State of Pakistan

ARY One World –21st January 2009

Faeza Dawood presents special episode in ARYONE WORLD & talks with Yousuf Nazar and Naveed Qamar

From Financial Times

By James Blitz in London

Published: January 19 2009 23:51 | Last updated: January 19 2009 23:51

Any attempt by Barack Obama to get European Union members of Nato to send more troops to Afghanistan will be strongly rebuffed by EU voters, according to a new opinion poll for the Financial Times.

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Mumbai, Jan. 15, 2009

From Times Online

David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, bid an acrimonious adieu to George W Bush today, branding the outgoing President’s War on Terror a “misleading and mistaken” doctrine that had united extremists against the West.

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By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 13, 2009; A08

The Army is building $1.1 billion worth of military bases and other facilities in Afghanistan and is planning to start an additional $1.3 billion in projects this year, according to Col. Thomas E. O’Donovan, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Afghanistan District. Read more »

From Washington Post 

By Greg Ip
Sunday, January 11, 2009; B01

In its battle against the financial crisis, the U.S. government has extended its full faith and credit to an ever-growing swath of the private sector: first homeowners, then banks, now car companies. Soon, President-elect Barack Obama will put the government credit card to work with a massive fiscal boost for the economy. Necessary as these steps are, they raise a worry of their own: Can the United States pay the money back? Read more »

Reuters, Thu Jan 8, 2009 5:55pm GMT

(Recasts, adding quotes, Bos, Kroes)

By Anna Willard and Francois Murphy

PARIS, Jan 8 (Reuters) - France and Germany said on Thursday Washington was no longer able to impose its views on other major powers and they hoped incoming U.S. President Barack Obama would listen to them at a summit on overhauling the financial system. Read more »

The New York Times 

January 11, 2009 

By DAVID E. SANGER

TO GET TO THE HEADQUARTERS of the Strategic Plans Division, the branch of the Pakistani government charged with keeping the country’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons away from insurgents trying to overrun the country, you must drive down a rutted, debris-strewn road at the edge of the Islamabad airport, dodging stray dogs and piles of uncollected garbage. Just past a small traffic circle, a tan stone gateway is manned by a lone, bored-looking guard loosely holding a rusting rifle. The gateway marks the entry to Chaklala Garrison, an old British cantonment from the days when officers of the Raj escaped the heat of Delhi for the cooler hills on the approaches to Afghanistan. Pass under the archway, and the poverty and clamor of modern Pakistan disappear.

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By Naomi Klein

January 7, 2009

It’s time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.

In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on “people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.” The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions–BDS for short–was born.

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The following article from today’s Daily Times should be read carefully to understand why Islamic Militancy serves the policy objectives of the US establishment. This is a subject that has been discussed a lot by experts like Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Fisk but is hardly covered by Pakistan’s media. 

January 6, 2009

By Uri Avnery 

Uri Avnery is an Israeli peace activist who has advocated the setting up of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. He served three terms in the Israeli parliament (Knesset), and is the founder of Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc)

Israel is missing the historic chance of making peace with secular Arab nationalism. Tomorrow, It may be faced with a uniformly fundamentalist Arab world, Hamas multiplied by a thousandJust after midnight, January 2, Al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel was reporting on events in Gaza. Suddenly the camera was pointing upwards towards the dark sky. The screen was pitch black. Nothing could be seen, but there was a sound to be heard: the noise of airplanes, a frightening, terrifying droning. Read more »

Leaders Assailed Over Censure of Hamas

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 4, 2009; A15

BAGHDAD, Jan. 3 — “War on Gaza” was the description the satellite channel al-Jazeera gave for the Israeli ground invasion that began Saturday, a culmination of eight days of bombing that have killed hundreds of Palestinians in the crowded seaside strip. But across the Arab world, the struggle was as noteworthy for what was becoming a war at home. Read more »

A Geopolitical Setback for the West

By Roger C. Altman

From Foreign Affairs , January/February 2009

Summary: The financial crisis has called into serious question the credibility of western governments and may precipitate an eastward shift of power.

ROGER C. ALTMAN is Chair and CEO of Evercore Partners. He was U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary in 1993-94.

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Book Review: The Making of a Mess

Fixing Global Finance . Martin Wolf . London : Johns Hopkins University Press , 2008 , 230 pp. 24.95 .  

By Harold James

From Foreign Affairs , January/February 2009

Summary: The current economic crisis may have one winner: the Chinese financial model, which — together with the IMF — holds the keys to fixing the problem.

HAROLD JAMES is Professor of History and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and Professor of History at the European University Institute, in Florence.

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Under Obama, the US may send 20,000 more troops and encourage talks with the Taliban in an effort to reclaim the upper hand in Afghanistan.

The Christian Science Monitor , from the January 2, 2009 edition

Kabul, Afghanistan - At times in 2008 Afghanistan eclipsed Iraq in levels of violence, and international attention is returning to the country for the first time since 2001. With the Obama administration planning a massive troop increase, Afghanistan and Pakistan look to be at the center of the administration’s foreign policy for 2009. Read more »

Note: This story was strongly denied

The Wall Street Journal Dec. 31, 2008 

By ZAHID HUSSAIN, MATTHEW ROSENBERG and PETER WONACOTT

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s own investigation of terror attacks in Mumbai has begun to show substantive links between the 10 gunmen and an Islamic militant group that its powerful spy agency spent years supporting, say people with knowledge of the probe.

At least one top leader of militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, or “Army of the Pure,” captured in a raid earlier this month in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, has confessed the group’s involvement in the attack as India and the U.S. have alleged, according to a senior Pakistani security official. Read more »