Posts tagged "Politics"

12% of Pakistan government shares for employees

by Asad on Jan 18, 2010 Pakistan, Politics • Comments Closed • Pakistan, Politics

Half a million workers will benefit from a Pakistan move for transfer of government shares in a chain of enterprises to their employees.

This was officially stated at a ceremony in Lahore where President Asif Ali Zardari handed share certificates to a group of workers under ‘Benazir Employees Stock Option Scheme’, named after the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Under the scheme 12 per cent of government shares worth around Rs100 billion (Dh4.36 billion) are being transferred to workers in entities including 16 listed and 33 unlisted public companies, 23 private companies and 14 other units.

In an address on the occasion at the Governor House in the Punjab capital, Zardari said the Pakistan People’s Party, which he heads as co-chairman, would strengthen democracy and protect the country.

“PPP government knows how to defeat conspiracies against Pakistan,” he said.

The president said that the PPP as the only truly federal party had the potential to “protect, run and strengthen the country”.

Governor Salman Taseer said Punjab — where the PPP is in second position in terms of vote bank after the Pakistan Muslim League-N of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif — would be turned into a “PPP fortress”.

PPP is part of PML-N led coalition ruling the country’s political most important and population-wise largest province.

Bumpy relations

Relations between PPP and PML-N, which is the main opposition party in the federal parliament, have however been bumpy.

But the PML-N leadership has asserted repeatedly the party would never back any attempt to dislodge the democratic system.

Barack Obama’s Indian tango set to rattle Pakistan

by Abdullah on Nov 7, 2010 Pakistan, US, World News • Comments Closed • America, India, Pakistan, Politics, USA

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle dance with students during a celebration of Diwali at a school in Mumbai

BARACK Obama has heralded a new phase in his country’s “indispensable” relationship with India at the weekend.

The US President signed $US10 billion ($9.85bn) worth of job-creating deals and flagged closer counter-terrorism ties with the world’s largest democracy.

But he also called for fresh dialogue between India and Pakistan and for India to recognise that its neighbour’s success was in its own best interests.

Mr Obama’s India visit, his first since taking office last year, has caused angst in neighbouring Pakistan, the US’s turbulent ally and India’s sworn rival, after it failed to convince the White House to include Islamabad on the US President’s four-nation Asia tour schedule.

Exacerbating Pakistani irritation was Saturday’s announcement of US support for India’s phased-in membership of the world’s major nuclear non-proliferation regimes – including the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Neither India nor Pakistan has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But the US brought India in from the cold in 2008 with the civilian nuclear technology supply agreement, while Pakistan remains locked out of the nuclear club.

Mr Obama used a speech at St Xavier’s College in Mumbai yesterday to appeal to India and Pakistan to find common ground and restart talks towards a peaceful coexistence.

“Obviously the history between India and Pakistan is incredibly complex and was born of much tragedy. (But) it may be surprising to some of you to know that I am absolutely convinced that the country with the biggest stake in Pakistan’s success is India,” he said.

While Pakistan was not acting quickly enough to eradicate militancy within its borders, it had also suffered the greatest casualties because of that militancy and now recognised what a profound problem this was.

A day earlier, in Mumbai, the President and first lady Michelle Obama met families and victims of the 2008 terror strikes on the city at the Taj Hotel, the scene of a 72-hour siege by Pakistani gunmen. (more…)

Change, yes, but not the change Americans wanted

by Abdullah on Jan 27, 2010 Obama, Politics • Comments Closed • America, Obama, Politics

Obama's shaky first term is perhaps not surprising, given the turbulent tectonics of his country's politics

First Haiti quaked, then Massachusetts. Konrad Yakabuski said it here last Wednesday: One year into his first term, Barack Obama risks becoming a lame-duck President. Fresh out of his supporters’ enthusiasm, he must struggle to reinvent his presidency in tonight’s State of the Union address.

There are many reasons for Mr. Obama’s near-death experience. The biggest, however, is that he misread the national mood. Having gained the presidency by defeating the lacklustre candidate of a discredited party, Mr. Obama mistook this for a mandate. American voters no longer confer mandates. They merely express their disgruntlement. They were fed up with Republicans, yes, but so were they with Democrats, especially congressional ones. They were fed up with politics as usual. Mr. Obama swept to victory by posing as the candidate of change.

Which he was, unfortunately for him. Mr. Obama had set his sights on the transformation of American society. For most Americans, however, change was a matter of how, not what. Social revolution was the last thing on their minds. They ascribed the failed policies of the Bush years to the glaring defects of a political process dominated by special interests and partisan bickering.

So what did Mr. Obama do? He poured kerosene on both. He rashly decided to pursue health-care reform as the entering wedge of an ambitious agenda. There’s no more complex issue in American politics, none that engages so many contending vested interests, and none so certain to fuel partisan animosity. It’s one hornet’s nest after another. Since most Americans are quite satisfied with the quality of their health care and for that matter their health insurance, they feared to lose more from big changes than they hoped to gain from them. They never warmed to a 2,000-page bill that no one understood but few believed addressed the real problem – medical costs that are out of control. (more…)

Chilcot will change the way Muslims see the west

by Asad on Feb 5, 2010 Islam, Peace, Politics, Terrorism, World News • Comments Closed • Christianity, Islam, Politics, Terrorism, world

If there is any hint of whitewash in the Iraq inquiry, it will only exacerbate an already inflamed situation

Article By: Karen Armstrong

As we watch the unfolding drama of the Chilcot inquiry, we should be aware that this is not simply an act of domestic cleansing. Whatever the implications for our political and judicial institutions, it is crucial that the British people learn how we came to go to war. But Muslims are also waiting for the outcome of the investigation, and this makes the inquiry an opportunity that we can ill afford to lose.

It is simply not true that the current tension between the west and the Islamic world is due to an inevitable “clash of civilisations”. At the beginning of the 20th century, nearly every Muslim intellectual was in love with the modern west, which they found deeply congenial with their own traditions. Hence the famous remark of Muhammad Abduh, Grand Mufti of Egypt (1849-1905), who said, provocatively, after a trip to Paris: “In France I saw Islam but no Muslims; in Cairo I see Muslims but no Islam.” His point was that the modern European economy had created conditions of fairness and equity that came closer to the Qur’anic ideal than was possible in the pre-modern economies of the Muslim world.

Unfortunately, too many self-interested western policies in the Islamic world have soured that early enthusiasm. But not all Muslims have given up on the west. Gallup’s unprecedented study of more than one billion Muslims, conducted between 2001 and 2007 in 35 countries, revealed, for example, that what many Muslims admire most about the west is its political liberty and freedom of speech. (more…)

Clerics attacked for mixing politics with fatwas

by sufisahab on Jan 18, 2010 Islam, Muslims, Politics • Comments Closed • Islam, Muslims, Politics

The criticism of Yusuf al Qaradawi is part of a long-running argument over the role of clerics in modern Muslim societies.

A prominent Saudi columnist has taken the well-known Muslim cleric Yusuf al Qaradawi to task for issuing political opinions in the guise of religious rulings – a practice that the columnist laments has become widespread and harmful to the reputation of religion.

Mshari al Zaidi’s criticism of the Doha-based Egyptian cleric is the latest skirmish in a long-running argument over the proper role of clerics in modern Muslim societies, what their religious rulings should address, and who exactly has the authority to issue a fatwa.

The argument, which spans the Muslim world, has become even more pointed and crucial since the appearance of extremist groups such as al Qa’eda, which seek to justify their violence with religious rulings from sympathetic clerics.

The dilemma has been heightened in recent decades with rising levels of literacy and education in Muslim countries. As a result, more Muslims are rejecting traditional religious authorities – usually allied to the state – and preferring to interpret the Quran and hadith themselves, or to find a cleric who issues rulings that they find acceptable.

It is not uncommon nowadays to find Muslims who have no traditional training issuing fatwas in order to gain a popular following. And they easily spread their messages by radio, television and the internet.

The upshot in the view of many Muslims has been fatwa chaos.

In remarks to an international conference of Muslim scholars held in Mecca a year ago, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz lamented that “internally the Islamic world has been plagued by an extremely negative phenomenon, which is the tendency to deliver fatwas by unqualified persons, especially on satellite television channels, the internet and other modern channels of communication.

“Issuing ill-considered fatwas without following any criterion offers biased, ignorant, extremist or careless individuals the opportunity to pose as religious experts qualified to issue fatwas,” added the king, whose speech was read for him at the conference.

No one disputes Mr al Qaradawi’s mainstream Islamic credentials, nor his authority to issue fatwas. He is widely regarded as a renowned and popular scholar with a deep background in Islamic scripture.

The issue raised by Mr al Zaidi in his January 16 column in Asharq al Awsat, rather, deals with what he and some other Muslims regard as the misuse of sermons and fatwas to deal directly with divisive political issues. (more…)

Defying democracy in Pakistan

by Asad on Jan 22, 2010 Army, Pakistan, Politics • Comments Closed • Army, Pakistan, Politics

When General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was elevated to the most powerful job in Pakistan, many hoped that he would efface the shame of eight years of military rule under his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf.

Keen to rebuild the army’s much-damaged domestic image, Gen Kayani pulled all serving officers out of civilian institutions within weeks. The 2008 general elections also slipped by with no obvious military interference, a veritable rarity.

The army chief has also won plaudits for the military’s impressive displays of resolve against Taliban militants, first in Swat and now in South Waziristan. Under Gen Musharraf, earlier offensives lacked public support and ended in ruinous peace deals.

But since the return to civilian rule, in the unlikely shape of President Asif Ali Zardari, observers note that the military has jealously guarded what it sees as its own traditional prerogatives.

On paper, Mr Zardari is the “supreme commander of the armed forces” and his prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani oversees the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. But these are, as one senior western diplomat puts it, “constitutional fictions”.

In 2008, an attempt to bring the ISI under civilian control backfired within 24 hours. After the Mumbai massacre, Mr Gilani’s decision to dispatch its chief spy to Delhi was thwarted. More recently, Mr Zardari was forced to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry after discrete pressure from the army.

On the foreign policy front, the army has regarded Mr Zardari’s proximity to Washington with scarcely disguised concern. Last autumn, the army publicly protested against what it saw as humiliating conditions attached to a US bill that tripled civilian assistance.

Fresh accusations that the army continues to resist attempts at reconcialition with the disgruntled Baluch will now add to the sense among its critics that it remains unprepared to yield elected civilians the power they would take for granted in established democracies.

Under a media blackout, the vast and resource rich province of Baluchistan has drifted away as nationalist fighters battle Pakistani troops in the mountains, activists mysteriously “disappear”, and long-simmering discontent has boiled over into a clamour for separatism.

After tough negotiations, the political class has now united behind a move to divide the national budget equitably, cease military operations, and lure the province’s most recalcitrant elements to the negotiating table.

If that process is in jeopardy, it augurs poorly not just for Gen Kayani’s burnished reputation, but the very stability of Pakistan.

Follies of the past

by Asad on Jan 16, 2010 Pakistan, Politics, US, World News, Zardari • Comments Closed • Pakistan, Politics, USA, Zardari

US delegation led by the Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, met President Zardari in Lahore. The president took up serious issues with Holbrooke keeping in view present and past circumstances in the region. Of great significance was President Zardari’s mention of fighting a ‘rival ideology’ in the past along with the US and the West. The reference was obviously to the Afghan communist regime and the ensuing battle between the mujahideen and the communists after the Soviet forces entered Afghanistan in support of their co-ideologists. President Zardari told Holbrooke that it was because of the Afghan jihad that militancy rose in Pakistan. Though this is certainly not something new for the Americans, the president’s reminder about the West’s role in general and the US’s role in particular in leading to the rise of religious extremism in this region is noteworthy. The covert support of the US for the jihadis in the Afghan war is no secret. It was a policy of the Cold War era, the West being an anti-communist bloc. Neither the US nor Pakistan thought much about supporting religious fanatics at that point in time, focused as they were on the struggle against communism. The unforeseen and unintended consequences of that strategy have landed the whole region in a mess today.

After the Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan, the US and the West did not look back at the war-torn country after 1989. The Afghans felt betrayed after all their sacrifices. Pakistan was left to pick up the pieces. Instead of starting a rehabilitation and reconstruction process in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other regional players started to pursue their own vested interests there. The mujahideen fell into a debilitating civil war in an already battered country and later on the Taliban were unleashed. At the end of it all, Pakistan was responsible for installing the most barbaric of regimes in Afghanistan, that of the Taliban. The US is as much responsible for this crisis, or maybe even more so, than any other regional player. If it had not left the Afghans high and dry after the war, things could have been significantly different. Pakistan was also greatly affected by the American indifference and consolidated the trend towards becoming a national security-driven state almost to the exclusion of everything else. Rising inflation, poverty, unemployment, the energy crisis, etc., are the costs of past historical follies. President Zardari’s reminder to Holbrooke was in this context. (more…)

Gates says U.S. to supply drone aircraft to Pakistan

by sufisahab on Jan 22, 2010 Army, Drones, Pakistan, Politics, Security, US • Comments Closed • Army, Pakistan, Politics, Security, USA

The United States will supply drone aircraft to Pakistan which will significantly enhance the country’s surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, visiting U. S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.

Talking to reporters in Islamabad, Gates said that 12 RQ-7 Shadow unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will be part of one billion dollar allocation for Pakistan from its Coalition Support Fund.

He said weapons and equipment will also be provided to Pakistan for the war against terrorism.

The Shadow UAVs will help build the Pakistan Army’s capacity for intelligence-gathering, said the U.S. defense secretary.

Gates did not reply to a question whether the U.S. would impose any condition as that the Shadow drones could not be used along Pakistan’s eastern border with India. (more…)

Give Pakistan Killer Drones to Target Terrorists

by Asad on Sep 9, 2009 Army, Drones, Pakistan, Politics, Taliban, Terrorism • Comments Closed • Interview, Musharaf, Pakistan, Politics

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf believes his country should be given drone aircraft to target terrorists.

Former Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf believes his country should be given drone aircraft so it can take out top terror suspects without the help of the West, he told FOX News in an exclusive interview.

They have been very controversial always,” he said. “I personally believe that drones should be given to Pakistan because the sensitivity is American troops or any foreign troops coming into Pakistan.”

The question on so many minds â€” where is Usama bin Laden? â€” remains unanswered. Musharraf has doubts whether bin Laden has survived the eight harsh years since 9/11.

Musharraf became a key U.S. ally after the Sept. 11 terror attacks and joined the United States in fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. He became the target of repeated assassination attempts â€” but he says he acted for the good of his country â€” not for U.S. benefit.

â€œIt was not for United States alone … it was for Pakistan,” he said during a wide-ranging interview with FOX News’ Amy Kellogg in London.

“[W]e are a progressive, moderate people, so it was very clear that we cannot accept” the Talibanization of his country, he said, calling it an easy decision to turn his military’s sights on the militants.

“They were roaming around our cities and causing terrorist attacks in our cities and all over, and we had to eliminate that.”

Musharraf said that Al Qaeda has been significantly diminished in Pakistan, but the Taliban is thriving. Yet he believes that the unmanned aircraft the U.S. uses to target key militants in Pakistan should be handed over to his country.

â€œThere is even a doubt whether he is alive,” he told FOX News. “Because right in the beginning he was a dialysis patient, he was a kidney patient; therefore I wonder if he is alive. â€œ (more…)

Hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan

by Abdullah on Oct 1, 2009 Afghanistan, North America, Pakistan, World News • Comments Closed • Afghanistan, North America, Pakistan, Politics, world

Senator John F. Kerry made clear today that, while he is weighing the wisdom of adding additional troops to Afghanistan, he does not believe that withdrawal is an option.

“I don’t see that as on the table,” he said. “I don’t think that there is anyone up here who is talking about that.”

Kerry spoke at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing — the third in a series he has called on Afghanistan — that probed what the impact of additional troops would be on stability in Pakistan, a fragile, nuclear-armed neighbor.

Maleeha Lodhi, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, said an increase in US combat troops in Afghanistan could lead to an increase in suicide attacks, militant groups, and support for extremism in Pakistan.

“A further military escalation in Afghanistan is unlikely to succeed,” she said.

Lodhi, Milt Bearden, who served as the CIA station chief in Pakistan during the 1980s, and Steve Coll of the New America Foundation, said the Obama administration should put the emphasis on brokering a political solution to the fighting.

“I think we are going to have to start understanding who they are and deal with them,” Bearden said. “There will always be enough Pashtuns to meet our troops in the field.”

Kerry’s opening statement is below. (more…)

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