Asif Ali Zardari wins Pakistan presidential polls

[sikh_warrior]

ISLAMABAD: Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, won a presidential election on Saturday, according to an unofficial tally of results.

Zardari, who had been widely expected to win, had secured 458 out of 702 electoral college votes, according to partial Election Commission results.

Members of the two-chamber parliament and four provincial assemblies voted for a replacement for Pervez Musharraf, who resigned last month.

http://www.dawn.net/wps/wcm/connect/Dawn%20Content%20Library/dawn/news/special/zardari+wins+presidential+election

[sikh_warrior]

'Chaaders' must for girls in Pak university

ISLAMABAD: A leading university in Pakistan's troubled North West Frontier Province has made it mandatory for its girl students to wear 'chaaders' or gowns on campus in the wake of threats issued by the Taliban.

Officials of the University of Peshawar have said the directive is in line with the Pashtun culture but the students have criticised it, saying it is discriminatory.

Girl students in all departments and colleges affiliated to the university have been warned that they will face fines if they do not wear 'chaaders' or gowns on campus.

A letter issued by authorities of the Jinnah College for Women to parents of girl students said: "The college administration (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Pakistan/Chaaders_must_for_girls_in_Pak_university/articleshow/3448655.cms#) has decided to make it compulsory for all the students to wear a chaader or gown and properly cover themselves while entering or leaving the college. The students breaking this rule will be heavily fined."

The letter further said it was hoped that the parents would "help and support" the authorities and "make sure" the girls complied with the dress code.

Shireenzada, Registrar of University of Peshawar, acknowledged that traditional culture and security (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Pakistan/Chaaders_must_for_girls_in_Pak_university/articleshow/3448655.cms#) concerns were behind the move.

"Normally the girls also wear dupattas in their homes. Then why not in the departments where co-education exists? Therefore the university took a decision and we should not forget our Pakhtun culture," he told Dawn News channel.

The local culture was the "first priority and the second priority might be security", he said.

While it is common for women in the conservative northwestern region to be veiled, girl students of the 58-year-old university are critical of the move to enforce a dress code for them.

"The university should ensure the protection of female students. The implementation of a dress code is not the solution to the problem," said a student who identified herself only as Henna.

Some of the girl students said the university was giving into the demands of extremists. Many believe the university acted after receiving threatening letters from the Taliban. Others pointed out that the rule is discriminatory, saying there were no such directives for boys.

The website of the Jinnah College for Women, which was set up in 1964, states that the institution "aims at producing enlightened and progressive young women".

In recent months, the Pakistani Taliban have bombed dozens of girls' schools in the restive Swat valley of NWFP. The Taliban have warned girls to wear burqas while going to school and opposed co-education.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Pakistan/Chaaders_must_for_girls_in_Pak_university/articleshow/3448655.cms

[Invisigoth]

Yay, another psycho with a hand on the trigger. Lovely.

[VAMAN]

Mr. 10% is the new president of Pakistan. Nothing is going right for Pakistan.

[sikh_warrior]

Mr. 10% is the new president of Pakistan. Nothing is going right for Pakistan.

he is 100% now!

[D4ark]

Mr. 10% is the new president of Pakistan. Nothing is going right for Pakistan.
Mr.10% is to much.Call it 0.0000000000001%:)

[Jaguar]

New Pakistani president Asaf Ali Zardari will face the challenge of a struggling economy. The stock market has lost 40% of its value since last March, currency reserves are deplete, and high energy and food costs are hitting ordinary folk hard.


New Pakistan President Will Face `Struggling' Economy


Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan's Asif Ali Zardari is set to take over as president of a country with the world's riskiest debt, the weakest currency in its history and a stock market so depressed that the exchange ordered a freeze on price declines.

``I mean business and will pull Pakistan out of its present state of affairs,'' Zardari told the News newspaper after being elected Sept. 6 by Parliament where his Pakistan Peoples Party has a majority. While Zardari has pledged to continue a decade of economic liberalization, he has given no details.

Zardari's swearing-in tomorrow may end 18 months of government paralysis caused by his power struggles with former president Pervez Musharraf and ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whose Pakistan Muslim League is the second-largest party. International investors have fled a stock exchange that has nearly halved in value this year, the worst performance in Asia after China, as subsidies for food and fuel and record military spending widened the budget deficit to a 10-year high.

``The fiscal issue is the weakest link in the policy mix'' and ``the depletion of foreign exchange reserves is fairly worrying,'' said Sakib Sherani, Islamabad-based country economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland. Zardari, 52, ``won't have the luxury of dealing with them one by one; he will have to deal with a lot of challenges simultaneously,'' he said.

Interest Rates

Sharif met Zardari for the first time since their coalition split Aug. 25 and declined his request to rejoin the government, said Sharif's spokesman, Ahsan Iqbal. Still, the leaders agreed to ``work together in the spirit of democracy and as a show of mutual respect,'' Iqbal said. A thaw in their relations may let the government shift its focus to Pakistan's crises.

While the economy grew 7 percent annually over the previous five years, it slowed this year as the central bank raised interest rates to the highest in Asia to tackle inflation at a three-decade high. The rupee is down 20 percent, snapping four years of gains, and is on course for it worst year since at least 1998, when tit-for-tat nuclear tests with India last pushed the government to the brink of default.

The Karachi Stock Exchange imposed emergency trading limits on Aug. 28, preventing stocks from falling below their closing prices on Aug. 27, to halt a drop in shares that has dragged the index down by 32 percent this year. Those measures are scheduled to be reviewed tomorrow.

World's Riskiest

The nation's economic slide was underscored last month when the government's debt was judged to have become the world's riskiest, based on the price of protecting it through instruments called credit-default swaps. Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves fell to $9.13 billion last month, the lowest since 2002.

``Pakistan is seriously struggling,'' said David Chatterjee, who helps manage $112 billion of investments at Pictet Asset Management in London. ``Politics will remain an overhang even after the presidential election -- but more important is economics.''

Zardari's victory makes him the most powerful civilian ruler in a decade and gives his party unprecedented control over the legislative and executive branches of government. In the 1990s, both Sharif and Zardari's assassinated wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, ruled alongside cooperative presidents. They were forced from office amid corruption scandals and confrontations with the politically powerful military.

Under civilian governments, which have ruled Pakistan for less than half of its 61 years since independence from Britain, even ``strong configurations of power have failed to provide stability and good governance,'' said Talat Masood, an independent political analyst and former army general in Islamabad. Even when the military has retreated from direct rule, it has overshadowed civilian administrations, including on economic policies, he said.

Finance Ministers

The nationwide elections in February, won by Zardari's PPP and Sharif's PML faction, and subsequent fracturing of the coalition government meant Pakistan has had three finance ministers this year, hampering the government's efforts to forge economic policy.

In the country's main seaport and industrial center, Karachi, the decaying electrical system is shut down for most of the 15 million people for six to eight hours a day. The United Nations' World Food Programme said in April that as many as half of the 168 million Pakistanis were struggling to afford food.

Zardari ``should be ready to cut the government budget as a way to halt ``quite excessive'' borrowing that is helping drive inflation, said Sherani. While the army has retreated from its eight years of direct rule under Musharraf, it remains powerful and will resist reductions in its budget which forms more than 15 percent of government spending, he said.

Army Failed

The army has failed this year to block the spread of the insurgency by Taliban guerrillas in northwestern Pakistan, near the Afghan border. The death toll in their latest suicide bombing doubled to 33 yesterday as officials reported finding more bodies in the debris of shops outside the northwestern provincial capital, Peshawar.

``The big challenge is the economy,'' Sartaj Aziz, who served as foreign and finance ministers in Sharif's government, said in a Bloomberg Television interview today. ``The other challenge is to deal with extremism in border areas with Afghanistan.''

The stuttering economy has made Pakistan more reliant on overseas assistance to pay for military spending and cover the soaring costs of importing crude oil.

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obamatold Fox News on Sept. 5 he would hold Pakistan and its army accountable for U.S. aid to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Pakistan has misused some of the money for military preparations against its traditional rival, India, he said.

Republican nominee John McCain also has voiced doubts about Pakistan's counter-terrorism strategy under Musharraf. Neither candidate has advocated cutting U.S. aid, which at $10 billion over seven years has been a prop for Pakistan's economy.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=anXlBDVbho38&refer=home

[sikh_warrior]

tell something NEW about pakistan.....

[Jaguar]

US POV: New York Times Magazine extensive coverage about Pakistan, Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

So here was Namdar — Taliban chieftain, enforcer of Islamic law, usurper of the Pakistani government and trainer and facilitator of suicide bombers in Afghanistan — sitting at home, not three miles from Peshawar, untouched by the Pakistani military operation that was supposedly unfolding around us.

What’s going on? I asked the warlord. Why aren’t they coming for you?

“I cannot lie to you,” Namdar said, smiling at last. “The army comes in, and they fire at empty buildings. It is a drama — it is just to entertain.”

Entertain whom? I asked.

“America,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07pakistan-t.html?

[sikh_warrior]

http://203.199.70.234/RealMedia/ads/Creatives/default/empty.gif (http://203.199.70.234/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/www.timesofindia.com/Innovation/index.html/2122578737/Position1/default/empty.gif/35623439626233653438633534343930)China not comfortable with new Pak prez


BEIJING: China has signalled that it is not comfortable with the change of guard in Pakistan, which it has repeatedly described as a "all-weather friend for the past four decades".

The People's Daily , which is the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, has said that the new Pakistan president, Asif Ali Zardari, is facing severe domestic and diplomatic challenges that including keeping up Pakistan's relationship with the United States.

But surprisingly, the paper did not mention China's close relationship with Pakistan nor did it refer to the problems it is facing concerning its relationship with India. Even the latest decision on India by the Nuclear Suppliers Group has not been mentioned in the despatch sent by the People's Daily correspondent in Islamabad.

The "current security situation in Pakistan brooks no optimism. Armed militants, extremists and terrorists have been exceedingly active with the occurrence of widespread bombings, attempted assassinations, kidnappings and terrorists attacks in big cities," it said.

"For the United States, the engagement (with Pakistan) in the war on terror is a crucial, important yardstick or the criterion of testing an ally. Then, whether PPP, which has long been cited for its pro-United States stance, is able to go on winning the American support and trust, hinges, to a very great extent, on Pakistan's military cooperation in battling against terrorism when Zardari is at the actual helm of state power," it said.

It said Zardari is confronted with a range of tough, thorny issues such as those relating to the war on terror, Pakistan's relations with the US, the development of national economy and improvement of people's livelihoods. Former Pak president Pervez Musharraf was a "firm and staunch US ally in combating terrorism, (who) had all along obtained a powerful assistance and backing from the U.S”.

China was very comfortable in its dealings with Musharraf, who visited Beijing several times. It is now trying to find a new role in its relationship with the new leaders in Pakistan. But Beijing leaders were among the first to congratulate Zardari on his election.

"As a "frontline state" in the war against terrorism, Pakistan has played an indispensable role in the global war on terror since it is an ally of the United States in the war," it pointed out.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/China_uncomfortable_with_Prez_Zardari/articleshow/3459783.cms