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August 4, 2010

General Ashfaq Kayani’s Extension and its Interrelated Serious Geo-Political and Geo-Strategic Issues

Mehmood-Ul-Hassan Khan As expected Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has been given another three years tenure in office. Many political pundits in the country are predicting its long term complicated consequences on… Read More »General Ashfaq Kayani’s Extension and its Interrelated Serious Geo-Political and Geo-Strategic Issues

Pakistan sinking in debt

By Ismat Sabir

President Asif Ali Zardari said that the key to Pakistan’s economic development is trade not aid. However, the president terms the assistance not as aid but as payment for damages that the country has suffered due to its role in fighting the war on terror. It was also renamed by President Obama’s administration as ‘Overseas Contingency Operation’.

It has been proved that aid alone has not been able to cure sick economies of the developing countries and they are under the aid trap, which is steadily increasing day by day. Their dependence on foreign assistance to meet the budget deficit is rising, which is one of the aid conditionality and also forces them to hire foreign experts; and at the same time aid also accounts for a major expenditure item in the budget as the allocations for interest payments and principal as and when it becomes due. Pakistan pays under the head of debt and debt servicing, inclusive of domestic debt, to about 30 percent of the budget expenditure. Read More »Pakistan sinking in debt

WASHINGTON DIARY: Why the US cannot leave Afghanistan —Dr Manzur Ejaz

Pakistan — poised to become an industrial society like South Korea — was subverted to become more like a pauper desert kingdom of the Gulf. Of course, Pakistan’s internal mechanism played a major role but as an external force, the US encouraged the regressive processes to take hold

The perception of CIA infallibly having the omnipotent powers of the Almighty has been destroyed by WikiLeaks’ disclosure of over 91,000 sensitive US security documents — amounting to the biggest leak in history and showed chinks in the CIA’s armour. However, some conspiracy theorists’ conclusion that it was a US-designed leak to create an environment to withdraw from Afghanistan may be a farfetched inference. The US cannot afford to withdraw from Afghanistan and Pakistan if the countries are perceived to be conducive to grooming terrorism that can hit Europe or the US. There are several other strategic reasons for not quitting if the US has to retain its superpower tag.
Read More »WASHINGTON DIARY: Why the US cannot leave Afghanistan —Dr Manzur Ejaz