Filtered Posts
Democracy, not terror, is the engine of political Islam
The purpose was to stave off the US pressure from the Army regime in Pakistan.
let's see..
US forces regularly intrude into paki airspace and whack pakis on paki soil
Mushy gets regularly leaned on to the point he just greases up and bends over
The paki army is getting it's ass handed to it with soldiers surrendering without firing a shot...
So how's the super-duper strategy of propping up the MMA working for ya?
Posted by
arjun2
Sep 21, 2007 09:19 am
goatbrainThe purpose was to stave off the US pressure from the Army regime in Pakistan.
let's see..
US forces regularly intrude into paki airspace and whack pakis on paki soil
Mushy gets regularly leaned on to the point he just greases up and bends over
The paki army is getting it's ass handed to it with soldiers surrendering without firing a shot...
So how's the super-duper strategy of propping up the MMA working for ya?
Remembering the Presidential Election of 1965
A paki is a islamic terrorist wherever he is..denmark, UK, germany, America, Australia etc etc..
I asked you pakis to go one frikking week without some involvement in islamic terrorism...couldn't even do that, huh?
Is it a surprise that US intelligence thinks people calling pakiland are likely to be terrorists and then go on to monitor them...
Posted by
arjun2
Sep 9, 2007 05:24 pm
#162 Posted by ahmedmadani on September 9, 2007 5:03:06 pmA paki is a islamic terrorist wherever he is..denmark, UK, germany, America, Australia etc etc..
I asked you pakis to go one frikking week without some involvement in islamic terrorism...couldn't even do that, huh?
Is it a surprise that US intelligence thinks people calling pakiland are likely to be terrorists and then go on to monitor them...
Remembering the Presidential Election of 1965
Posted by
arjun2
Sep 9, 2007 08:00 am
surrender monkeys surrendering..par for the course..
Remembering the Presidential Election of 1965
Posted by
arjun2
Sep 9, 2007 06:18 am
HAHA....cab driving surrender monkeys...
Independence Thinker
No amount of abuse on his part can stop Aisha or myself from expressing our point of view.
And no amount of pissing in your front yard by the both of you will create a body of liquid large enough for you to have a pakistani ocean to match an indian ocean...
But because Arjun-m is a man, he cannot be targetted for his gender..
why? because you don't know any man-insults?
Posted by
arjun2
Aug 22, 2007 05:49 am
#280 Posted by MantoLives on August 22, 2007 12:45:32 amNo amount of abuse on his part can stop Aisha or myself from expressing our point of view.
And no amount of pissing in your front yard by the both of you will create a body of liquid large enough for you to have a pakistani ocean to match an indian ocean...
But because Arjun-m is a man, he cannot be targetted for his gender..
why? because you don't know any man-insults?
Independence Thinker
manto hates the fact that there's an indian ocean and no pakistani ocean.
he's decided to take matters into his own hand...he's forced all the members of his family and anybody else who'll listen to pee in his front yard...he thinks if they pee enough, eventually they'll have an ocean they can name after pakiland...
Posted by
arjun2
Aug 19, 2007 03:16 pm
this is what it boils down to..manto hates the fact that there's an indian ocean and no pakistani ocean.
he's decided to take matters into his own hand...he's forced all the members of his family and anybody else who'll listen to pee in his front yard...he thinks if they pee enough, eventually they'll have an ocean they can name after pakiland...
Science and the Islamic world --- The quest for rapprochement
Maybe one day you will know enough paki's too
IF you were told 10% of rattlesnakes were not poisonous, would you let your kids play with rattlers? no..? same logic applies to pakis....
Posted by
arjun2
Aug 7, 2007 09:28 pm
aww..another paki "moderate" joins the party...Maybe one day you will know enough paki's too
IF you were told 10% of rattlesnakes were not poisonous, would you let your kids play with rattlers? no..? same logic applies to pakis....
Science and the Islamic world --- The quest for rapprochement
actually, scratch that...dogs are treated much better in the US..you'd be prosecuted for treating a dog like pakiland is being treated...
Time to review foreign policy
By Tanvir Ahmad Khan
AS Pakistan sizzles, as it should in the month of August and also in the heat of political controversies that need not have been there, an unseasonable squall of allegations and threats from the United States has also hit it. The people of Pakistan simply do not know where they stand in the comity of nations.
The much trumpeted non-Nato ally status of the country is buffeted mercilessly by the Indo-US nuclear deal, the offer of F-35 aircraft to India and Israel and the frequent warnings that the United States would not respect the international frontier if it needs to take out targets on Pakistan’s soil.
The average Pakistani has never accepted at face value the eloquent claims made by the president, prime minister and the foreign policy establishment of Pakistan that they have pulled off a coup that no previous government ever managed — the coup, a veritable miracle, of forging a strategic partnership with the sole superpower of our times and the greatest military power of all times that is immune to the vicissitudes of international politics and power shifts.
Amongst the more informed of Pakistanis, an increasing percentage has long since stopped treating seriously constructs like the war on terror and concluded that led by the United States, the West is waging a war for the re-conquest of the Broader Middle East and that Pakistan’s imprudent plunge into it has sucked it into a conflict that its prime movers expect to last at least a whole generation.
A third element that is earnestly engaged with the national situation and is equipped with sufficient tools of social, political and economic analysis knows all too well that only a broad coalition — perhaps nothing less than a government of national reconciliation — can reverse the self-destructive forces that a military-dominated regime has unleashed in Pakistan during the last eight years.
The state does not seem to have the capacity to solve any of the more daunting problems of the nation ranging from the defence of national sovereignty to the question of provincial autonomy and on to more mundane things like the generation of enough power to sustain a GDP rate of growth that can keep the country afloat.
In the midst of Pakistan’s gravest crisis since the secession of Bangladesh, the nation is grappling with a number of highly important issues. It is seeking ways and means by which the political dispensation that emerged as a consequence of the military putsch of October 1999 would after eight long years become compatible with the Basic Law of the land. It involves reference to the people and probably a simultaneous intervention by the highest courts of law. Events demand a fresh balancing of civil-military relations. In the provinces, the question being frequently asked is if the arrangements set out in the Constitution of 1973, even if it is fully restored, meet their idea of a true Pakistani federation.
The emphasis laid by the government on battling religious militancy to justify its participation in the American war in Afghanistan has become a self-fulfilling prophecy; the battlefield now obligingly spans both sides of the Durand Line.
Pakistani soldiers die every day in a conflict that neither the executive nor the parliament can accurately define. The process began with the claim that the alternative to jumping into this cauldron was to be bombed into the Stone Age.
It is petering out into an equally arbitrary division of the nation into moderates and extremists, a polarisation that may perpetuate for some more time the stranglehold on power of an oligarchy but will at the end of the day sow the seeds of the destruction of Pakistan as a nation-state.
Judged against this menacing backdrop, the avalanche of statements from US officials, Congress, individual politicians including aspirants to the office of the president of the United States, think-tanks and media figures is just about the most unfriendly thing that the people of Pakistan could imagine at this hour.
When Professor Stephen Cohen wrote his ‘Idea of Pakistan’, he made a case for a gentle if sustained American engagement with Pakistan with a view to encouraging positive transformative social and political processes. What is happening at present is an attempt to bludgeon Pakistan into something that nobody defines.
In terms of ground realties, it is a crude attempt to embroil the Pakistan army into an endless and, by definition, no-win conflict with a substantial part of the nation.
The worst explanation offered to the people of Pakistan is that Barack Obama’s promise to do to Pakistan that which was warded off in 2001 and Congressman Tancredo’s repeat prescription of solving problems of our times by obliterating Makkah and Madina are unsavoury aspects of American electioneering.
So far Ms Clinton has not tried to influence the Italian-American vote by undertaking to drop a smart nuclear blockbuster on the Vatican. She will not even think of doing it because she knows that this is no way to go about it in an educated, informed and sophisticated political culture. So how has the destruction of Pakistan become a short cut to power and influence in American politics? Not even Fidel Castro’s Cuba has ever been invoked with such abandon to set the stage for an American election.
Is this bizarre undercurrent in American politics today intrinsic to their own culture — some grotesque mutation of Islamophobia — or is it the bitter harvest of the claims made by Pakistan’s leaders that without them in absolute command, 160 million Pakistanis would, to the last man and woman, become a horde of terrorists, the new barbarians at the gate?
Step aside the lunatic fringe of American politics and look for the truly sophisticated enclave of western strategic opinion. Consider the following from the July 31 report of the International Crisis Group: “The (Pakistan) military’s recent onslaught against the higher judiciary is the latest manifestation of a policy of subordinating countervailing state institutions which is producing a failing state that endangers its own and its region’s security. The alternative is a country ruled by democratically-elected governments, with the legitimacy and popular support to take it back to its moderate roots. That country would be far less a threat to itself or to neighbours.”
This report does not prescribe cross-border raids but asks the international community to support what millions of Pakistanis who came out to support an honourable restoration of the Chief Justice of Pakistan demanded: ‘Pakistan’s internal cohesion requires an elected civilian government with the legitimate authority to resolve ethno-religious and other political conflicts within the institutional framework of the state’.
There is, however, another view too that has gained wide currency in the United States. It is articulated day in and day out and may well explain the tone and tenor not only of Congressmen whose knowledge of the region is at best perfunctory but also of officials like Frances Townsend and Mike McConnell who have on their tables the quintessential wisdom (remember the irrefutable intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?) of 16 intelligence services or Mr Burns who presumably can read in real time many of the dispatches that pour into Washington from its diplomatic posts abroad.
An instant illustration of that viewpoint is the following observation in Carnegie Foundation’s just published ‘Rethinking Western Strategies Toward Pakistan’, presumptuously sub-titled : ‘an action agenda for the US and Europe’: “Pakistani military leaders have mobilised religious parties, militant foreign ‘freedom fighters’, and other players to get and keep national power and resources. They also have adeptly used their external vulnerabilities — to the Soviet Union and, more recently, to Al Qaeda and ‘bearded mullahs’ – to elicit US support and assistance”.
In its own words, the report makes the case that the Pakistani state bears responsibility for the worsening security situation in Afghanistan, the resurgence of the Taliban, terrorism in Kashmir, and the growth of jihadi ideology and capabilities internationally.
I have mentioned two reports that have very different motives and objectives. Different as they are, they identify one common dynamic at work: Pakistan’s present predicament has an internal provenance and that the country needs a return to democracy.
The recent onslaught on Pakistan was severe enough to bring a strong riposte from its leaders. A well-considered estimate of the implications of Indo-US nuclear deal for Pakistan has come from the national authority responsible for strategic weapons.Expressions of dismay in Pakistan have led to a typical American zigzag of public utterances but the last word in any cluster of statements is a reiteration of allegations. One wonders if President Musharraf pointed out to President Bush that the last word at the moment of that conversation by phone was not that of weary half-crazed aspirants for party nomination for the presidential election but from Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns.It would be out of character for President Musaharraf to have asked this question. But let the national parliament redeem itself in its dying hours with an honest review of our foreign policy. The temptation to compete in expressing righteous indignation at the outrageous remarks about Kaaba and Madina would be great but it must be restrained so as to focus on urgent matters of our medium-and long-term policy.
More than a billion Muslims all over the world know how to defend Makkah. Let our legislators raise their voice in defence of the sovereignty of Pakistan before they ride into history. Let them show the path to an executive that has entangled itself in webs of its own making.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.
Posted by
arjun2
Aug 5, 2007 09:56 pm
kutte ki aukad...actually, scratch that...dogs are treated much better in the US..you'd be prosecuted for treating a dog like pakiland is being treated...
Time to review foreign policy
By Tanvir Ahmad Khan
AS Pakistan sizzles, as it should in the month of August and also in the heat of political controversies that need not have been there, an unseasonable squall of allegations and threats from the United States has also hit it. The people of Pakistan simply do not know where they stand in the comity of nations.
The much trumpeted non-Nato ally status of the country is buffeted mercilessly by the Indo-US nuclear deal, the offer of F-35 aircraft to India and Israel and the frequent warnings that the United States would not respect the international frontier if it needs to take out targets on Pakistan’s soil.
The average Pakistani has never accepted at face value the eloquent claims made by the president, prime minister and the foreign policy establishment of Pakistan that they have pulled off a coup that no previous government ever managed — the coup, a veritable miracle, of forging a strategic partnership with the sole superpower of our times and the greatest military power of all times that is immune to the vicissitudes of international politics and power shifts.
Amongst the more informed of Pakistanis, an increasing percentage has long since stopped treating seriously constructs like the war on terror and concluded that led by the United States, the West is waging a war for the re-conquest of the Broader Middle East and that Pakistan’s imprudent plunge into it has sucked it into a conflict that its prime movers expect to last at least a whole generation.
A third element that is earnestly engaged with the national situation and is equipped with sufficient tools of social, political and economic analysis knows all too well that only a broad coalition — perhaps nothing less than a government of national reconciliation — can reverse the self-destructive forces that a military-dominated regime has unleashed in Pakistan during the last eight years.
The state does not seem to have the capacity to solve any of the more daunting problems of the nation ranging from the defence of national sovereignty to the question of provincial autonomy and on to more mundane things like the generation of enough power to sustain a GDP rate of growth that can keep the country afloat.
In the midst of Pakistan’s gravest crisis since the secession of Bangladesh, the nation is grappling with a number of highly important issues. It is seeking ways and means by which the political dispensation that emerged as a consequence of the military putsch of October 1999 would after eight long years become compatible with the Basic Law of the land. It involves reference to the people and probably a simultaneous intervention by the highest courts of law. Events demand a fresh balancing of civil-military relations. In the provinces, the question being frequently asked is if the arrangements set out in the Constitution of 1973, even if it is fully restored, meet their idea of a true Pakistani federation.
The emphasis laid by the government on battling religious militancy to justify its participation in the American war in Afghanistan has become a self-fulfilling prophecy; the battlefield now obligingly spans both sides of the Durand Line.
Pakistani soldiers die every day in a conflict that neither the executive nor the parliament can accurately define. The process began with the claim that the alternative to jumping into this cauldron was to be bombed into the Stone Age.
It is petering out into an equally arbitrary division of the nation into moderates and extremists, a polarisation that may perpetuate for some more time the stranglehold on power of an oligarchy but will at the end of the day sow the seeds of the destruction of Pakistan as a nation-state.
Judged against this menacing backdrop, the avalanche of statements from US officials, Congress, individual politicians including aspirants to the office of the president of the United States, think-tanks and media figures is just about the most unfriendly thing that the people of Pakistan could imagine at this hour.
When Professor Stephen Cohen wrote his ‘Idea of Pakistan’, he made a case for a gentle if sustained American engagement with Pakistan with a view to encouraging positive transformative social and political processes. What is happening at present is an attempt to bludgeon Pakistan into something that nobody defines.
In terms of ground realties, it is a crude attempt to embroil the Pakistan army into an endless and, by definition, no-win conflict with a substantial part of the nation.
The worst explanation offered to the people of Pakistan is that Barack Obama’s promise to do to Pakistan that which was warded off in 2001 and Congressman Tancredo’s repeat prescription of solving problems of our times by obliterating Makkah and Madina are unsavoury aspects of American electioneering.
So far Ms Clinton has not tried to influence the Italian-American vote by undertaking to drop a smart nuclear blockbuster on the Vatican. She will not even think of doing it because she knows that this is no way to go about it in an educated, informed and sophisticated political culture. So how has the destruction of Pakistan become a short cut to power and influence in American politics? Not even Fidel Castro’s Cuba has ever been invoked with such abandon to set the stage for an American election.
Is this bizarre undercurrent in American politics today intrinsic to their own culture — some grotesque mutation of Islamophobia — or is it the bitter harvest of the claims made by Pakistan’s leaders that without them in absolute command, 160 million Pakistanis would, to the last man and woman, become a horde of terrorists, the new barbarians at the gate?
Step aside the lunatic fringe of American politics and look for the truly sophisticated enclave of western strategic opinion. Consider the following from the July 31 report of the International Crisis Group: “The (Pakistan) military’s recent onslaught against the higher judiciary is the latest manifestation of a policy of subordinating countervailing state institutions which is producing a failing state that endangers its own and its region’s security. The alternative is a country ruled by democratically-elected governments, with the legitimacy and popular support to take it back to its moderate roots. That country would be far less a threat to itself or to neighbours.”
This report does not prescribe cross-border raids but asks the international community to support what millions of Pakistanis who came out to support an honourable restoration of the Chief Justice of Pakistan demanded: ‘Pakistan’s internal cohesion requires an elected civilian government with the legitimate authority to resolve ethno-religious and other political conflicts within the institutional framework of the state’.
There is, however, another view too that has gained wide currency in the United States. It is articulated day in and day out and may well explain the tone and tenor not only of Congressmen whose knowledge of the region is at best perfunctory but also of officials like Frances Townsend and Mike McConnell who have on their tables the quintessential wisdom (remember the irrefutable intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?) of 16 intelligence services or Mr Burns who presumably can read in real time many of the dispatches that pour into Washington from its diplomatic posts abroad.
An instant illustration of that viewpoint is the following observation in Carnegie Foundation’s just published ‘Rethinking Western Strategies Toward Pakistan’, presumptuously sub-titled : ‘an action agenda for the US and Europe’: “Pakistani military leaders have mobilised religious parties, militant foreign ‘freedom fighters’, and other players to get and keep national power and resources. They also have adeptly used their external vulnerabilities — to the Soviet Union and, more recently, to Al Qaeda and ‘bearded mullahs’ – to elicit US support and assistance”.
In its own words, the report makes the case that the Pakistani state bears responsibility for the worsening security situation in Afghanistan, the resurgence of the Taliban, terrorism in Kashmir, and the growth of jihadi ideology and capabilities internationally.
I have mentioned two reports that have very different motives and objectives. Different as they are, they identify one common dynamic at work: Pakistan’s present predicament has an internal provenance and that the country needs a return to democracy.
The recent onslaught on Pakistan was severe enough to bring a strong riposte from its leaders. A well-considered estimate of the implications of Indo-US nuclear deal for Pakistan has come from the national authority responsible for strategic weapons.Expressions of dismay in Pakistan have led to a typical American zigzag of public utterances but the last word in any cluster of statements is a reiteration of allegations. One wonders if President Musharraf pointed out to President Bush that the last word at the moment of that conversation by phone was not that of weary half-crazed aspirants for party nomination for the presidential election but from Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns.It would be out of character for President Musaharraf to have asked this question. But let the national parliament redeem itself in its dying hours with an honest review of our foreign policy. The temptation to compete in expressing righteous indignation at the outrageous remarks about Kaaba and Madina would be great but it must be restrained so as to focus on urgent matters of our medium-and long-term policy.
More than a billion Muslims all over the world know how to defend Makkah. Let our legislators raise their voice in defence of the sovereignty of Pakistan before they ride into history. Let them show the path to an executive that has entangled itself in webs of its own making.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.
Science and the Islamic world --- The quest for rapprochement
Access to EU markets and level playing field
By Sabihuddin Ghausi
YET another crucial round of the Working Group on Trade of the Third Generation Agreement is to be held in the next few weeks at Brussels or Islamabad to consider the impact of EU trade policies on exports of Pakistani products, particularly textiles, following hectic diplomatic efforts mounted by Islamabad. The government has serious policy reservations and intends to approach the WTO’s dispute settlement body.
Pakistan has grievances against the continuation of the anti-dumping duty on bed linen export to the EU (levied at 13.1 per cent initially in March 2004, later reduced to 5.8 per cent in May 2006 . It has resented being excluded from the Special Incentive Arrangement for Sustainable Development and Good Governance under the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP Plus). Also hurting the country are the new rules of origin proposed in March 2005 which, officials in Islamabad believe, could cause dislocation of domestic industries to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Reports emerging from Brussels convey that the European Union is considering a Free Trade Agreement with India which, it is believed, would isolate Pakistan in the region.
“This is outright discrimination'', a senior official of the Commerce Ministry told this correspondent in London. He said a delegation, headed by Federal Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan, had been invited by the British government in last week of July to discuss how best London’s good offices could be used to put across Islamabad’s point of view in Brussels.
“A reduction of one billion dollar in our exports means loss of livelihood to one million people in Pakistan'', Mr Khan told John Hutton, the British Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, during a meeting in London in the last week of July. “We are your strategic ally in war against terrorism from day one’’, he added.
Discussions were also held with Sir Digby Jones, the new minister of state for trade and investment, at the new department of the Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. The delegation also held in camera meeting with senior officials of the Foreign and Commonwealth office and all parties parliamentary Pakistan group in the House of Commons, where sensitive political issues were said to have come under discussions. “Obviously recent developments in Pakistan and their implications for the national economy, and a possible future course of events, were some of the issues raised and discussed’’, one of the participants hinted.
With an economy of the size of $1.93 trillion, import market of $603 billion and Pakistan expatriates numbering about one million, Britain is the single largest trading partner within the EU and one of the biggest investors in Pakistan. Islamabad expects the UK to play a key role in its deliberations with the EU to sort out its problems.
Giving a background of the continuing hectic diplomatic activities, the officials explained that the EU was embarking upon initiating Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with a few Asian economies that included ASEAN, South Korea, China and India as WTO plus arrangements.
After realising that the Doha Development Agenda is stuck up with stalemate, Pakistan is also looking for options to seek market access. In January, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan met Trade Commissioner of EU Peter Mandelson to persuade him to enter into FTA negotiations with Islamabad. The EU Trade Commissioner’s reply was “the list of FTAs is not closed but EC has finite resources’’.
But the German Chancellor and President of EU Council was a bit more forthright and he proposed that the “EU would like to strengthen its relationship with Pakistan within the framework of a comprehensive dialogue through the joint commission and a working group on trade’’.
The FTA proposal was formally taken up on May 23 last at the meeting of Pakistan-EU sub-group on trade at Islamabad that was constituted under the Third Generation Agreement. The sub-group on trade decided to identify possible options for improvement in Pakistan-EU bilateral trade. Both Pakistan and the EU agreed to hold next meeting of the sub-group in autumn to initiate a study on impact of these trade policies on Islamabad. “The study will be a step towards Pakistan-EU FTA’’, a senior official pointed out who disclosed that the terms of reference for the proposed study were being finalised for autumn meeting.
“Our position is that Pakistan meets the economic criteria proposed by the EU for FTA’’, the official said. “With a population of 160 million, Pakistan ranks among 25 emerging markets in the world market with an average annual economic growth of seven per cent plus in last three years. Pakistan has one of the most liberal investment regimes in the region and has been attracting direct foreign investment which is on the rise. In 2005-06 Pakistan received $421 million investment from EU out of a total of $3.5 billion. In 11 months of the last fiscal year, more than $2 billion investment flowed from western Europe. The EU investment amounted to $1.98 billion”.
The Overseas Investors Chamber has 87 EU companies as its member of which there are 45 British, 15 Swiss, six French, eight German, eight Dutch and one each of Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Italy and Norway. With an ambitious infrastructure programme, Pakistan offers an investment opportunity of $20 billion in the coming years. Pakistan’s FTA with China was also mentioned as an opportunity for the EU companies to enter the Chinese market. Then the programme of building a huge trade and energy corridor to provide transit facilities to Central Asia, Western China and Afghanistan provide an opportunity to all those countries that would enjoy duty-free import of machinery and equipment.
Officials are bitter on Pakistan being excluded from the GSP plus, though they acknowledge that the preferences under GSP are no substitute to the FTA. “These preferences are not governed by any international treaty and can be modified or withdrawn’’, one official explained. But then there is a feeling of being let down and discriminated, as he said: “This unfair treatment does not go down well with the people of Pakistan and it places the government in negative light’’.
The current GSP preferences, under which Pakistan gets tariff concessions from the Most Favoured Nation duties, have not helped her in sustaining the fragile development trajectory built during three years of duty free access enjoyed during 2002 to 2004 under the Drug Arrangement of the EU’s GSP scheme. Under this arrangement, Pakistan’s exports to the EU grew at a good pace. After the withdrawal of these preferences at the end of 2004, Pakistan’s exports to the EU declined by 11.7 per cent in one year. In the same period India’s export increased by 33 per cent.
“If Pakistan’s exports are unable to compete at the current level playing field, then it can get only harder for Pakistan, in the wake of an India-EU FTA’’, the official summed up his ordeal in tackling this issue.
As he explained, after phasing out of textile quota in January 2005 and denial of duty-free access under the GSP plus, Pakistan’s exports to the EU during 2005 suffered a decline of nine per cent. The market share loss was from 0.12 per cent to 0.09 per cent. China gained 25 per cent, India 17 and Sri Lanka two per cent.
Another aspect of the Pakistan-EU trade worth noticing is that in 2005, the EU exports to Pakistan increased by 30 per cent to reach $4.8 billion.
Pakistan’s reliance on textile and clothing is around 60 per cent to the EU whereas its bigger competitors like China depend to the extent of 13 per cent and India 25 per cent.(kuldip nayyar clones: please take note..)
Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives enjoy least-developed countries status and are given duty-free access while Sri Lanka qualifies for the GSP plus and in the event the EU signs an FTA with India, Pakistan will be isolated in the Saarc.
Posted by
arjun2
Aug 5, 2007 09:46 pm
If they counted pakiland's export of jihadis, pakiland's exports are ever growing...Access to EU markets and level playing field
By Sabihuddin Ghausi
YET another crucial round of the Working Group on Trade of the Third Generation Agreement is to be held in the next few weeks at Brussels or Islamabad to consider the impact of EU trade policies on exports of Pakistani products, particularly textiles, following hectic diplomatic efforts mounted by Islamabad. The government has serious policy reservations and intends to approach the WTO’s dispute settlement body.
Pakistan has grievances against the continuation of the anti-dumping duty on bed linen export to the EU (levied at 13.1 per cent initially in March 2004, later reduced to 5.8 per cent in May 2006 . It has resented being excluded from the Special Incentive Arrangement for Sustainable Development and Good Governance under the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP Plus). Also hurting the country are the new rules of origin proposed in March 2005 which, officials in Islamabad believe, could cause dislocation of domestic industries to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Reports emerging from Brussels convey that the European Union is considering a Free Trade Agreement with India which, it is believed, would isolate Pakistan in the region.
“This is outright discrimination'', a senior official of the Commerce Ministry told this correspondent in London. He said a delegation, headed by Federal Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan, had been invited by the British government in last week of July to discuss how best London’s good offices could be used to put across Islamabad’s point of view in Brussels.
“A reduction of one billion dollar in our exports means loss of livelihood to one million people in Pakistan'', Mr Khan told John Hutton, the British Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, during a meeting in London in the last week of July. “We are your strategic ally in war against terrorism from day one’’, he added.
Discussions were also held with Sir Digby Jones, the new minister of state for trade and investment, at the new department of the Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. The delegation also held in camera meeting with senior officials of the Foreign and Commonwealth office and all parties parliamentary Pakistan group in the House of Commons, where sensitive political issues were said to have come under discussions. “Obviously recent developments in Pakistan and their implications for the national economy, and a possible future course of events, were some of the issues raised and discussed’’, one of the participants hinted.
With an economy of the size of $1.93 trillion, import market of $603 billion and Pakistan expatriates numbering about one million, Britain is the single largest trading partner within the EU and one of the biggest investors in Pakistan. Islamabad expects the UK to play a key role in its deliberations with the EU to sort out its problems.
Giving a background of the continuing hectic diplomatic activities, the officials explained that the EU was embarking upon initiating Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with a few Asian economies that included ASEAN, South Korea, China and India as WTO plus arrangements.
After realising that the Doha Development Agenda is stuck up with stalemate, Pakistan is also looking for options to seek market access. In January, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan met Trade Commissioner of EU Peter Mandelson to persuade him to enter into FTA negotiations with Islamabad. The EU Trade Commissioner’s reply was “the list of FTAs is not closed but EC has finite resources’’.
But the German Chancellor and President of EU Council was a bit more forthright and he proposed that the “EU would like to strengthen its relationship with Pakistan within the framework of a comprehensive dialogue through the joint commission and a working group on trade’’.
The FTA proposal was formally taken up on May 23 last at the meeting of Pakistan-EU sub-group on trade at Islamabad that was constituted under the Third Generation Agreement. The sub-group on trade decided to identify possible options for improvement in Pakistan-EU bilateral trade. Both Pakistan and the EU agreed to hold next meeting of the sub-group in autumn to initiate a study on impact of these trade policies on Islamabad. “The study will be a step towards Pakistan-EU FTA’’, a senior official pointed out who disclosed that the terms of reference for the proposed study were being finalised for autumn meeting.
“Our position is that Pakistan meets the economic criteria proposed by the EU for FTA’’, the official said. “With a population of 160 million, Pakistan ranks among 25 emerging markets in the world market with an average annual economic growth of seven per cent plus in last three years. Pakistan has one of the most liberal investment regimes in the region and has been attracting direct foreign investment which is on the rise. In 2005-06 Pakistan received $421 million investment from EU out of a total of $3.5 billion. In 11 months of the last fiscal year, more than $2 billion investment flowed from western Europe. The EU investment amounted to $1.98 billion”.
The Overseas Investors Chamber has 87 EU companies as its member of which there are 45 British, 15 Swiss, six French, eight German, eight Dutch and one each of Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Italy and Norway. With an ambitious infrastructure programme, Pakistan offers an investment opportunity of $20 billion in the coming years. Pakistan’s FTA with China was also mentioned as an opportunity for the EU companies to enter the Chinese market. Then the programme of building a huge trade and energy corridor to provide transit facilities to Central Asia, Western China and Afghanistan provide an opportunity to all those countries that would enjoy duty-free import of machinery and equipment.
Officials are bitter on Pakistan being excluded from the GSP plus, though they acknowledge that the preferences under GSP are no substitute to the FTA. “These preferences are not governed by any international treaty and can be modified or withdrawn’’, one official explained. But then there is a feeling of being let down and discriminated, as he said: “This unfair treatment does not go down well with the people of Pakistan and it places the government in negative light’’.
The current GSP preferences, under which Pakistan gets tariff concessions from the Most Favoured Nation duties, have not helped her in sustaining the fragile development trajectory built during three years of duty free access enjoyed during 2002 to 2004 under the Drug Arrangement of the EU’s GSP scheme. Under this arrangement, Pakistan’s exports to the EU grew at a good pace. After the withdrawal of these preferences at the end of 2004, Pakistan’s exports to the EU declined by 11.7 per cent in one year. In the same period India’s export increased by 33 per cent.
“If Pakistan’s exports are unable to compete at the current level playing field, then it can get only harder for Pakistan, in the wake of an India-EU FTA’’, the official summed up his ordeal in tackling this issue.
As he explained, after phasing out of textile quota in January 2005 and denial of duty-free access under the GSP plus, Pakistan’s exports to the EU during 2005 suffered a decline of nine per cent. The market share loss was from 0.12 per cent to 0.09 per cent. China gained 25 per cent, India 17 and Sri Lanka two per cent.
Another aspect of the Pakistan-EU trade worth noticing is that in 2005, the EU exports to Pakistan increased by 30 per cent to reach $4.8 billion.
Pakistan’s reliance on textile and clothing is around 60 per cent to the EU whereas its bigger competitors like China depend to the extent of 13 per cent and India 25 per cent.(kuldip nayyar clones: please take note..)
Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives enjoy least-developed countries status and are given duty-free access while Sri Lanka qualifies for the GSP plus and in the event the EU signs an FTA with India, Pakistan will be isolated in the Saarc.
Science and the Islamic world --- The quest for rapprochement
Republicans reserve right to strike in Pakistan
WASHINGTON: Top Republican 2008 White House hopefuls on Sunday reserved the right to launch US strikes against al-Qaeda in Pakistan in a feisty fourth televised debate.
Accusing Democrats of weakness on the war on terror, some in the field also subtly distanced themselves from Republican President George W Bush, as the race hit a new level of intensity five months before first nominating contests.
Rivals Mitt Romney and New York’s ex-mayor Rudolph Giuliani declined in the debate in Des Moines, Iowa, to rule out an incursion into remote tribal areas where al-Qaeda is holed up, according to US intelligence estimates.
“I would take that action if I thought there was no other way to crush al-Qaeda, no other way to crush the Taliban, and no other way to be able to capture bin Laden,” said former New York mayor Giuliani. But Giuliani, who leads nationwide Republican polls, said he hoped to get results by exerting more pressure on Islamabad to crack down on al-Qaeda and the Taliban close to the Afghan border.
“I think Pakistan has, unfortunately, not been making the efforts that they should be making,” Giuliani said in the debate televised by ABC. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, who leads in several key early voting states, said Washington was right to bolster President Pervez Musharraf and should retain military options but keep them “quiet”.
Democratic candidate Senator Obama came under fire, after saying last week he would be ready to send troops to Pakistani tribal areas in search of Osama bin Laden. “It’s wrong for a person running for the president of the United States to get on TV and say, ‘We’re going to go into your country unilaterally’” said Romney, and also criticised Obama’s professed willingness to talk to leaders of US foes Iran and North Korea.
“He’s gone from Jane Fonda to Dr Strangelove in one week,” he said, referring to the anti-war activist and Hollywood star, and the mad scientist in the 1964 satirical movie about nuclear warfare.
Senator John McCain, the one-time Republican front-runner now in a campaign free-fall, also rebuked Obama. “It’s naive to say we’re going to attack Pakistan without thinking it through. What if Musharraf were removed from power? What if a radical Islamic government were to take place because we triggered it with an attack?”
The debate also included Congressman Duncan Hunter, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Congressman Ron Paul, former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson and Congressman Tom Tancredo.
Posted by
arjun2
Aug 5, 2007 09:40 pm
Republicans reserve right to strike in Pakistan
WASHINGTON: Top Republican 2008 White House hopefuls on Sunday reserved the right to launch US strikes against al-Qaeda in Pakistan in a feisty fourth televised debate.
Accusing Democrats of weakness on the war on terror, some in the field also subtly distanced themselves from Republican President George W Bush, as the race hit a new level of intensity five months before first nominating contests.
Rivals Mitt Romney and New York’s ex-mayor Rudolph Giuliani declined in the debate in Des Moines, Iowa, to rule out an incursion into remote tribal areas where al-Qaeda is holed up, according to US intelligence estimates.
“I would take that action if I thought there was no other way to crush al-Qaeda, no other way to crush the Taliban, and no other way to be able to capture bin Laden,” said former New York mayor Giuliani. But Giuliani, who leads nationwide Republican polls, said he hoped to get results by exerting more pressure on Islamabad to crack down on al-Qaeda and the Taliban close to the Afghan border.
“I think Pakistan has, unfortunately, not been making the efforts that they should be making,” Giuliani said in the debate televised by ABC. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, who leads in several key early voting states, said Washington was right to bolster President Pervez Musharraf and should retain military options but keep them “quiet”.
Democratic candidate Senator Obama came under fire, after saying last week he would be ready to send troops to Pakistani tribal areas in search of Osama bin Laden. “It’s wrong for a person running for the president of the United States to get on TV and say, ‘We’re going to go into your country unilaterally’” said Romney, and also criticised Obama’s professed willingness to talk to leaders of US foes Iran and North Korea.
“He’s gone from Jane Fonda to Dr Strangelove in one week,” he said, referring to the anti-war activist and Hollywood star, and the mad scientist in the 1964 satirical movie about nuclear warfare.
Senator John McCain, the one-time Republican front-runner now in a campaign free-fall, also rebuked Obama. “It’s naive to say we’re going to attack Pakistan without thinking it through. What if Musharraf were removed from power? What if a radical Islamic government were to take place because we triggered it with an attack?”
The debate also included Congressman Duncan Hunter, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Congressman Ron Paul, former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson and Congressman Tom Tancredo.
Science and the Islamic world --- The quest for rapprochement
Posted by
arjun2
Aug 5, 2007 05:07 pm
zeemax ko mirchi lag gayi...poor cab driver..
Science and the Islamic world --- The quest for rapprochement
HAHA....2010 you said, right?
we're all waiting...
bring it on, fuckers...haha..
Posted by
arjun2
Aug 4, 2007 09:39 pm
#279 Posted by zeemax on August 4, 2007 9:35:35 pmHAHA....2010 you said, right?
we're all waiting...
bring it on, fuckers...haha..
Science and the Islamic world --- The quest for rapprochement
hey pakis..don't you already have IT parks..the place where the london bombers trained..
PSEB plans to set up $750m IT parks
ISLAMABAD (APP) - A three-phase plan is being pursued to set up Information Technology Parks at a cost of 750 million dollars across the country, Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) Managing Director Yusuf Hussain said Saturday.
“Most of the required funding will be made available by foreign companies, which will also help implement the plan,” he said in an interview with APP.
A total area of 0.75 million square feet will be acquired in major cities of the country for setting up the IT parks, he said.
Posted by
arjun2
Aug 4, 2007 02:47 pm
Paki see, paki do...hey pakis..don't you already have IT parks..the place where the london bombers trained..
PSEB plans to set up $750m IT parks
ISLAMABAD (APP) - A three-phase plan is being pursued to set up Information Technology Parks at a cost of 750 million dollars across the country, Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) Managing Director Yusuf Hussain said Saturday.
“Most of the required funding will be made available by foreign companies, which will also help implement the plan,” he said in an interview with APP.
A total area of 0.75 million square feet will be acquired in major cities of the country for setting up the IT parks, he said.
Science and the Islamic world --- The quest for rapprochement
Reuters
22 killed in guerrilla raid and suicide attack in Pakistan
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least 22 people were killed on Saturday in spiraling violence in northwestern Pakistan as international concern grew over the deteriorating security situation and al Qaeda threat along the Afghan border.
Posted by
arjun2
Aug 4, 2007 08:59 am
I'll help out the mathematically challenged paki...that's 1584 virgins...Reuters
22 killed in guerrilla raid and suicide attack in Pakistan
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least 22 people were killed on Saturday in spiraling violence in northwestern Pakistan as international concern grew over the deteriorating security situation and al Qaeda threat along the Afghan border.
Science and the Islamic world --- The quest for rapprochement
hahaha...zeemax ko mirchi lagi...
hey zeemax...burnt ass goes well with baked ninja chix..
Posted by
arjun2
Aug 4, 2007 08:51 am
hahaha...zeemax ko mirchi lagi...
hey zeemax...burnt ass goes well with baked ninja chix..
Science and the Islamic world --- The quest for rapprochement
I can imagine what they mut be doing to your on in gitmo...nothing straight about that, I'm sure..
Posted by
arjun2
Aug 4, 2007 08:43 am
#212 Posted by zeemax on August 4, 2007 8:42:20 amI can imagine what they mut be doing to your on in gitmo...nothing straight about that, I'm sure..
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