Editoral-OTHER VOICES - Sindhi Press If McChrystal was here…

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama sacked his top commander Gen Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan over insubordination, stressing that in a democracy institutions are stronger than individuals. Gen McChrystal enjoyed much support both among ordinary people and the rulers. Gen McChrystal criticised the American civilian leadership … holding President Obama and his team responsible for “blunders”.… After sacking the general, President Obama, in a brief address to the media … said that democratic traditions required “respect for civilian control over the (military) chain of command”. … There is some message for us…. In our country, a civilian ruler cannot dare … rebuke [an army general] … or fire him from the job. This is only possible in a strong democracy where the army leadership is only to obey the orders.

…Our media, political and religious parties as well as the elite do not seem to be in the mood to strengthen democracy and civilian institutions. We have the recent example of the Kerry Lugar Bill, wherein the democratic government inked an agreement with the US government for financial aid for civilian institutions. The establishment raised objections while a section of the media … termed it a sellout. If McChrystal were in Pakistan he would not have had to face such consequences….

Apart from action taken by the US civilian leadership against Gen McChrystal, the latter’s controversial interview indicates differences between the American civilian and top military leadership…. But this does not mean that the US military leadership will not obey the orders of civilian authority. … The president is the supreme commander and it is his prerogative to fire any commander…. — (June 25)

— Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi

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Editoral-Woman of no importance By Zafar Masud

BY no stretch of imagination can Christine Boutin be described as someone addicted to provocation. A matronly figure of 66, she is a mother of three who at the moment has the entire French political scene in a state of turmoil.

The maverick trait in her nature already came to public attention as far back as the late ’70s when she first decided to step into a political career; her dynamism even then was undeniable and within three years she moved from the seat of an elected municipal councillor in the Parisian suburb of Yvelines to become its mayor.

Another six years and she found herself in the National Assembly as a member, and sometimes a rather quarrelsome activist for the ‘association for the right to life’, in other words an anti-abortion movement.

Forever a fast mover, by December 2001 Christine Boutin was a member of the centre-right party UDF led by François Bayrou, an electrifying politician who has never failed, for the past decade and a half or so, to fascinate middle-class youths in big cities but without ever having much success in his relentless pursuit of France’s presidential chair. Bayrou was disagreeably surprised when his latest protégée started talking to the media about her own intention to be a presidential candidate in the forthcoming polls; he hastily dismissed her from the party but Boutin nevertheless persisted in her candidature independently, trailing far behind Bayrou and rendering the fear of threat to his leadership more or less ineffective.

By the time Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president in 2007, Christine Boutin had managed to become a fairly noticeable member of the National Assembly, plunging head-on into a new cause — the plight of the homeless. Naturally enough Sarkozy’s Prime Minister François Fillon decided to include her in his cabinet as minister for housing. She lost no time in making public a road map for the construction of half a million new abodes per year with the aim of turning as many as 70 per cent of the French citizens into home-owners in the following five years.

Those who were susceptible to Christine Boutin’s magic early on because of her anti-abortion and UDF episodes, and had by now forgotten all about her, were suddenly awakened by the news in the middle of last year that she had created her own Christian Democrat Party and, as its head, very much intended to be a candidate in the presidential ballot due in 2012.

Three days following this revelation, the prime minister announced a cabinet reshuffle that, among other things not directly connected with our story, reduced considerably the powers of the minister for housing. Boutin lost scant time in accusing both the prime minister and the president of trying to throw her out of the government. To placate her Nicolas Sarkozy, forever a negotiator par excellence, started thinking aloud whether it would not be a fine idea if Christine Boutin, with her newfangled passion for Catholicism, could be moved to the Vatican as France’s ambassador. Smelling a holy rat, she declined the offer even before it could see the light of day.

A new offer came forth soon enough: would she like to head a special group to study the ‘social dimensions of globalisation’? Apparently this was an idea that appealed to her and Boutin left her ministry to lead a team of four experts to work on a report. Then came the surprise: Le Canard Enchaîné, a weekly newspaper that specialises in investigative reporting (or scandal stories, as some evil tongues put it) revealed that Boutin was being paid 17,500 euros per month for the job, not to speak of the chauffeured limousine.

The ‘revelation’ would certainly have failed to cause any ripples had France, much like other European countries, not been traversing such troubled times and had Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bernard Madoff and Jerome Kerviel not become part of the common man’s vocabulary today owing to the international financial blowout. Other publications took off from where the Canard story had left and soon enough everyone was to know that the four other staffers under Boutin were being paid average salaries of 6,000 euros per month, perks not counting.

True to herself, instead of burying her head in the sand, Christine Boutin came forward to appear in the prime time news bulletin of the national television channel and talked in great length of the emoluments she was receiving: her salary as the director of the mission amounted to 9,500 euros and that the reported amount of 17,500 euros per month appeared ponderous only because to her salary the media were adding her pensions as an assembly member and a municipal councillor.

Then she dropped her first bombshell. “I am not resigning or anything, as the media and citizens’ groups would like me to, because I am performing a very interesting and useful job. However, I have decided to complete my mission free of charge and will not henceforth be paid a single penny as salary.” At the end of the interview she added quite casually: “It would not be out of question however if I happen to be a candidate in the next presidential elections.”

Currently the French media suddenly appear to have woken up to the fact that Boutin is not the only high-profile political figure heading a special government assignment and that a few of the current ministers had also been charged with similar missions, thus accumulating multiple salaries. The prime minister reacted by announcing he would take immediate measures to put an end to the practice.

While the controversy rages, Jean Lauvergeat, a well-known political analyst, puts it succinctly: “All this hullabaloo about Christine Boutin is pointless as she has done nothing illegal. Add to this the simple fact that she has never been, and can never be, a threat to anyone. She is of no importance!”

The writer is a journalist based in Paris.

ZafMasud@gmail.com

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Editoral-Fewer new drugs By Julia Kollewe

THERE is fresh evidence of a dwindling number of new drugs coming on to the market from the pharmaceuticals industry as a new research shows that just seven per cent of sales come from medicines launched in the past five years.

The report by CMR International, owned by Thomson Reuters, shows the bulk of sales at the world’s leading pharmaceuticals is derived from an ageing portfolio of drugs, while the number of medicines failing during late-stage testing is sharply on the rise.

The problem is the ‘patent cliff’ — after a few years products lose the protection of the patent and generic drugmakers are allowed to produce cheaper versions.

Christopher Sampson, a spokesman for AstraZeneca, conceded that there had been “a bit of a dip in the number of products in recent years across the industry”, with new drugs not as big as existing blockbusters such as Pfizer’s cholesterol medicine Lipitor, the largest-selling drug in the world. The percentage of revenue from new drugs fell from eight per cent a year ago.

“What you are seeing is a bit of a crisis,” said Jane Sharples, general manager of CMR. “The science is getting tougher. A lot of the easy medicine has been done,” she said. As a result, many drugmakers resort to launching ‘me too’ products that are similar to ones already on the market.

A decline in success rates for new drugs has taken its toll on productivity, as indicated by a doubling in the number of products scrapped after reaching the final stage of drug development between 2007 and 2009, compared with 2004-06.

“Late-stage drugs failing is clearly the crux of the problem for the industry,” said Sampson. In recognition of this, pharmaceutical groups are buying in new medicines from smaller firms and teaming up with competitors and academic organisations to develop new treatments.

AstraZeneca, the UK’s second-largest drugmaker, has a joint venture with Bristol-Myers Squibb for two new diabetes drugs.

— The Guardian, London

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Editoral-‘Tectonic rift’ Dawn Editorial

If there is a ‘tectonic rift’ in US-Israel relations, as claimed by the Israeli ambassador in Washington, one can be reasonably sure that Tel Aviv will not be much of a loser. What has irritated Israel is that under the Obama administration it is missing the traditional ease with which it has been used to getting things done in Washington. For instance, the Bush administration turned the other cheek when the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, having signed the Annapolis declaration along with President George Bush and other world leaders, returned home from Maryland only to declare that he was not bound by the agreement. The Israel lobby is still in place in the corridors of power in Washington, and let us note that in spite of the tremendous pressure from the Obama administration on Israel to halt settlement activity, the Likud government has not obliged.

In fact, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama have met several times but it is the Likud leader who has been victorious on every occasion. In his historic address to the Muslim world from Cairo last year, Mr Obama asked Israel categorically to stop the West Bank’s colonisation. But Israel didn’t respond. The 1993 Oslo accords, the 2003 road map and the 2007 Annapolis declaration have all foundered on the rock of Israeli intransigence.

In the ultimate analysis, the world has to accept one truth: America’s Middle East policy is hostage to its domestic politics. All administrations have put up with this reality and the Obama administration, despite its lofty declarations, is no exception. Mr Netanyahu is going to have another meeting with Mr Obama soon but one can rest assured that, despite the ‘tectonic rift’, Israel will continue to perpetuate its illegal occupation of Palestinian land and America’s two-state solution will remain a dream.

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Editoral-Hyderabad blast

Many questions remain regarding Monday’s tragic tanker blast in Hyderabad’s Hala Naka. Several people were killed while many more were injured in the explosion which occurred at a truck depot. At the time of writing police and government officials were offering differing versions about what was inside the tanker. Some said the explosion was caused by a gas cylinder while others claimed that the truck was carrying thinner. Still others maintained that the tanker contained LPG, while the injured conductor of the vehicle told Dawn’s correspondent in Hyderabad that the truck was transporting carbon dioxide to a soda factory. The confusion over what was inside the tanker and whether the blast was accidental or an act of sabotage will only be cleared once a proper investigation is carried out.

However, the blast raises pertinent questions about safety precautions. For instance, it must be ascertained what safety precautions are in place for vehicles carrying flammable material. Do heavy vehicles meet safety standards or do they ply the roads without following the rules? Moreover, the state’s emergency response and public reaction to such incidents leave a lot to be desired. Television footage showed people crowding round the location of the blast. In fact, this is a familiar sight; whenever disasters of this kind occur in Pakistan curious onlookers often obstruct rescue work. In the Hyderabad blast, law-enforcement officers had to bring the crowd under control and clear the way for the rescue effort.

Undoubtedly many people must have reached the area in order to help in the effort to look for survivors and shift them to hospital. However, such zeal must be properly channelled and the government should make efforts to raise public awareness about how to respond in emergencies. Volunteers from the public can be essential in saving lives but it must be an organised effort. Individual efforts and simply arriving at the scene of disaster out of curiosity is of no use. The government must have well-trained rescue squads in all cities and towns. Mercifully, there are volunteer ambulance services in the country. But their efforts need to be supplemented in times of trouble.

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Editoral-Oil price deregulation

The government proposes to take away the powers of the Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority to determine the domestic prices of petroleum products and give them back to the refineries and oil marketing companies from next month. There is no evidence, however, that the petroleum ministry has resolved the issues that had prompted allegations of price manipulation by the OMCs’ ‘cartel’ and forced the government to assign the job to Ogra. The return to the old mechanism, goes one argument, would give the refineries and OMCs another opportunity to unfairly manipulate the market. Price deregulation does not work to the advantage of consumers in the absence of strong and effective market checks.

While recommending the changes, according to a report in this newspaper, the federal petroleum ministry has totally ignored the concerns of the Planning Commission, Ogra and some experts. The logic behind the opposition to the move is simple. It stresses on the need to phase in price deregulation to see how it works out in practice. This is to allow the government sufficient time to introduce legal checks and empower Ogra to prevent market abuse. This is important. The absence of strong regulations could provide the refineries and associated companies room to manipulate the market to an extent where they edge out the smaller OMCs. We have seen this happen in the LPG sector. The summary sent by the petroleum ministry to the Economic Coordination Committee also proposes to continue to let the refineries charge 7.5 per cent deemed duty on the local production of diesel and kerosene. But the refineries have not been given a deadline to reduce sulphur content in their diesel to 0.05 per cent for which this concession is meant.

Further, the proposal permits the refineries to continue to reap the benefits of protection of guaranteed tariff for transportation of their products through pipeline instead of charging the actual cost incurred on this count. This runs counter to free-market principles and consumer interests. Allowing fixed margins to OMCs and dealers on their sales eliminates competition at the retail level at the cost of the consumers. The only good news for consumers is that the proposal recommends deregulation of rail and road freight on transportation of petroleum products, which will bring down upcountry retail prices by Rs0.50-2.50 per litre. The ECC, which will be taking up the proposals, must seriously consider the concerns and objections against the ministry’s summary and also consult the Bhagwandas Commission Report on the price-determination mechanism of petroleum products before stamping its approval.

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Editoral-Nuclear energy the answer?By Pervez Hoodbhoy

It seems odd at first sight to understand why Pakistan, a country that can make nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and has an atomic energy commission that employs over 30,000 people, has electricity blackouts.

Pakistani authorities blame western countries for denying it nuclear energy because it will not sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). The NPT expressly forbids transfer of any kind of nuclear technology, including that for power generation, to non-signatories.

But the fact is that despite a 50-year long nuclear history, and vast spending, Pakistan has proven unable to build for itself even a single electricity-producing nuclear reactor. These are technologically far more complex than nuclear bombs. Pakistan relies on a 40-year old Canadian reactor (in Karachi) and a 10-year old Chinese reactor at Chashma, which together constitute two per cent of the total electricity capacity. A second Chinese reactor has been under construction at Chashma since 2005 and is expected to be completed next year.

In February 2010, China agreed to Pakistan’s request to build two additional civilian nuclear reactors in Pakistan, each of 330MW (about one-third the size of most modern nuclear power plants). To make this affordable China has offered to provide over 80 per cent of the total $1.9bn cost as a 20-year loan. An apparent stumbling block was that in 2004 China joined the 46-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), whose rules prohibit supply of nuclear materials to non-NPT states.

China has not yet formally notified the NSG of its intention to supply the new reactors. It had earlier explained away the supply of the Chashma-II reactor under a so-called ‘grand-fathering clause’, arguing that an agreement had existed prior to its joining the NSG. The argument will not work for the proposed two new reactors. The issue was to come to a head in the NSG meeting held last week in Christchurch, New Zealand. But China did not bring up the issue. Significantly, the US deliberately stayed mum.

So far the US has registered only a muted objection to the Chinese sale. This is quite understandable. In 2008 it had arm-twisted the NSG into agreeing upon special exemption from its rules for India. Thus it has no credible counter-argument to protest a similar deal initiated by China. Moreover, serious efforts to block the sale would deeply irritate Pakistan, upon which the US relies for helping it fight the Afghan war. The cold reality of geo-politics and economic interests has quietly put to death earlier restrictions, suggested by the US, upon global nuclear trade.

China’s interest in pushing the deal with Pakistan is fairly clear. The sale of two rather small-sized reactors to Pakistan is but a step in a larger plan to become a major producer and exporter of nuclear power plants. China is negotiating with western companies to acquire their technology under licence for critical components that would enable it to make reactors of 1,000MW and 1,400MW. Pakistan is simply a test bed and a disposal ground for its small and unwanted reactors.

The impact of the Chinese reactors upon Pakistan’s energy crisis will be marginal. Nor will they contribute to its bomb-making capacity because they are under full-scope IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards. It will take six to eight years after the contracts are formally signed before the electricity reaches the grid, if all goes according to plan. Even then, the new reactors will contribute barely a drop in the ocean. Moreover, the cost per kilowatt will be considerably higher than from other means. The gratitude we owe to our Chinese friends, including the long-term loan, should be tempered by these considerations.

Pakistan’s problem is not primarily that of installed capacity. If all current sources are included, this amounts to a respectable 19,000MW. In principle this should be more than adequate for Pakistan’s power demand, which stands at around 14,500MW. The problem is that a mere 10,200MW is actually generated. About 30 per cent of current capacity is not used. Government incompetence and mismanagement are to blame.

One manifestation is ‘circular debt’ — meaning the nonpayment of electricity bills by the military and various government departments to other government departments. This has had the effect of electricity producers being unable to import fuel oil. Thus, expensive imported plants stand idle.

An inefficient distribution system wastes over 10 per cent of the electricity as it travels along transmission lines, through transformers, and in bad connections. This is compounded by an electricity grid that is unable to effectively distribute electricity from power plants to consumers.

Electricity theft, by rich and poor alike, is another critical factor. For a small bribe, electric company employees create unmonitored bypasses called kundas or tamper with meters. Electricity producers and distributors lose revenue. The solution may lie in installing smart meters that are tamper-proof and remotely read. Stopping power theft would save far more megawatts than will be generated by Chashma’s four nuclear reactors, whenever they come on line.

Finally, Pakistani factories, offices and homes use machinery and appliances that are tremendously wasteful of energy. They do much less work with the electricity that is available. A serious energy efficiency and conservation programme would be quick to implement and could avoid the need to build many additional power plants.

For new electricity-generation capacity, Pakistan should use the vast deposits of Thar coal using appropriate technology to minimise the negative environmental consequences. Or it can build gas-fired power plants and fuel them using natural gas imported from Iran. The only thing standing in the way is the United States’ determination to impose sanctions on Iran’s oil and gas industry. Time will tell if confronting Iran is more important to the US than securing Pakistan’s energy future and preserving an international system on control over nuclear trade.nThe writer teaches physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.

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Editoral-Major policy rethink By Shahid Javed Burki

THE great virtue of democratic systems is that the policies governments adopt reflect the will of the people. While Pakistan is tending towards the adoption of democracy as the preferred system of governance it is quite clear that the country is not there as yet.

If it had become a fully representative system some of the approaches being pursued in foreign affairs would not have been adopted.

In this space last week I argued that economics rather than ideology or history’s many burdens should inform the making of public policy. That is not happening. While people want the government to focus on their economic situation that has markedly deteriorated over the last several years, some of the powerful policymakers continue to focus on what for the common citizens must be marginal issues. This is happening since the people have a poor voice in the making of policy.

In weak political systems strong institutions fill the vacuum. This happened in the case of Pakistan when first the powerful civil service and then the military stepped in and dominated policymaking for most of the country’s turbulent history. Even when these institutions believed that they were working for the good of the country and its citizenry they could not possibly forsake their narrower interests. No matter how dysfunctional a political system is — and Pakistan’s system at this time is not functioning well — it is still better than a system that has a narrow base.

But the transition to a more representative system will not be smooth or easy. In moving forward with the development of the political system, those who are taking the lead will need to take account of what economists call ‘path dependence’. This means that the past has a strong influence on the present. The path followed in the past cannot be easily abandoned for something that is new. That is certainly the case in Pakistan, a country going through major political change. A great deal of caution will have to be shown so that the strong interests that have dominated the system don’t reassert themselves. But the fear that that might happen should not paralyse the move towards democracy.

In the case of Pakistan, the political system was not made up of three components that have given, for instance, the American structure the checks and balances the country’s founding fathers recognised were essential to ensure stability. They strongly believed that no single segment of the population should be able to dominate to the disadvantage of the others. In pursuit of this objective they divided responsibilities among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government. If one of these attempted domination, it was checked by the other two.

The latest manifestation of this is the way the supreme court, under the leadership of John Roberts, a highly conservative judge, is attempting to contain the pursuit of the ‘big government’ approach being followed by the administration headed by President Barack Obama. This conflict will ultimately get resolved by the American Congress as it reinterprets the country’s constitution in light of what the people want now and not what the founders thought should be the principles of governance.

In Pakistan’s case, the political system has four rather than three branches. The military is the fourth component. While it has stepped back to allow the political system to have the space in which it can develop further, it is no secret that it is happy to intervene when it believes that the other branches of the government are putting the country’s security at risk.

Two interventions in particular — in 1958 when Gen Ayub Khan overthrew a legally constituted government and again in 1977 when Gen Ziaul Haq removed Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto from power — the military came in, said its leaders, ‘to save the country from meltdown’. The two other interventions were prompted by personal ambition. But how could the military decide what posed risks to the country’s security?

The Zia period provides an interesting case study of how the will of one man came to prevail over the will of society. Zia ordered Islamisation on the pretext that that is what the people had wanted all along. By moving in that direction, he set the country on a course from which it will take a long time and a great deal of effort to depart.

How did Zia conclude that Islamisation is what people wanted when the people had not voted in significant numbers for any Islamic party? It was not the will of the people that Zia was minding but his own. What prompted Zia to fight the American war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan by creating a new force of Islamic fighters that eventually morphed into the Taliban? Had the issue been openly debated the result may have been very different.

The current ambivalence of Islamabad towards two of the more important policies that will shape the country’s future reflects the tussle for influence between the military and the representatives of the people. One example of this is the way the military establishment views India. The military continues to see India as the main threat to Pakistan’s security and continues to believe that in Afghanistan it should seek strategic depth in case of hostile activity by India. In other words, the military continues to place India’s seeming hostility towards Pakistan at the centre of its concerns.

Whether suspicions about India’s intentions should preoccupy the policymakers to the extent that they inhibit the economic development of the country and the welfare of the citizenry is something that needs to be debated openly and by the representatives of the people in the forum that is meant to serve that purpose. That, of course, is the National Assembly.

But, as is often said, democracies function well only when the citizenry is well educated and informed about the issues. This is where the media and the civil society enter the picture. They too have to shed some of the old biases and look at the situation anew in light of the enormous changes that have occurred inside and outside Pakistan. If that were to happen — and there are indications that may be occurring — we may see a major change in the way we view the world outside our borders.

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Editoral-Fall of the general By Gwynne Dyer

GEN Stanley McChrystal deserved to be fired as the US commander in Afghanistan, because he and his staff were openly contemptuous of their civilian superiors.

It’s a popular attitude among the dimmer sort of military officers, but for a theatre commander to tolerate and even encourage it among his own senior officers and advisers is reckless and stupid. Such a man is not fit for command.

But why was McChrystal in a state of perpetual rage against President Obama, Vice-President Biden, US ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, and practically every other civilian authority he had contact with? Could it be because they don’t really believe that the United States can win a decisive military victory in Afghanistan?

Eikenberry almost certainly doesn’t. Late last year, when McChrystal was pressing for more US troops to be sent to Afghanistan, the ambassador wrote to the White House (in a cable later leaked to the New York Times) saying that “Sending additional forces will delay the day when Afghans will take over, and make it difficult, if not impossible, to bring our people home on a reasonable timetable.”

Gen McChrystal’s “proposed counterinsurgency strategy assumes an Afghan political leadership that is both able to take responsibility and to exert sovereignty in the furtherance of our goal”, Eikenberry wrote. “Yet [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden, whether defence, governance or development.”

“[Karzai] and much of his circle do not want the US to leave and are only too happy to see us invest further,” Eikenberry continued. There have been no similar leaks giving us the personal views of Vice-President Biden, but he has publicly supported Obama’s target of beginning the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in July, 2011. McChrystal saw that deadline as a terrible mistake.

Senator John McCain shares McChrystal’s view on this. “We can’t tell the enemy when we’re leaving,” he said. Gen David Petraeus, who has been abruptly pulled out of his (more senior) job to replace McChrystal, thinks the same.

But what if Obama, Biden and Eikenberry really think (a) that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable, and (b) that it isn’t important for the United States to win it anyway? What if they privately hope that the July 2011 date for the start of the withdrawal will persuade the Taliban to hold back for the next year, which would make it look like the United States was winning the war? Then the American troops could go home with the appearance of victory, leaving the Afghans to sort themselves out. No matter who is running Afghanistan two or three years later — and it wouldn’t necessarily be the Taliban — it’s highly unlikely that hordes of Afghans would “follow the Americans home” and blow them up.

For that, Obama must engineer an apparent but temporary military success in Afghanistan, do a quick hand-over to Karzai & Co., and get out while the going’s good. This is exactly how Nixon and Kissinger got the US out of the unwinnable and unnecessary Vietnam war in 1973.

Obama’s best hope of creating an apparent military success is to announce the withdrawal of US troops in the near future. If the Taliban understand his implicit message to them, they let him have a temporary ‘victory’ in order to get him out. But if that’s what Obama’s up to, then it’s understandable that Gen McChrystal was deeply frustrated (though that doesn’t excuse his behaviour). Gen Petraeus will be equally frustrated.

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Afghan war may be lost in Pakistan’s battlefields

WASHINGTON: The Afghanistan war may be lost on the battlefields of Pakistan, where Pakistan authorities are fighting a vicious conflict against a home-grown insurgency spawned by the war across its western frontier, warns a report released on Monday by the Atlantic Council.

“The situation in Pakistan remains on edge,” warns Shuja Nawaz, director of the Council’s South Asia Centre, who wrote the report, “Pakistan in the Danger Zone: a Tenuous US-Pakistan Relationship”.

“Domestic politics remain in a constant state of flux, with some progress towards a democratic polity overshadowed by periodic upheavals and conflicts between the ruling coalition and the emerging judiciary.”

The report points out that while the Pakistani military succeeded in dislocating the home-grown terrorists but the necessary civilian effort to complement military action is still not evident. The government does not appear to have the will or the ability to muster support for longer-term reform or sustainable policies.

The Pakistani economy appears to have stabilised somewhat; but security, governance and energy shortages are major challenges that require strong, consistent, incorruptible leadership rather than political brinkmanship, cronyism and corruption that remains endemic nationwide. Recent constitutional developments offer a glimmer of hope that may allow the civilian government to restore confidence in its ability to deliver both on the domestic and external front.

But the government needs to stop relying on external actors to bail it out and take matters into its own hands.

The report warns that unless some game-changing steps are taken by both sides, the US-Pakistan relationship may also be heading into another serious downturn, marked by continuing mistrust and a disconnect between the public posturing and private dialogues. The United States and Pakistan appear to have different objectives while speaking about common goals.

“The US is looking for a safe military exit out of a stabilised Afghanistan while ensuring that Al Qaeda does not re-emerge. Pakistan seeks to secure its own territory against an active home-grown insurgency, while keeping a wary eye on India to its east.”

“Increasingly, domestic political imperatives seem to be colouring the rhetoric and pushing policy between these two allies,” warns Mr Nawaz. “The 2010 mid-term elections and a sputtering economy at home feed the US desire to end the Afghan war.”

The report notes that America’s European allies in Afghanistan have been missing in action in Pakistan. They have not been able to establish their own relationship with Pakistan in a manner that would engender mutual trust and confidence. They have a minimal presence on the economic development scene in this key country bordering Afghanistan.

“Pakistan can begin to turn things around if given the resources and the support it needs from the United States, the international financial institutions and other friends,” says Mr Nawaz.

“But it will also have to take on some major tasks itself, to reorder the political system, rearrange its economic priorities and truly return power to the people and their representatives.”

Without tackling these daunting tasks, Pakistan risks political and economic slide. The nexus between security and governance remains critical. Pakistan’s civilian government must begin to govern and to prosecute the war against militancy on a war footing, not as a part-time activity or a purely military venture outsourced to its army, the report adds.

The civilian government must take control of strategy and work with the military to prepare to take over territory that the military wrests back from the insurgency.

The council notes that the United States also needs to take some immediate actions to open up its markets to more Pakistani exports by reducing tariffs on Pakistan’s exports, as it has done for dozens of other countries across the globe.

The US must truly roll back the stringent visa restrictions and undue checking of travellers from Pakistan, a move that has further enraged public opinion, especially among the middle class.

“In other words, the United States must begin to treat Pakistan as an ally so Pakistan can return the favour,” says Mr Nawaz.

For the longer run, he urges the US to shift to visible and effective heavy infrastructure development and energy investments, and begins investing in the signature projects in the education and health sectors that will not only have longer term impact but also be visible to the general public as a result of US assistance.

“The biggest game changer in terms of public perception will be discussion of an energy-oriented civilian nuclear deal with Pakistan that will treat it on par with neighbour India, but at the same time begin to draw it into the safeguards network of the International Atomic Energy Agency and thereby dissuade it from any recidivist tendencies towards proliferation,” says Mr Nawaz.

“At the same time, removal of US pressure against an Iran-Pakistan oil pipeline that could be extended to India would be seen as a positive step toward helping the US’ friends in South Asia.”

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NAB withdraws two corruption cases against Malik

RAWALPINDI: The National Accountability Bureau informed an accountability court on Monday that two corruption references filed by the bureau 13 years ago against Interior Minister Rehman Malik and other officials of the Federal Investigation Agency were ‘not genuine’ and it did not want to further prosecute the cases.

Additional Prosecutor General Malik Jamil Awan defended the bureau’s decision to withdraw the references filed under section 31-B of NAB Ordinance, 1999. He apologised for the fake cases registered against the FIA officials.

When Mr Awan started speaking about innocence of the interior minister and Sajjad Haider, the co-accused in the two cases the bureau has been pursuing since 1995, Accountability Court-IV Judge Chuadhry Abdul Haq directed him to produce law points in favour of withdrawal of the NAB application and record of all applications filed by the bureau in high courts and the Supreme Court in the cases.

The judge asked the APG not to speak about merits of the references and only cite laws relating to withdrawal of the cases.

Mr Awan said the alleged involvement of the interior minister and other FIA officials in a raid on the house of Hashim Raza Rizvi could not be proved. He said Mr Malik was not heading the raiding team which was following the orders of then interior minister Naseerullah Babar.

He said that Mr Malik being the additional director general of FIA had to follow the orders of the then interior minister to raid the house of the alleged human and narcotics smuggler.

About the allegation levelled by Hashim Raza’s brother Abbas Raza that the FIA team had looted 20 tolas of jewellery and Rs700,000, Mr Awan said the complainant did not object to the recovery of a memo prepared at that time and the case was registered three years later.

About the second reference in which Mr Malik was accused of receiving two cars worth Rs1.798 million from Toyota Central Motors in Karachi through deputy director Wasim Ahmed as an illegal gratification for the purchase of vehicles by the FIA worth tens of millions of rupees, the APG said the cars had not been taken as commission and no FIA official was involved in the purchase of cars in 1995.

The NAB lawyer produced an affidavit of the then director general of FIA about non-involvement of Mr Malik and said no FIA official was on the committee for purchasing the cars.

He claimed that Saleem Godail, who was managing director of the Toyota Central Motors, had already said he received Rs820,000 for one car and got back the second car.

The APG said Mr Malik had been kept in jail for 11 months in 1997 without obtaining a judicial custody order from a competent court.

The accountability court stopped Advocate Ghufran Khursheed Imtiazi from challenging pleadings of the prosecutor because he had not submitted the legal attorney to represent Hashim Raza, the complainant in one of the cases.

Advocate Imtiazi told Dawn that the court could not allow withdrawal of the case registered on the complaint of an individual whose grievances had not been addressed.

The hearing was adjourned till July 1.

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Political solution to Afghan conflict necessary, concedes Obama

WASHINGTON, June 28: US President Barack Obama has said that all efforts to arrange a peace deal between the Afghan government and Taliban militants should be viewed with both scepticism and openness.

Speaking after the Group of 20 meeting in Toronto on Sunday evening, Mr Obama conceded that a political solution to the Afghan conflict was necessary and suggested that elements of the Taliban insurgency could be part of these negotiations.

Asked if the talks that Pakistan was reportedly brokering between the Taliban and Afghan President Hamid Karzai held promise, Mr Obama gave a long answer, explaining how the Taliban movement was not homogenous and included those who were reconcilable as well as those who were not.

“The Taliban is a blend of hard-core ideologues, tribal leaders, kids that basically sign up because it’s the best job available to them,” he noted.

“Not all of them are going to be thinking the same way about the Afghan government, about the future of Afghanistan. And so we’re going to have to sort through how these talks take place.”

Mr Obama said he believed that Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s peace Jirga was a useful step and so was the conference Mr Karzai planned to hold in Kabul soon.

Similarly, “conversations between the Afghan government and the Pakistani government, building trust between those two governments is a useful step”, he said.

“I think to the extent that we can get all the regional players to recognise that it is in everybody’s interests that this region between Pakistan and Afghanistan are not used to launch terrorist attacks – that will be a useful step,” said the US president.

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Quit if you can’t do it’: Adviser faces hard time in NA

ISLAMABAD, June 28: Prime Minister’s Adviser on Political Affairs Nawabzada Ghazanfar Gul faced a chilling advice from the chair in the National Assembly on Monday: “quit the job if you can’t do it”.

The advice came from Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi when the adviser failed to give satisfactory replies to a number of questions from members during the question hour.

The adviser was responding to supplementary questions on behalf of the minister in-charge of the cabinet division, Babar Awan, who was not present in the house.

Opposition members belonging to the PML-N and PML-Q took Mr Gul to task when he failed to satisfy them on a number of issues. The adviser then invited the ire of the chair when he said the two questions actually related to another ministry, suggesting that the house secretariat should have directed the queries to the right quarters.

But the deputy speaker said it was the responsibility of the adviser to send the queries to the ministries concerned, and not the National Assembly Secretariat’s. Mr Kundi advised the elderly adviser to quit the job if he was unable to do it. At this point, PPP stalwart and Federal Minister for Labour Khursheed Shah came to the rescue of Mr Gul and asked the deputy speaker to defer the questions to the next session.

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Court orders verification of two legislators’ degrees

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court ordered on Monday that academic degrees of two members of a provincial assembly be verified by the Higher Education Commission.

A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk and Justice Tariq Pervaz had taken up seven petitions relating to election disputes. Two of the petitions sought unseating of Balochistan Assembly members Zahoor Hussain Khan Khosa and Maulvi Mohammad Sarwar on the ground that they allegedly held fake educational certificates.

The bench observed that the certificate of Maulvi Sarwar submitted to the court by the Election Commission was found to have been tampered with.

Referring to an election dispute between PML-Q’s Haji Abdul Rehman Jamali, a brother of former prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, and independent candidate Zahoor Khosa, the bench ordered the ECP to transmit to the HEC Sanad (certificate) and nomination papers of Mr Khosa submitted to the returning officer during the 2008 election.

The HEC will examine whether the certificate is genuine and can be considered equivalent to the graduation degree.

The HEC is required to submit its report to the registrar of the Supreme Court in a sealed envelope before July 9.

Mr Jamali had challenged the election of Mr Khosa from PB-26 (Jaffarabad-II). According to him, Sanad-ul-Faragh obtained by Mr Khosa from Shah Abdul Latif University in Khairpur was not equivalent to the Bachelor’s degree and was contrary to the requirements laid down under Section 8(a) of the Election Order 2007-08 as well as provisions of Section 99 (cc) of the Representation of Peoples Act 1976.

He said that although the returning officer had accepted the Sanad and the ECP declared Mr Khosa as the successful candidate, the HEC later notified that it was not equivalent to the graduation degree.

Advocate Tariq Mehmood appeared for Mr Jamali while Advocate Kamran Murtaza represented Mr Khosa.

Referring to the election dispute in PB-15 (Musakhel) between Sardar Asmatullah Khan of the PML-Q and Maulvi Sarwar, the bench observed that the election record produced by an officer of the ECP had been tampered with. The court asked the commission to depute an officer to conduct an inquiry into the matter and submit a report.

On the allegation that Sanad Shahadatul Almia issued by Ittehadul Madressah in Multan in favour of Maulvi Sarwar is not genuine, the court ordered the ECP to send nomination papers, along with documents relating to the educational qualification of the legislator, to the HEC for verification.

The HEC is required to submit its report to the court registrar by July 9.

The cases of Maulvi Abdul Qadir, Mir Shah Jahan Khan Khethran, Sardar Mohammad Yaqoob Khan and Mohammad Dauran Khan were adjourned till July 9.

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Five customs officials held for helping smugglers

ISLAMABAD: The Customs Intelligence has arrested five officials for allegedly facilitating smuggling of liquor by a fake company, Luner Product, which claimed to have a contract for supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan.

The arrested Customs officials were accused of issuing a ‘border clearance certificate’ at the Torkham border to containers of the fictitious company which were later found in Peshawar by the Customs Intelligence.

According to Customs sources, trucks of National Logistic Cell (NLC) were used for transporting containers to Afghanistan.

Munir Qureshi, a senior official of the Federal Board of Revenue, confirmed on Monday the arrest of the customs officials and smuggling of liquor by Luner Product company under the cover of supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Sources said officials of the Customs Intelligence had found some containers which were being dismantled by scrap dealers at Ring Road in Peshawar.

Further investigation by the Customs Intelligence revealed that the containers had been imported by the ghost company on the pretext of supplying goods to Nato forces in Afghanistan.

The sources said that when Customs Intelligence officials got in touch with Nato officials in Kabul, they denied the import of these containers by the alliance and clarified that no company by the name of Luner Product had a contract for Nato supplies.

After the Nato denial, Customs Intelligence officials opened three containers of the same company at the Karachi Port and found liquor in them.

The sources said that the company had imported 43 containers to date and some of them were seized in Peshawar and three at the Karachi Port.

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Afghanistan denies Karzai’s talks with Haqqani

KABUL, June 28: Afghanistan’s government angrily dismissed as baseless on Monday a media report that President Hamid Karzai had held a face-to-face meeting with an Al Qaeda-linked Taliban leader in Kabul.

Mr Karzai’s spokesman said the report on Al Jazeera television on Sunday was part of a conspiracy to undermine a government-initiated peace plan aimed at ending almost nine years of war.

Al Jazeera said Mr Karzai had met Sirajuddin Haqqani, who heads the Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, at his palace in the Afghan capital as a prelude to peace talks.

“The report is totally baseless. It is a lie and there is no truth in it,” Mr Karzai’s spokesman Waheed Omar told reporters.

“We believe this is part of the same campaign to undermine the peace process and undermine the process that we are going to start very soon,” he said, referring to plans by Mr Karzai to hold talks with the Taliban.

Taliban wishing to join any peace plan must renounce violence, accept the Afghan constitution, and rescind ties with “international terrorist groups,” Mr Omar said.

Al Jazeera reported that a meeting between Mr Karzai and the militant leader had recently taken place in Kabul mediated by Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and the head of its intelligence services, Lt-Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha.

Pakistani military spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas also dismissed the report, telling AFP in Islamabad: “These reports are baseless and unfounded.”

He said “the chief of army staff was scheduled to go to Kabul to attend a meeting of the Tripartite Commission on Monday, but this meeting was postponed.”—AFP

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Global oil prices promise relief for consumers

ISLAMABAD, June 28: In a small piece of good news for the ordinary citizens of Pakistan, Dawn has learnt that petroleum prices, which contributed a hefty Rs315 billion to the national exchequer through taxes, are likely to witness a drop anywhere from one to four per cent on June 30. This reduction will be due to a decline in international oil prices.

According to a senior official, international diesel prices have witnessed the biggest drop in June, which will result in about a relief of about Rs3.75 per litre or 4 per cent in the high speed diesel prices.

Petrol (motor spirit) prices will also come down by about 90 paisa per litre while the prices of kerosene and high octane blending component (HOBC) will also drop by 50 to 70 paisa per litre.

The official said this would be the last time the government would announce through the Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority the prices of petroleum products in accordance with international prices.

He said the economic coordination committee was expected to take up the petroleum ministry’s proposal for deregulating the oil pricing mechanism which would enable refineries and marketing companies to fix ex-refinery and ex-depot prices independently. But the government taxes will remain unchanged. It should be remembered that the petrol price in Pakistan includes petroleum levy, general sales tax and the profit margins of the oil companies and dealers.

Besides a 16 per cent variable general sales tax on all petroleum products being charged to consumers, the government also collects a fixed petroleum levy at the rate of Rs10 per litre on petrol, Rs14 on high octane blending component, Rs6 on kerosene, Rs3 on LDO and Rs8 on high speed diesel.

The government is estimated to have collected about Rs115 billion as general sales tax from the domestic sale of petroleum products during financial year 2009-10 while it also recovered about Rs90 billion from POL imports. The total sales tax collection on petroleum products, therefore, stands at aboutRs205 billion. Likewise, the government netted about Rs108 billion during the current fiscal year on account of petroleum levy on oil products.

The government currently collects about Rs20 per litre on petrol, Rs26 on high octane blending component, Rs15 per litre on kerosene and Rs12 on light diesel oil from consumers. In addition, about Rs8.91 is paid to the oil companies and dealers on petrol, Rs11.93 per litre on High Octane, Rs3.23 per litre on kerosene and Rs4.27 on light diesel oil.

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UN condemns attack on children facility in Gaza

UNITED NATIONS, June 28: The United Nations has condemned Monday’s attack on a recreational facility used by children in occupied Gaza territory, the second such incident in a month.

A group of about 25 armed and masked men attacked and set fire to the facility on the beach in Nuseirat that was being used to host the Summer Games, run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

No one was hurt in the incident, which follows a similar attack on May 23 when a group of 30 armed and masked men attacked and set fire to an UNRWA Summer Games facility that was under construction on the beach in Gaza City.

The UN Secretary-General’s spokesman Martin Nesriky said that so far they had not been able to determine the identity of the attackers.

“Cowardly and despicable” is how John Ging, UNRWA’s Director of Operations in Gaza, described Monday’s attack.

“The overwhelming success of UNRWA’s Summer Games has once again obviously frustrated those that are intolerant of children’s happiness,” he added.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called the Summer Games, which is in its fourth year, “a rare opportunity for relief from the deprivations and difficulties of everyday life in Gaza,” which has suffered from a three-year-long blockade imposed by Israel for what it called security reasons after

Hamas took power there in 2007.

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Benazir Bhutto inscribed into law by NA vote

ISLAMABAD: In a historic move, the National Assembly inscribed Benazir Bhutto’s name into law by its vote on Monday, unanimously passing a pro-poor bill after the main opposition party gave up a blocking amendment amid “long live” slogans for the assassinated leader.

However, the Benazir Income Support Programme Bill, based on a presidential ordinance already in operation, will need approval by Senate to become a permanent law.

An amendment in the name of the opposition PML-N’s 87 members had sought to rename the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) provided in the bill as Qaumi (national) Income Support Programme but was greeted with “no, no” chants and slogans of “long live Shaheed Benazir Bhutto” from members of the ruling PPP, and was withdrawn after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called for giving a legislative recognition to the former prime minister’s sacrifice for democracy.

The programme under the ordinance too was named after the former PPP leader and twice-prime minister who was assassinated in a gun-and-bomb attack on Dec 27, 2007, outside Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh park after she had addressed an election campaign rally there.

But the National Assembly’s was a rare legislative vote to inscribe a political leader’s name into a law.

PML-N member Zahid Hamid, who moved the amendment, said his party had “the greatest respect” for Ms Bhutto and her sacrifice and that her legacy should be honoured by good governance rather than by naming roads, hospitals and airports after her.

But his argument was opposed by Dr Donya Aziz of the PML-Q who saw “nothing wrong” in giving such posthumous honour to Ms Bhutto.

The prime minister said BISP was Ms Bhutto’s own idea and it was working well for the past two and half years without any fingers raised about its impartial functioning to provide financial help and other social and safety net measures to economically distressed persons and families.

“In view of the prime minister’s remarks, we withdraw the amendment,” Hamid said, paving the way for a unanimous passage of the bill when it was put to voice vote by Speaker Fehmida Mirza.

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NAB decides to end Zardari Cotecna case

ISLAMABAD: In the latest twist in the continuing saga of the revival of cases against PPP leaders, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has decided to withdraw the money laundering case against President Asif Ali Zardari from an accountability court in Pakistan, sources in NAB told Dawn on Monday.

Known as the Cotecna pre-shipment inspection case, the case had already been withdrawn from a Swiss court, where it was also being tried, by General Pervez Musharraf’s regime.

However, it was still pending in an accountability court in Rawalpindi. In this case, the president was accused of taking commission and later depositing the money in Swiss banks.

Although the NAB’s legal team, headed by Prosecutor General Irfan Qadir, has decided to withdraw the case, the plea has so far not been filed in the accountability court concerned.

However, informed sources said that following the resignation of its last chairman Nawid Ahsan, who did not see eye to eye with the PPP government on this issue, the NAB had decided to withdraw the cases it had initiated against ruling party leaders, starting from Interior Minister Rehman Malik; on Monday the Bureau informed a court that it was withdrawing two cases it had initiated against the interior minister 13 years ago.

When asked about the issue, the NAB’s spokesman told Dawn that under section 31-B of the National Accountability Ordinance-1999, the prosecutor general of the NAB could withdraw any case with the consent of the trial court.

Some legal experts say that if the accountability court accepts NAB’s plea to withdraw the case against President Zardari, the decision of the Supreme Court in the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) case will become irrelevant.

While abolishing the NRO, the apex court had directed the government to reopen the money laundering cases against the president in Swiss court as well as revive all the cases that had been closed under the ordinance.

The NAB prosecutor general had told Dawn a few days back that the bureau would request the courts concerned to withdraw all such cases that lacked ‘credible evidences’.

He had then also referred to the cases against interior minister and said that: “If you go through the details of these references you will find them bogus and without any substance.”

This latest move by NAB appears to indicate a change of strategy on the part of the ruling party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), whose leaders have been arguing that President Zardari faced no threat from the Supreme Court’s NRO judgment as he enjoyed presidential immunity and as a result no case could be tried against him inside and outside the country.

That this line had been bought internationally was evident from Swiss Attorney General Daniel Zappelli’s statement. He had said in an interview in April this year that the money laundering cases against President Zardari in Swiss courts could not be reopened, adding that as president, Mr Zardari enjoyed immunity under international law. Hence, Mr Zapelli said, the Swiss courts could not entertain any request to reopen cases against him.

He had said that even if the Swiss authorities received a request from the Pakistan government, the Swiss government could not reopen the cases.

Sources in the law ministry had also confirmed to Dawn that the government had decided not to send any request to the Swiss authorities for reopening the case; even though NAB had written a letter addressed to the Swiss authorities requesting that the case be reopened, the law minister had not forwarded this letter.

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