The Quest for American Popularity in Pakistan

re#243 by pokershark
Looks like u, tahmed, faisaluno have all been eating grass in a joint.
I thought tahmed was more sober but then a paki is a paki even if he lives in US.
Think of the India`s problems this way:
If despite so many problems that India has (that u and faisaluno have pointed out in your posts), India is being recongnized as a global player by none other than US, then what would India be in say 20 or 30 years when it would have grown much bigger economically and those problems would be much less conspicous.
Indians are talking about India`s potential and what it would be in future. Everyone is aware that India has much to accomplish.
Sridhar

If so why are you all over the place with your begging bowl out?
Why are servant pakis (after getting paid in billions of dollars for
your crawling duties) still eating out of the hands of your white masters?
Puki beggardom will not last for a few weeks unless the infidel
christians throw some crumbs at you which you eagerly beg and eat out.

#265
At least two Pakistanis on this thread have explicitly called for more attacks in India but no outrage is felt about that- a Pakistani calling for violence is like the sun rising every morning. If Pakistanis didn`t think that they alone have the sole monopoly on violence, this world would be a very different place.

#264
``you called for indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets like schools, hospitals and colleges in the state of Pakistan? ``

Being a friend of Farzana Versey doesn`t give you the right to fabricate vicious lies about chowk posters. Keep that in mind.

what i mean is pakistan junta has gotten all kinds of moolah in this war of terror..this is nothing compared to 25 million. so if you strictly follow the money, it makes sense to protect the chicken that lays golden eggs.

Mantolies
[I condemn all terrorists... ]

The typical refrain of a paki. ``I condemn all terrorists... except the ones that hurt India``. Now get ready for your balls to be chewed by the same paki terrorists. Nobody in the world has any sympathy for you. There are no civilians in Islam are there? Everyone is supposed to be an exemplary follower of the medieval militant himself dont they? And live their lives by the book that advocates extreme violence (with ``peace`` thrown in here & there like some random bits of pepperoni).

The meaning of pakistan really is ``a terrorist sanctuary``. May your own monsters now feed mercilessly on you.

Sadna...

Please inform everyone of your state of mind when you called for indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets like schools, hospitals and colleges in the state of Pakistan?

I condemn all terrorists... including you- who probably funds extreme Hindu terror groups same way your opposite number Urstruly funds extreme Islamist groups.

jang #259
Yup that is warlordism on an international scale. It is amazing how profitable it is for a nuclear-armed nation to be allied to people burning down children`s schools.

#260 by Mantolives

[Since Injuns here are always looking for their Amrikan masters` approval:]

Is that why they say `America, Army, and Allah` call the shots in Pakistan, while the Americans bend over backwards to offer a nuclear deal to India? How very smart of you!

#259 by jang

[sell taliban make 25 million..dont sell but milk taliban make 3 billion..you do the math]

If Osama is betrayed, one guy makes $50 million but if he isn`t, an entire tribe (or village) makes many times over that for a long time to come.

Since Injuns here are always looking for their Amrikan masters` approval :


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11902379/site/newsweek/

PROMISE IN PAKISTAN

By Ron Moreau
Newsweek International
March 27, 2006 issue - In the late 1990s Lahore-based businessman Iqbal Ahmed was depressed. Pakistan was isolated internationally and in the grip of a deep recession, and his modest, liquefied-petroleum-gas operation didn`t seem to be going anywhere. ``I used to get up and say, `What the hell, it`s another day`,`` he recalls. ``Now I can`t wait for the day to begin. I see a very bright future

Ahmed has good reason to be optimistic. Two years ago he signed a deal with Houston`s Hanover Energy Co. that has helped transform his LPG extraction plant into the largest and most efficient in Pakistan, with revenues last year of $130 million. Backed by several international investors, Ahmed has bid some $400 million to buy a controlling interest in Southern Sui Gas, one of two state-owned gas production and distribution companies that are being privatized. And he recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Excelerate Energy of Houston to import liquefied natural gas into Pakistan in supertankers. ``We`re enjoying a sea change in economic conditions and opportunities,`` says Ahmed, 60. ``Pakistan is open for business.``

The proof is in the numbers. Last year the country`s GDP growth rate hit 8.4 percent, the world`s second highest behind China, following two years of solid 6 percent growth. This year the economy is predicted to expand by nearly 7 percent. After years of instability, with the government and military trying to distract people from their economic woes by waging jihad in Kashmir and railing against neighboring India, a true middle class is now developing. Economic reforms have given the government money to invest in health and education, and foreign investors are eying Pakistan for the first time. In many ways the country has become the world`s most surprising economic success story.

It`s a heady turnaround for a nation that, in the late 1990s, was practically a failed state with near-zero GDP growth. Because of its headlong pursuit of nuclear weapons, Pakistan had become the world`s most sanctioned nation after Libya. International aid had dried up. The government was forced to borrow at exorbitant short-term rates, burdening the country with a crushing $38 billion debt. ``We were in a real soup when [Gen. Pervez] Musharraf took over,`` says Ziauddin (he uses only one name), the Islamabad editor of the Dawn newspaper.

One of Musharraf`s first and smartest moves after his 1999 coup was to appoint Shaukat Aziz, a dapper and urbane international banker, as his economic czar, and to give him a free hand to revive the economy. But what really turned the country`s fortunes around was September 11. ``The 9/11 attack was the best thing that ever happened to Pakistan,`` says Lahore-based businessman Salmaan Taseer. The United States and Europe immediately lifted all sanctions; Washington gave Pakistan $600 million outright to meet urgent debt payments, and forgave another $1.5 billion in debt. Working with Aziz, America and other creditor nations also rescheduled Pakistan`s heavy debt over a manageable 30 to 35 years. In 2004, the United States pledged $3 billion in economic and military assistance over the next five years, in addition to $100 million for education reform. The EU pitched in, lifting quota restrictions on Pakistan`s main export, textiles.


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Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Restoring Pakistan`s Economy



At the same time, Aziz, who is now prime minister, began enacting a series of common-sense economic reforms. They focused on boosting fiscal discipline, government transparency and accountability. He quickly cut the budget deficit from 8 percent to 4 percent by slashing spending, and lowered interest rates. Since 2002, he has increased tax revenues by 20 percent. He also instituted a sweeping privatization program that has won kudos from both domestic and foreign investors. State-owned companies in numerous industries¡ªbanking, cement, fertilizer, utilities¡ªhave been sold off, as has a chunk of the state`s inefficient telecom giant, PTCL.


The newly privatized and cash-flush banks have been on a lending spree, extending loans to capital-starved domestic businessmen and to the Pakistani middle class, which until 2002 had little access to consumer credit. People have snapped up credit cards, and are buying cars and other big-ticket products with easy-credit bank loans. ``This is the best government we`ve had in the past 30 years,`` says prominent Lahore businessman Syed Babar Ali, who heads some of the country`s biggest joint-venture companies, including Coca-Cola and Nestl¨¦.

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Foreign investors have been flocking to Pakistan to bid on privatizations and on licenses in the newly opened telecom sector. The sale of two cellular-phone licenses (won by U.A.E. and Norwegian companies) netted the government nearly $600 million. It`s a good investment as Pakistan, with 24 million cell-phone users, is now the world`s fastest-growing wireless market after China. Indeed, Pakistan is expected to receive upwards of $3 billion in foreign investment this year, largely in telecom and gas and oil exploration. The Karachi Stock Exchange recently hit a record high.

Bullish domestic investors, too, are snapping up telecom licenses and state assets. Businessman Taseer raised $40 million from Pakistani banks and $25 million from a U.S. venture-capital company in two months as part of his successful bid for a wireless license. He is also building a 350-room Hyatt hotel and shopping-mall complex in Lahore with $40 million in debt and equity that he organized from domestic banks and investors in just six weeks. ``This would have been inconceivable before,`` says Taseer, 50, a cigar-smoking tycoon who publishes the Daily Times newspaper and is constructing Lahore`s tallest office building. ``Not long ago, we would have waited at least three years to get a loan from an international bank. In the last two years there has been more economic activity in Pakistan than in the past 50.``

Even Pakistan`s nascent technology sector¡ªdwarfed by India`s¡ªseems to be taking off. Salim Ghauri, the CEO of Lahore-based NetSol Technologies, says his company`s software revenues this year are expected to jump to $19 million, compared with last year`s $11 million. DaimlerChrysler uses Ghauri`s LeaseSoft auto-leasing and financing software in its operations in eight Asian countries, and Toyota uses it in Thailand and China. ``We are competing with the best in the world, and we are coming out on top,`` says Ghauri, 51, who set up NetSol in 1996 after he returned from working as an IT consultant in Australia.

Still, all is not rosy. Pakistan must modernize its creaky infrastructure, further improve tax collection and, most important, normalize economic relations with India. Government critics say the current boom is not benefiting the country`s poorest citizens, who make up more than one third of its 160 million people. ``The rich have become very rich since 9/11, and the middle class is better off, but not the mass of Pakistanis,`` says Dawn`s Ziauddin. Aziz counters that a recent government-sponsored survey indicates that the country`s heady growth has reduced the number of Pakistanis living below the poverty line from one third to a quarter of the population (interview).

Some bankers and economists warn that the economy is dangerously overheating, due to unsustainable consumer demand and easy credit to both industrialists and consumers. Aziz and the government dismiss the concern¡ªbut consumers and the private sector have borrowed more money from the banks in the past two years than they had in the previous 12. Critics argue that growth-spawned inflation, which hit a high of 11 percent one year ago and is running this year at 8.5 percent, is a big reason the poor are not benefiting from the boom. ``Inflation is clearly eroding the purchasing power of the poor,`` says a foreign banker in Islamabad. This year the price of sugar is up by 26 percent; wheat and potatoes, by 15 percent.


RELATED ARTICLE
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Restoring Pakistan`s Economy



According to the foreign banker, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of his comments, ``The government is running the [economy] like it`s heading for elections.`` True: President Musharraf and Aziz areeying the crucial 2007 parliamentary elections. Organized political opposition to Musharraf is rising, and he and Aziz are hoping that an economic resurgence will persuade average voters to return them to power for another five years. That`s what most businessmen are hoping for, too. But if the rewards of the boom don`t start trickling down, the country`s runaway growth could ironically prove to be the government`s undoing.

sell taliban make 25 million..dont sell but milk taliban make 3 billion..you do the math

pokershark: Trust me. ve haf vays of makeeng people talk...... :-)

The Pashtuns of Afghanistan sold out the Taliban in the US war in 2001, didn`t even put up a fight once Mazar i Sharif fell and crossed sides within the space of a few more weeks. Some such sign of immutable force has to be shown by Al Qaeda hunters, currently Taliban sympathisers seem to be unchallenged in the Pakistani tribal areas.

#253 by arjun_m / #252 by jang

Perhaps Jang is right. The Pashtuns are not selling. The Pashtuns didn`t sell out Aimal Kansi either till he fell for a hunting lure by the Legharis of Dera Ghazi Khan and was captured. He was safe till he was in the protection of the tribals.

Richard C Holbrooke, US ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration:

``I predict he will succeed with the Congressional group on the nuclear deal``
``It is my prediction, my absolute prediction, that Congress will approve the deal.``

``Congress will approve the deal for three reasons. First, India is an important country in the world. Second, they will approve it because the President will say it is in the national security interest of the United States. Third, the Indian-American community is becoming more and more influential. They will support the deal and they have influence in both (Democratic and Republican) parties.``