pay among medical workers as well as more and more hospitals in the red, as detailed in a May 2008 article in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine and elsewhere.

Michael Moore's 2007 movie SiCKO, painting a rosy picture of healthcare systems around the world, misses the mark. Moore praises the French system, for example, but healthcare there is the main driver for the country's overall deficit; and citizens pay on average more than 18 percent of their income on health, albeit largely unknowingly because funds are mostly drawn through taxation, according to a 2008 whitepaper by Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute.

And despite the guaranteed inclusion of Bachman-Turner Overdrive's music on the airwaves by law, life isn't necessarily better in Canada. Waiting times for "elective" procedures such as cataract surgery and more pressing matters such as heart surgery can be long and, in some cases, deadly. Advocates quibble over the extent of the wait, not the lack of wait.

A more accurate world picture would be billions of people with no healthcare and a lucky minority, living in perhaps 50 of the world's 200-some nations, with decent access. And among these wealthier nations, the United States has a system generally worse than other imperfect systems for a large swath of its population.

Prevention

We cannot perfectly compare national healthcare systems, nor can we wholly adopt another's. Japan's system, for example, is bolstered by low levels of violence, drug addiction, obesity, and health-and-income disparity, which are all rampant in the United States.

Japan's emphasis on preventive medicine, though, is partly responsible for producing one of the healthiest populations on earth, with a life expectancy over four years greater than that of the United States. (America now ranks 50th for life expectancy, according to the CIA World Factbook.)

High-gadgetry treatment, not prevention, is the focus in the United States. This is unfortunate because many of our biggest health concerns don't need to exist: HIV, obesity, diabetes, kidney disease requiring dialysis, tooth decay, and many cancers, all "curable" through extensive prevention campaigns.

Part of this would be behavioral changes: Condoms have saved more lives than an HIV vaccine; quitting smoking is hard, but treating tobacco-induced lung cancer and heart disease is harder. Easier access to medical care is the other part: Colon cancer takes up to a decade to develop and can be stopped rather easily if only more people had routine examinations.

But we are stuck with a system in which millions of Americans have zero access to healthcare and might as well live in a developing country. Millions more are underinsured or have patchy coverage, depending on employment, resulting in inconsistent care. And millions more, fully insured, would rather not deal with frequently changing employer-based healthcare plans or wasted time in doctors' offices despite appointments.

If, as in Japan, all citizens could walk into a doctor's office when they needed it and also have continuous coverage to ensure regular check ups, our physical strength might rival our military strength. The devil, it seems, is in the details... or at least in funding priorities.