State of Pakistan

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 By Khalid Mustafa ISLAMABAD: The plan of the government to go for borrowing of over $12 billion just from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will expose the country to huge debt servicing that will eat up 44 per cent of tax collection leaving meagre resources for defence expenditures and for paying salaries of employees, a senior official at Ministry of Finance told The News.

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Chris Cork

Much has been talked but little actually done in the matter of jamming the so-called “Mullah Radio” that has done much to inflame the situation in Swat. The government appears to take the position that this is an immensely complex and expensive task, requires vast resources and the import of foreign equipment – most of which is not necessarily the case. Read more »

The Predator planes that launch missile strikes against militants are based in Pakistan, the senator says. That suggests a much deeper relationship with the U.S. than Islamabad would like to admit.

From the Los Angeles Times

By Greg Miller

February 13, 2009

Reporting from Washington — A senior U.S. lawmaker said Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flown from an air base in that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counter-terrorism collaboration with the United States. Read more »

By Walter Pincus and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 13, 2009

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair told Congress yesterday that instability in countries around the world caused by the current global economic crisis rather than terrorism is the primary near-term security threat to the United States. Read more »

Why has the security apparatus failed to cut the militants’ supply lines; how come random journalists can talk to Fazlullah but security forces are unable to track him down; and if the state’s helplessness is genuine, how was the administration able to successfully hold general elections in Swat?

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GDP in Developing World Shrinks as Pinch of Recession Proves Acute  

The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 10, 2009 

By JOANNA SLATER and ANTONIO REGALADO   

The global downdraft is hitting the world’s emerging economies with a speed and ferocity few imagined possible just months ago.

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SWAT TALIBAN FM RADIO STATION

Dear Sirs,

             The Minster of Information assures us that the Federal government is serious in restoring the writ of the Pakistan government in Swat.This assurance is meaningless in view of the fact that her Ministry is allowing the Swat Taliban illegal FM Radio station to broadcast messages daily which assists the Taliban in controlling the territory they have captured. Read more »

From the Financial Times

By Jeff Sachs 

Published: January 27 2009 19:21 |

The US debate over the fiscal stimulus is remarkable in its neglect of the medium term – that is, the budgetary challenges over a period of five to 10 years. Neither the White House nor Congress has offered the public a scenario of how the proposed mega-deficits will affect the budget and government programmes beyond the next 12 to 24 months. Without a sound medium-term fiscal framework, the stimulus package can easily do more harm than good, since the prospect of trillion-dollar-plus deficits as far as the eye can see will weigh heavily on the confidence of consumers and businesses, and thereby undermine even the short-term benefits of the stimulus package.

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By Peter Chamberlin 

Obama has begun the tedious work of separating himself from the failed policies of his predecessor.  He has halted pending Bush regulations and executive orders and reversed CIA policies on torture and secret prisons.  If the President was sincere in his interview with Al-Arabiya, about wanting to assure Muslims that “Americans are not your enemy,” then he must be willing to reexamine all elements of the rogue agency’s terror war, especially the more controversial elements of it.

If President Obama really seeks a fresh start with the Muslim world –establishing a humane new foreign policy for the United States to guide us to an acceptable conclusion of the war– then he must make a visible clean break with all the failed Bush policies.  A fresh start with Pakistan, our most important ally in the terror war, would begin by ending CIA Predator strikes and cutting-off all support for their gangs of criminals and terrorists who now plague the country. 

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From  Dissident Voice

by Tom Burghardt in San Francisco/ January 26th, 2009 

With 180 girls’ schools torched since 2008 in Pakistan’s Swat Valley and some 900 indefinitely closed, the future for education for some 125,000 young women is under dire threat by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

The latest bombings took place Monday in the district capital, Mingora, “once considered the safest place in Swat,” according to The Guardian. Five girls’ schools were leveled by TTP militants who last week decreed a permanent ban on education for girls. Read more »

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer

Sat Jan 31, 10:21 am ET

WASHINGTON – The “War on Terror” is losing the war of words.

The catchphrase burned into the American lexicon hours after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is fading away, slowly if not deliberately being replaced by a new administration bent on repairing the U.S. image among Muslim nations. Read more »