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fatman17
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Transparency wants Pakistan Army to supervise elections
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
ISLAMABAD: The Transparency International, the worldwide anti-corruption and human rights watchdog institution, has demanded that Pakistan Army should supervise the coming general elections in which electronic voting systems like those used in India and Brazil should be used.
In a letter to new Chief Election Commissioner Fakhurddin G Ebrahim, the TIP said on Monday the EC should install 140,000 web cameras in all 68,000 polling booths throughout the 272 constituencies which would cost about one billion rupees which could be easily raised through donations or a charge on candidates.
The TIP’s letter to the CEC says electoral rolls with photographs of voters should be given to all polling agents like in Bangladesh, and electronic voting like India and Brazil should be introduced.
But the most important of the six recommendations made by the TIP says the CEC should call upon the Pakistan Army as needed to be present both inside and outside the polling stations.It says the assets declared by all present parliamentarians and candidates in the next elections should be posted on the EC website.
The TIP agreed with CEC Fakhruddin Ebrahim that if fair and transparent elections were not held, it would be disastrous for the country.In a quick response to the TIP letter to the CEC, Secretary General of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Dr Arif Alvi, thanked the TIP for a very comprehensive letter to the Chief Election Commissioner which covers a lot of aspects of concern of all those who want a free and fair electoral process.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
ISLAMABAD: The Transparency International, the worldwide anti-corruption and human rights watchdog institution, has demanded that Pakistan Army should supervise the coming general elections in which electronic voting systems like those used in India and Brazil should be used.
In a letter to new Chief Election Commissioner Fakhurddin G Ebrahim, the TIP said on Monday the EC should install 140,000 web cameras in all 68,000 polling booths throughout the 272 constituencies which would cost about one billion rupees which could be easily raised through donations or a charge on candidates.
The TIP’s letter to the CEC says electoral rolls with photographs of voters should be given to all polling agents like in Bangladesh, and electronic voting like India and Brazil should be introduced.
But the most important of the six recommendations made by the TIP says the CEC should call upon the Pakistan Army as needed to be present both inside and outside the polling stations.It says the assets declared by all present parliamentarians and candidates in the next elections should be posted on the EC website.
The TIP agreed with CEC Fakhruddin Ebrahim that if fair and transparent elections were not held, it would be disastrous for the country.In a quick response to the TIP letter to the CEC, Secretary General of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Dr Arif Alvi, thanked the TIP for a very comprehensive letter to the Chief Election Commissioner which covers a lot of aspects of concern of all those who want a free and fair electoral process.
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Both the media and the politicians dont tire of blaming the Army for ills of Pakistan. Even today I head in an ARY TV talk program that Army remains power behind the seen; Executive doesnt have real power and that PPP has always been out of favour with the establishment (meaning Army).
As it is, PA has lost prestige after the Osama affair. We have been hearing about various Polls which predict a PTI tsunami. Besides, in Pakistan losing party never accepts defeat gracefully. I wouldnt want army to be blamed for rigging or failing to stop spurious votes by the losers.
IMO we should keep PA out of this. Army is there to defend the country not policing the elections.
As it is, PA has lost prestige after the Osama affair. We have been hearing about various Polls which predict a PTI tsunami. Besides, in Pakistan losing party never accepts defeat gracefully. I wouldnt want army to be blamed for rigging or failing to stop spurious votes by the losers.
IMO we should keep PA out of this. Army is there to defend the country not policing the elections.
fatman17
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quite agree but there is NO other organization in the country that can be relied upon to hold free and fair elections. even the new CEC stated that 'if everyone works honestly we can have free and fair elections' - even he knows its impossible to hold free and fair elections in this country - fake voter rolls, fake polling booths, corrupt election officials (esp in sindh). its a no win situation.
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even Tranparency International has made request that Pakistan Army play role to ensure free and fair elections -- guarding poll stations, ensuring no untoward incidents
that just shows that inside and outside of Pakistan there is a sense that vote rigging and fraud are still main concerns and that it's the Fauj that is key to ensuring stability and safety during election times (not that i'm advocating army rule)
it's a shame that the civilian governments --especially these old parties with their feudalistic baggage -- consistently screw things up and lead the nation astray.
p.s. source:
Transparency wants Pakistan Army to supervise elections - thenews.com.pk
that just shows that inside and outside of Pakistan there is a sense that vote rigging and fraud are still main concerns and that it's the Fauj that is key to ensuring stability and safety during election times (not that i'm advocating army rule)
it's a shame that the civilian governments --especially these old parties with their feudalistic baggage -- consistently screw things up and lead the nation astray.
p.s. source:
Transparency wants Pakistan Army to supervise elections - thenews.com.pk
fatman17
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Pakistan’s New Spy Chief Visits Washington at a Time of Frayed Relations
By DECLAN WALSH and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: July 31, 2012
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — As befits any newly installed spymaster, a vague air of mystery surrounds Lt. Gen. Zahir ul-Islam, the head of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, who is visiting Washington in his official capacity for the first time on Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Zahir ul-Islam, the new head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, is visiting Washington.
The new chief of Pakistan's intelligence agency will meet with officials including David H. Petraeus, the C.I.A. director.
Beyond the bare details of his résumé, American officials acknowledge they know little of General Islam, a tall man in his 50s with a flop of black hair, except that he comes across as taciturn, thoughtful and passionate about sports.
His first trip to the United States in 1984, he fondly told one American official recently, was to attend the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. A decade later, while attending a course at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., he adapted his cricket skills for use on a local baseball team.
“He seemed to be saying, ‘Look, I can master your sport, too,’ ” the official noted, speaking on condition of anonymity because it was a private conversation.
Common ground may be harder to find, though, when General Islam meets with American officials, including David H. Petraeus, the Central Intelligence Agency director, at a time of American frustration and distrust toward the ISI.
Relations between Pakistani and American spies reached a low point in the past year after a series of contentious episodes, including the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the shooting of two Pakistanis by a C.I.A. contractor, Raymond A. Davis, and continuing accusations that the ISI is shielding Islamist militants.
From Wednesday, Mr. Petraeus and General Islam will seek to rebuild a counterterrorism relationship that has severely frayed, Pakistani and American officials said.
“Petraeus will try to forge a relationship with him,” one senior Obama administration official said. “We’ve got business to do. Let’s get on with it.”
Since his appointment to Pakistan’s pre-eminent intelligence post in March, General Islam has maintained a conspicuously low profile in Pakistan. After being featured in a handful of newspaper articles filled with starchy compliments typically reserved for powerful generals, he largely disappeared from view —by most accounts, a deliberate strategy.
Long feared as a blunt instrument of army power, the ISI has undergone unusual turmoil over the past 12 months. The Bin Laden raid, which took place under the ISI’s nose, dented its prestige among the public and, equally important, inside the army. The killing of an investigative journalist, Syed Saleem Shahzad, widely viewed as an ISI job, brought international condemnation.
In politics, General Islam’s predecessor, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, had became embroiled in a political crisis that at one point threatened to bring down President Asif Ali Zardari’s government.
And the Supreme Court, headed by a strong-willed judge, has raised difficult questions about the ISI role in numerous human rights violations, including extrajudicial executions, and a multimillion-dollar election-rigging campaign that the agency ran in the early 1990s.
“There’s been a lot of commotion,” said Kamran Bokhari, an analyst with the research group Stratfor. “So now it makes sense for General Islam to pull back, reassess, see where things are going.”
In contrast with General Pasha, who was known for his sharp-tongued, sometimes impassioned private outbursts, General Islam is described as a low-profile operator, happy to take a back seat in meetings. “He is cool as a cucumber,” said a serving ISI officer, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But he has maintained General Pasha’s short rein on C.I.A. activities in Pakistan.
One senior American official says the ISI now treats its American counterparts with deep hostility. C.I.A. visas are frequently refused, and its officials are periodically stopped and searched. Meanwhile, Pakistani employees of the American Embassy and consulates have come under intense intimidation: subjected to strip searches, kept in prison for weeks, induced to “turn” against America, and sometimes threatened with weapons, the official said.
“It’s Moscow rules,” he said. “The ISI has become very K.G.B.-like — but without the restraint.”
A senior ISI official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied such accusations, and blamed the C.I.A. for souring a once-close relationship through displays of arrogance. During the January 2011 controversy over Mr. Davis, General Pasha was furious that the former C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, had initially denied that Mr. Davis worked for the agency.
Last summer the previous C.I.A. station chief, who had stormy relations with General Pasha, left his post after just five months, ostensibly for health reasons. He has since been replaced with an undercover officer who officials from both sides say is more open to strengthening the C.I.A.’s relationship with the ISI.
In his talks in Washington, the ISI official said, General Islam will press the C.I.A. to stop its drone strike campaign in the tribal belt. Instead, he will propose that the United States upgrade Pakistan’s fleet of F-16 warplanes so that it can do the same job — a proposal one Washington official called a “nonstarter.”
General Islam will also request American help in halting cross-border incursions by the Pakistani Taliban from their bases in Afghanistan — a growing Pakistani concern that last week caused testy exchanges between Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Sherry Rehman, and a senior Obama administration official at a conference in Colorado.
General Islam has a strong military pedigree, and many analysts see him as a favorite to succeed the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, when he steps down in late 2013.
He hails from a stout military clan in the army’s Punjabi heartland: his father and brothers were officers, while two uncles retired as three-star generals. Unusually for an ISI chief, he has experience in espionage: Between 2008 and 2010 he ran the ISI’s internal wing, which oversees security inside Pakistan.
For Americans, however, it is General Islam’s attitude toward the situation in Afghanistan that is the most pressing unknown.
With more than 100,000 NATO troops due to leave by the end of 2014, Pakistani help in blunting the insurgency is necessary. American officials worry particularly about ISI links to the Haqqani network, a militant group that straddles the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
ISI help is also considered important for any possible peace talks with the insurgents.
But until now, General Islam’s career has been focused to the east, on Pakistan’s archrival, India. Before his ISI postings, he fought in the mountains of Kashmir and commanded an army corps in Karachi.
“A lot hinges on this man,” one American official said. “And we just don’t know anything about him.”
Declan Walsh reported from Islamabad, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington and Islamabad. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, and Salman Masood from Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
By DECLAN WALSH and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: July 31, 2012
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — As befits any newly installed spymaster, a vague air of mystery surrounds Lt. Gen. Zahir ul-Islam, the head of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, who is visiting Washington in his official capacity for the first time on Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Zahir ul-Islam, the new head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, is visiting Washington.
The new chief of Pakistan's intelligence agency will meet with officials including David H. Petraeus, the C.I.A. director.
Beyond the bare details of his résumé, American officials acknowledge they know little of General Islam, a tall man in his 50s with a flop of black hair, except that he comes across as taciturn, thoughtful and passionate about sports.
His first trip to the United States in 1984, he fondly told one American official recently, was to attend the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. A decade later, while attending a course at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., he adapted his cricket skills for use on a local baseball team.
“He seemed to be saying, ‘Look, I can master your sport, too,’ ” the official noted, speaking on condition of anonymity because it was a private conversation.
Common ground may be harder to find, though, when General Islam meets with American officials, including David H. Petraeus, the Central Intelligence Agency director, at a time of American frustration and distrust toward the ISI.
Relations between Pakistani and American spies reached a low point in the past year after a series of contentious episodes, including the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the shooting of two Pakistanis by a C.I.A. contractor, Raymond A. Davis, and continuing accusations that the ISI is shielding Islamist militants.
From Wednesday, Mr. Petraeus and General Islam will seek to rebuild a counterterrorism relationship that has severely frayed, Pakistani and American officials said.
“Petraeus will try to forge a relationship with him,” one senior Obama administration official said. “We’ve got business to do. Let’s get on with it.”
Since his appointment to Pakistan’s pre-eminent intelligence post in March, General Islam has maintained a conspicuously low profile in Pakistan. After being featured in a handful of newspaper articles filled with starchy compliments typically reserved for powerful generals, he largely disappeared from view —by most accounts, a deliberate strategy.
Long feared as a blunt instrument of army power, the ISI has undergone unusual turmoil over the past 12 months. The Bin Laden raid, which took place under the ISI’s nose, dented its prestige among the public and, equally important, inside the army. The killing of an investigative journalist, Syed Saleem Shahzad, widely viewed as an ISI job, brought international condemnation.
In politics, General Islam’s predecessor, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, had became embroiled in a political crisis that at one point threatened to bring down President Asif Ali Zardari’s government.
And the Supreme Court, headed by a strong-willed judge, has raised difficult questions about the ISI role in numerous human rights violations, including extrajudicial executions, and a multimillion-dollar election-rigging campaign that the agency ran in the early 1990s.
“There’s been a lot of commotion,” said Kamran Bokhari, an analyst with the research group Stratfor. “So now it makes sense for General Islam to pull back, reassess, see where things are going.”
In contrast with General Pasha, who was known for his sharp-tongued, sometimes impassioned private outbursts, General Islam is described as a low-profile operator, happy to take a back seat in meetings. “He is cool as a cucumber,” said a serving ISI officer, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But he has maintained General Pasha’s short rein on C.I.A. activities in Pakistan.
One senior American official says the ISI now treats its American counterparts with deep hostility. C.I.A. visas are frequently refused, and its officials are periodically stopped and searched. Meanwhile, Pakistani employees of the American Embassy and consulates have come under intense intimidation: subjected to strip searches, kept in prison for weeks, induced to “turn” against America, and sometimes threatened with weapons, the official said.
“It’s Moscow rules,” he said. “The ISI has become very K.G.B.-like — but without the restraint.”
A senior ISI official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied such accusations, and blamed the C.I.A. for souring a once-close relationship through displays of arrogance. During the January 2011 controversy over Mr. Davis, General Pasha was furious that the former C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, had initially denied that Mr. Davis worked for the agency.
Last summer the previous C.I.A. station chief, who had stormy relations with General Pasha, left his post after just five months, ostensibly for health reasons. He has since been replaced with an undercover officer who officials from both sides say is more open to strengthening the C.I.A.’s relationship with the ISI.
In his talks in Washington, the ISI official said, General Islam will press the C.I.A. to stop its drone strike campaign in the tribal belt. Instead, he will propose that the United States upgrade Pakistan’s fleet of F-16 warplanes so that it can do the same job — a proposal one Washington official called a “nonstarter.”
General Islam will also request American help in halting cross-border incursions by the Pakistani Taliban from their bases in Afghanistan — a growing Pakistani concern that last week caused testy exchanges between Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Sherry Rehman, and a senior Obama administration official at a conference in Colorado.
General Islam has a strong military pedigree, and many analysts see him as a favorite to succeed the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, when he steps down in late 2013.
He hails from a stout military clan in the army’s Punjabi heartland: his father and brothers were officers, while two uncles retired as three-star generals. Unusually for an ISI chief, he has experience in espionage: Between 2008 and 2010 he ran the ISI’s internal wing, which oversees security inside Pakistan.
For Americans, however, it is General Islam’s attitude toward the situation in Afghanistan that is the most pressing unknown.
With more than 100,000 NATO troops due to leave by the end of 2014, Pakistani help in blunting the insurgency is necessary. American officials worry particularly about ISI links to the Haqqani network, a militant group that straddles the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
ISI help is also considered important for any possible peace talks with the insurgents.
But until now, General Islam’s career has been focused to the east, on Pakistan’s archrival, India. Before his ISI postings, he fought in the mountains of Kashmir and commanded an army corps in Karachi.
“A lot hinges on this man,” one American official said. “And we just don’t know anything about him.”
Declan Walsh reported from Islamabad, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington and Islamabad. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, and Salman Masood from Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
fatman17
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the good general is in a new post - automatic 3 years!
fatman17
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Slow down in US arms sales to Pakistan
Pakistan Today.
WASHINGTON - Pakistan has received $7.9 billion worth of military equipment from the US since 2001, but the low ebb in bilateral ties during recent months has slowed down the pace of American arms sales to the country, a latest Congressional report has said.
In its latest report, the independent Congressional Research Service (CRS) informed US lawmakers that major arms sales and grants to Pakistan since 2001 have included items useful for counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations, along with a number of big ticket platforms more suited to conventional warfare.
"In dollar value terms, the bulk of purchases have been made with Pakistani national funds, but US grants have eclipsed these in recent years.” said the CRS, which is an independent research wing of the US Congress.
The Pentagon reports total Foreign Military Sales agreements with Pakistan worth about USD 5.4 billion for Financial Year 2002-2010 (in-process sales of F-16 combat aircraft and related equipment account for about half of this). In addition, the US has provided Pakistan with nearly USD 2.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) since 2001.
These funds are used to purchase US military equipment for longer-term modernization efforts. Pakistan has also been granted US defense supplies as Excess Defense Articles (EDA).
"Major discord in the US-Pakistan bilateral relationship beginning mid-FY 2011 has slowed the pace of transfers and deliveries considerably." the report said.
Pakistan Today.
WASHINGTON - Pakistan has received $7.9 billion worth of military equipment from the US since 2001, but the low ebb in bilateral ties during recent months has slowed down the pace of American arms sales to the country, a latest Congressional report has said.
In its latest report, the independent Congressional Research Service (CRS) informed US lawmakers that major arms sales and grants to Pakistan since 2001 have included items useful for counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations, along with a number of big ticket platforms more suited to conventional warfare.
"In dollar value terms, the bulk of purchases have been made with Pakistani national funds, but US grants have eclipsed these in recent years.” said the CRS, which is an independent research wing of the US Congress.
The Pentagon reports total Foreign Military Sales agreements with Pakistan worth about USD 5.4 billion for Financial Year 2002-2010 (in-process sales of F-16 combat aircraft and related equipment account for about half of this). In addition, the US has provided Pakistan with nearly USD 2.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) since 2001.
These funds are used to purchase US military equipment for longer-term modernization efforts. Pakistan has also been granted US defense supplies as Excess Defense Articles (EDA).
"Major discord in the US-Pakistan bilateral relationship beginning mid-FY 2011 has slowed the pace of transfers and deliveries considerably." the report said.
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fatman17
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Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Swat peace jirga vows to support Pak Army against terrorism
MINGORA: Nepki Khel Peace Jirga has decided to form new strategy for combating terrorism in Swat District and expressed the resolve to stand side by side with Pakistan Army for the maintenance of peace. The head of peace jirga, Saifullah Khan, stated this while addressing a jirga at Kabal on Tuesday. He maintained that the peace jirga had no political motive and its prime objective was to eliminate terrorism and establishment of peace in the district. Khan vowed that their Jihad against terrorism would continue unabated and a new strategy would be followed after Eidul Fitr to counter the menace. app
Swat peace jirga vows to support Pak Army against terrorism
MINGORA: Nepki Khel Peace Jirga has decided to form new strategy for combating terrorism in Swat District and expressed the resolve to stand side by side with Pakistan Army for the maintenance of peace. The head of peace jirga, Saifullah Khan, stated this while addressing a jirga at Kabal on Tuesday. He maintained that the peace jirga had no political motive and its prime objective was to eliminate terrorism and establishment of peace in the district. Khan vowed that their Jihad against terrorism would continue unabated and a new strategy would be followed after Eidul Fitr to counter the menace. app
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