IN THE NEWS: CHINA’S PREMIER LI KEQIANG IN PAKISTAN (MAY 23, 2013)
Selected by Olivier Immig & Jan van Heugten
China’s premier Li Keqiang in Pakistan
SOURCE: Asia Times Online
Thursday, May 23, 2013
By SYED FAZL-E-HAIDER
Pakistan and China on Wednesday agreed to jointly work on an economic corridor for enhanced connectivity, with the two countries signing a series of agreements related to energy, technology and space during the first visit to Pakistan by China’s premier Li Keqiang since he took office in March.
Even so, local critics claimed Pakistan was of little importance to Beijing compared with India, which Li visited for three days immediately before going to Islamabad. He then flies on to Switzerland and Germany.
Li was given the equivalent of the red-carpet treatment in the air as well as on the ground, with a squad of six JF-17 fighter jets, jointly produced by Pakistan and China, escorting his plane the moment it entered Pakistani air space. Li’s two-day visit has come at a time when Pakistan is set to undergo a political transition after a May 11 election from one civilian government to another, the first such handover in the country’s troubled political history.
The two countries signed 11 deals in Islamabad to strengthen and diversify cooperation in economy, science and technology, space and upper atmosphere communication and boundary management. The memoranda of understanding signed by the countries included ones on maritime cooperation, cooperation for long-term plan on China-Pakistan economic corridor and cooperation in the field of marine science and technology.
“We hope to create a giant economic corridor that would not only enhance China’s strategic significance but would also help in restoring peace and stability to Asia,” Li told a joint news conference with outgoing President Asif Ali Zardari in Islamabad. “Our two sides should focus on carrying out priority projects in connectivity, energy development and power generation and promoting the building of a China-Pakistan economic corridor.”
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IN THE NEWS: SPRING OFFENSIVE AND TALE OF TALKS (MAY 22, 2013)
Selected by Olivier Immig & Jan van Heugten
Spring Offensive and Tale of Talks
SOURCE: Daily Outlook Afghanistan
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Several policemen were killed in Sangin District of Helmand on Tuesday in yet another spring offensive of the Taliban. A group of about 1000 fighters trapped some police check posts and attacked capturing three of the posts. Later, calling reinforcements, forces from Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army drove off the militants and took back the check posts. Without calling for any aerial or ground support from the International Security Assistance Forces, ANP and ANA did well in quelling the Taliban militants, showing their capacity to fight.
The increasing Taliban attacks since last month show their intentions well about the so-called peace and reconciliation process that seems to be out of the lens these days. Nobody talks about the talks with Taliban. What happened to Roadmap 2015 strategy drafts? The Government circles were beating drums of excitement, but it seems all have come to point zero.
It seems all the claims and meetings from Qatar to Kabul are not working to set a mechanism for talks, while the Government has been hush for past several weeks on the issue, since the Kabul-Islamabad swings. All that has remained for media consumption is the exchange of accusations.
On the other hand, Taliban have been quite clear and persistent with their agenda. They continue slaughtering innocent civilians in bloodbath. There is not a single day when a civilian or member of the ANP or ANA is being killed. They claim to carry heavy attacks this summer and special suicide bombing units have been tasked for Kabul.
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IN THE NEWS: BEWARE OF NEGOTIATING WITH THE TTP (MAY 22, 2013)
Selected by Olivier Immig & Jan van Heugten
Beware of negotiating with the TTP
SOURCE: The Express Tribune
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
By Ejaz Haider
Nawaz Sharif, prime minister-to-be, wants to negotiate with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan(TTP). Let’s see how negotiations work and what this means. In other words, we shall not dismiss outright the idea of negotiating with the TTP but shall, nonetheless, put it to some test on the basis of the fundamentals of negotiation theory. Consider.
There are two broad frameworks for negotiation: distributive and integrative. The idea is simple. How is the pie to be divided? It is important to note that we are presupposing — as is always done in a negotiating process — that both or all parties have reached a point where they believe they can better advance their interests through talking rather than acting unilaterally. We also believe that there is, or can be found, a bargaining zone.
Please note that while we cannot dismiss the possibility of one or more sides entering into negotiations to buy time or using the process to regroup and gain strength, we are deliberately not factoring in that possibility in our hypothesis. In any case, if that were to happen the parties will be thrown back into conflict and the process of negotiation will come to an end.
Our hypothesis then can be put forward thus: the state (of Pakistan) and the TTP have decided that neither can defeat the other through unilateral action and, therefore, both must get down to talking. Also, that both sides will talk in good faith and not resort to strategies that could derail the process.
This essentially signals one thing clearly. Since the TTP comprises non-state actors, the state has already conceded that it has been unable to put it down. So, even if the TTP cannot defeat the state, the two sides come to the table with the state having accepted that it has lost its monopoly on violence. In other words, it has been deprived of one of its central traits.
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IN THE NEWS: AFGHAN PEACE LOST IN TRANSITION WORRIES (MAY 21, 2013)
Selected by Olivier Immig & Jan van Heugten
Afghan peace lost in transition worries
SOURCE: The Washington Post
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
By PAMELA CONSTABLE
Amid the scattered but steadily mounting carnage of the Taliban’s annual spring offensive, including a suicide bombing Monday that killed a provincial council head, hopes of stirring life into peace talks with the Islamist insurgents seem to be dying here with each new suicide attack, kidnapping and roadside bombing.
Even as this fragile nation of about 30 million holds its breath, fearing catastrophe could follow the presidential election and NATO troop pullout next year, both the Afghan government and its armed opponents seem to think that time is on their side. A once-acute feeling of urgency to end the war seems to have been overtaken by uneasy, tenuous maneuvering in a vast political fog.
“Everything in Afghanistan seems very ambiguous now,” said Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a former Taliban diplomat and a member of the government-appointed peace council. “There are a hundred questions to be answered, but nothing is clear, and we have no magic formula.”
Failure of initiatives
Just a few months ago, momentum seemed to be building for rapprochement. In December, Afghan officials, political opposition figures and Taliban leaders held private discussions in Paris. Several participants described the meetings as a breakthrough, yet no concrete actions or agreements emerged from them.
A planned Taliban office in Qatar, where the insurgents could meet with Afghan and foreign officials to talk about peace negotiations, did not get off the ground before the summer fighting season began this year. Although President Hamid Karzai, who had balked at the idea, finally reached agreement with Qatar in April, the Taliban — which has insisted that it will talk only with the Americans and not with Karzai — has expressed little recent interest in moving forward.
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IN THE NEWS: [PAKISTAN] POISONED CHALICE (MAY 20, 2013)
Selected by Olivier Immig & Jan van Heugten
Poisoned chalice
SOURCE: The News International
Monday, May 20, 2013
By CHRIS CORK
No wonder Nawaz Sharif was happy to see the PTI of Imran Khan take Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – he knows that it holds the seeds of Khan’s undoing. Every imaginable challenge in governance is present in KP and the PTI brings to the task a team which although has seasoned players, is very much made up of newcomers to the political arena – and there is no kindergarten in politics where one is gently introduced to the hurly-burly. It is a dive into the deep end, never mind that you may not have learned to swim in shallower waters first, and that is where the PTI is going to have to hope that its learning curve is a lot steeper than that evidenced in the days immediately post-poll.
The PTI does not have enough seats to single-handedly form the official opposition in parliament, and its leader has opted to take the constituency in Rawalpindi where he lives, rather than in the province his party won – a decision that might get a decidedly slitty-eyed look from his fellow Pakhtuns.
Still in a hospital bed but making a good recovery as these words are written, IK has spoken of creating a ‘model province’ in KP, and of working with Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N ‘in the national interest’. Unfortunately, the material he has to work with in his newly-won province is not the most malleable when it comes to model-making.
The poison in the chalice is that the PTI has won too many seats in KP to avoid forming its next government, and it is going to be a ‘make or break’ deal.
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IN THE NEWS: AFGHAN PRESIDENT SEEKS INDIAN MILITARY AID AMID PAKISTAN ROW (MAY 19, 2013)
Selected by Olivier Immig & Jan van Heugten
Afghan President Seeks Indian Military Aid Amid Pakistan Row
SOURCE: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Sunday, May 19, 2013
President Hamid Karzai is due to open a trip to India during which he is expected to seek more Indian assistance for Afghanistan’s armed forces.
The three-day trip comes amid tensions between Afghanistan and its neighbor Pakistan, which has had hostile relations with India for decades.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have accused each other of firing across their mutual border, and Afghanistan said an Afghan police officer was killed in a skirmish earlier this month.
Both sides also accuse each other of sheltering militants who launch cross-border attacks.
Pakistan’s government suspects India of trying to weaken Pakistan by surrounding it with hostile forces, including in Afghanistan, and for years has sought to prevent the development of a strong India-Afghan alliance.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they were divided into two countries when they achieved independence from Britain in 1947.
Afghan presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi said Karzai’s delegation intended to ask India to help Afghanistan address its military needs and shortages.
Details were not immediately available on what kind of weapons and assistance India is prepared to provide Afghanistan.
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IN THE NEWS: POLITICS IN PAKISTAN’S BIGGEST CITY. A KILLING IN KARACHI (MAY 19, 2013)
Selected by Olivier Immig & Jan van Heugten
Politics in Pakistan’s biggest city. A killing in Karachi
SOURCE: The Economist
Sunday, May 19, 2013
THE police in Karachi say they still have an open mind about the murder, late on May 18th, of Zohra Shahid Hussain, a senior politician with the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), or Movement for Justice. The three young men on a motorcycle who attacked her outside her home may have been robbers, they say. Her party colleagues, however, are in no doubt that she fell victim to a political assassination. She died on the eve of a partial rerun in one Karachi constituency of the general election held on May 11th.
PTI’s leader, Imran Khan, a charismatic former captain of the national cricket team, wasquick to blame Altaf Hussain, the exiled leader of Karachi’s dominant political party, the Muttahida Qaumi Mahaz, or MQM, as “directly responsible” for the murder. The MQM was equally quick to deny the charge, accusing Mr Khan of “immaturity” and threatening to sue him for defamation.
Karachi has a terrible record of violence, much of it political. Eleven people were killed on May 18th alone. Political parties have close links to gangsters, and the city is also home to extremists from the Pakistani Taliban and other groups with terrorist tendencies. The MQM is both the best-organised of the city’s political parties, and, as the one in power, seen as the best able to bully and intimidate its rivals. “It is a fascist party,” says Arif Alvi, the PTI’s candidate in the contested constituency.
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IN THE NEWS. SINO-PAK ALLIANCE: NAVAL AND NUCLEAR COOPERATION (MAY 18, 2013)
Selected by Olivier Immig & Jan van Heugten
Sino-Pak alliance: Naval and nuclear cooperation
SOURCE: Observer Research Foundation
By C RAJA MOHAN
Saturday, May 18, 2013
The unrealistic expectations in India from Li Keqiang’s visit to Delhi and Mumbai next week are likely to be tempered when weighed against the Chinese premier’s agenda in Pakistan. Li flies from India to Pakistan and from there to Switzerland and Germany.
Sections of India’s foreign policy establishment have long cultivated the illusion that improved relations with China might result in a more balanced approach in Beijing towards Delhi and Islamabad.
News reports from Pakistan say Li is likely to sign an accord on further development of the Gwadar port on the Balochistan coast. Li’s talks are also likely to focus on civilian nuclear cooperation, the reports say.
Official media reports from Beijing do not mention either agreement, but simply reaffirm China’s commitment to deepen the strategic partnership with Pakistan. Naval and nuclear cooperation between the two countries has a long history and Delhi must expect them to advance in the coming years.
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IN THE NEWS: THE LANDMARK ELECTIONS 2013 (MAY 17, 2013)
Selected by Olivier Immig & Jan van Heugten
The landmark elections 2013
SOURCE: Pakistan Observer
Friday, May 17, 2013
By MIRZA ASLAM BEG
The verdict of 11th May 2013, by the Pakistani voters, has demolished several myths, establishing new realities which promise a brighter future for Pakistan, emerging from the depths of sorrow and sacrifices of decades and the sufferings at the hands of a corrupt and incompetent government, which almost shook the very foundation of the country. The myth that the Pakistani nation, with forty-five percent illiterates cannot nurture democracy, has been shattered, by our voters, who in a matter of ten hours of day light, have rejected most of the corrupt and the incompetent, thus correcting the course of democracy.
The 11th May 2013 verdict, in fact is the affirmation of the 1947 declaration of the Pakistan Movement, that: “Pakistan will be a democratic state, with a just social order based on the principles of Islam”. The nation has rejected secularism, religious extremism and ‘isms’ of all kind. It has voted for Moderation as in 1947, expressing the ‘true will’ of the Pakistani nation. It is a matter of record, that whenever the Pakistani nation has been afforded fair and free elections, it has voted only for the moderates, which is the fundamental truth, lying at the heart of its democratic ethos. Our national institutions, namely the Army and the Judiciary have mainly been responsible for the derailment of democracy in the past. Now they stood wholeheartedly to determine the right course for the democratic order and have defeated all machinations and manipulations to sabotage the election process, thus safeguarding the nation from the catastrophe which struck Indonesia, some half a century back, where a bloody revolution took place, resulting into more than a million dead, and the Islamic order was ultimately established over the alien ideology. This happened because the elections could not be held in Indonesia for a peaceful transition, whereas elections have helped Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan, to find peace and stability.
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IN THE NEWS: IMRAN KHAN BEGINS TEST OF HIS LIFE (MAY 17, 2013)
Selected by Olivier Immig & Jan van Heugten
Imran begins Test of his life
SOURCE: The Frontier Post
Friday, May 17, 2013
By MUZAFFAR BUTT
For the first time, relatively inexperienced Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) is going to make its debut in the political arena after winning majority seats in the Kyber Pakhtunkhawa. The PTI seems all set to form its government with the help of the Jamaat Islami in the restive province. Winning elections in the war-torn KPK was a herculean task that the PTI accomplished with ease and style but the greater challenge of facing reckless and deadly TTP men awaits the PTI led government.
To meet the lingering threats of suicide bombings, the PML-N chief and the Prime-Minister-in-the-waiting Nawaz Sharif has sought the cooperation of the PTI chief in a move that was widely reckoned as a need of the hour.
A day after the meeting, the PTI chief, from his hospital bed, vowed to cooperate with incoming Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on terrorism and other major challenges following key elections, saying ‘We have decided that despite severe differences that we have, we will work together to resolve major national problems including terrorism’. Notwithstanding injuries and disabilities caused to millions of the people, for last one decade or so, the thousand of innocent people have lost their lives in the suicide bombings, cross firing and shelling from friends and foes alike. The Star fast bowler of yesteryears Imran Khan is, though, relatively naive and inexperienced in politics yet, he is coming to terms with a maturity of a seasoned politicians, leaving aside the subtleness he is known for.
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