Muhammad Asif Raza (PAS)

By moving to grant China an equal status, Barack Obama moved light years away from the approach adopted by his predecessor President George W. Bush. IF there were any doubts that the global economic and political order was being reshaped they were set aside by the outcome of President Barack Obama’s recently concluded threeday visit to China. That was the high point of the nineday trip to Asia. It has great significance in terms of charting a new course for American diplomacy not only in Asia but in the world. By moving to grant China an equal status, President Obama moved light years away from the approach adopted by President George W. Bush, his predecessor. Under Bush, the United States proclaimed its intention to remain the world’s sole superpower, declaring formally that it would resist any effort by any other country to claim an equal status. That course was abandoned by the new American president. President Obama invited Beijing to join Washington within a G2 configuration — it ...

hat would be the impact of the Dubai meltdown on Pakistan? For several years now Pakistan has drawn closer to the Gulf States as sources of fi- nance. That happened as other financial and capi- tal markets became increasingly shy of putting money into Pakistan. In 2008, the UAE provided 20 per cent of the total foreign direct investment that came to Pakistan. Dubai had agreed to participate actively in the financing of several mega projects launched by the Musharraf government. Their total cost was estimated at $36 billion. FOR a number of years Dubai’s model of economic development seemed to be a spectacular success. Among its main elements was competition among the several companies owned by the state; the decision by the managers of these companies to invest in the service sector, thus leap-frogging into the most dynamic part of the global economy; to leverage these investments by borrowing abroad, often using the sukuk, an Islamic bond, for this purpose; and the belief that, in cas...

Corporatisation seems ideal to promote mono-cultural production of cash crops for export, and to provide incentives for cultivating genetically modified crops. Experience from around the developing world shows that agricultural corporatisation increases single commodity harvests, but this often happens at the cost of food security and loss of agricultural bio-diversity Pakistan is still an agrarian country, with a majority of its workforce directly or indirectly involved in agricultural production. Yet we remain a net food importing country, where almost a quarter of the population is now underfed. This is indeed a tragedy given that at the time of independence, Pakistan inherited a major portion of united Punjab, which used to provide food to the whole of Hindustan. Flawed policy making, which failed to address the skewed land ownership and boost sustainable development in the agricultural sector, has led our rural economy towards low productivity and ecological disaster. With the st...

I frequently receive despatches from Pashtuns who plead that the Taliban have grossly distorted Pashtunwali, so that it has become an arbitrary code of conduct that only serves Taliban interests and primitive ideology President Barack Obama’s much-awaited speech of December 1, 2009 outlining his decision to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan has had a mixed reaction both in the US and in Pakistan. Obama has received more support from the Republicans than from the Democrats. Some Democrats have even gone in the opposite direction and advocated an early exit, leaving it to the Afghans to deal with such a situation. The problem is, of course, that last time when the US hastily packed up and left after the Red Army had been expelled from Afghanistan, the Taliban came to power. A former adviser on the Middle East during the Kennedy Administration, William R. Polk wrote ‘An Open Letter to President Obama’ dated November 30, 2009 in the US-based magazine, The Nation. He ass...

President Barack Obama speaks to reporters after his meeting with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, left, and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in the Grand Foyer of the White House in Washington. – AP ISLAMABAD: President Barack Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan has sparked fears in Pakistan it will lead to more US drone attacks and military involvement in its border areas, possibly further destabilising Washington's ally. Many Pakistan analysts and security officials fear an emboldened Afghan Taliban could then capitalise on Obama's plans to start withdrawing troops in 18 months by waiting it out in Pakistan, which already faces militants on its own soil. The Pakistan government has cautiously welcomed Obama's plans to send another 30,000 troops to battle a strengthening Taliban insurgency. But it came with a caveat - Islamabad warned Washington on Wednesday of the need to avoid 'adverse fallout.' The concern for many i...