Expectations from Pakistan's Federal Budget 2012-13

As the present civilian government presents its fifth budget, will the general public experience any tangible benefits from one full term?

The present coalition government led by the Pakistan People’s Party will present the fifth and final budget of its parliamentary tenure. This is the first ever time a civilian government has been able to do so in Pakistan. The budget is expected to be presented in the National Assembly by the Finance Minister Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh in a charged atmosphere. There are expectations of clamour from the opposition for the dismissal of the Federal Cabinet and removal of the Prime Minister, after the latter’s ‘conviction’ by the Supreme Court. Based on past precedents, the opposition is also expected to make token references to inflation and corruption, and will give cogent amendments of which some could be incorporated into the final and consolidated Finance Bill for the upcoming fiscal year. 

In spite of the political opposition faced by the incumbent coalition government, Pakistan’s financial situation has barely improved in the last five years. The measures designed to arrest the economic decline have not yielded any substantial results. The incumbent government has continued to present pro-poor budgets, but has struggled to arrest the galloping inflationary trends and growing joblessness prevalent in the country. The energy crisis faced by Pakistan due to monetary mismanagement continues to thwart economic recovery and keeps on eroding the capacity of the existing economic institutions and units. The crisis of trust in Pakistan’s economy remains the most threatening element of the country’s financial woes. This is reflected in a tax base that continues to default on its dues to the state and in the trend of downward-spiraling values for the local and foreign investment in the Pakistani economy. 

Compounding these problems is the state of socioeconomic insecurity, perpetuated owing to militancy. This remains particularly true in the case of the KP province and the western tribal areas. Militant activities by extremists in other parts of the country also impact public security to a great degree, and curtail the civil freedoms that the Constitution of Pakistan provides to all citizens.

Read the complete policy brief at the Jinnah Institute website by clicking on the link above

Afghan officials: NATO air strike kills six children

arielnietzsche:

A NATO air strike killed a family of eight, including six children, when it hit their home in eastern Afghanistan, local officials said on Sunday.

Saturday night’s incident in Paktia province threatens to further sour already shaky ties between President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers and will likely enrage Afghan civilians weary of years of bloodshed.

“Eight people, a man, his wife and six of their children, are dead,” local government spokesman Rohullah Samoon told AFP.

“It was an air strike conducted by NATO. This man had no connection to the Taliban or any other terrorist group.”

A senior security official in Kabul confirmed the strike and deaths.

“It’s true. A house was bombed by NATO. A man named Mohammad Sahfee, his wife and six of their innocent children were brutally killed,” the official said.

A spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force(ISAF), Lt-Col Jimmie Cummings, said it was investigating the claim.

Civilian casualties are a highly sensitive issue in Afghanistan and have often roiled relations between Karzai and the United States, which leads NATO forces in the fight against Taliban insurgents.

Karzai, who signed a long-term strategic pact with President Barack Obama this month, argues that civilian deaths caused by allied troops turn common Afghans against his Western-backed government.

He has also warned that such casualties threaten the pact with the US, with his office saying that “if the lives of Afghans are not protected, the strategic partnership will lose its meaning”.

Karzai summoned ISAF commander General John Allen and US ambassador Ryan Crocker to the presidential palace just over two weeks ago after a number of civilians were killed in NATO air strikes.

NATO and US forces in Afghanistan admitted in a joint statement after the meeting that civilians had died in two separate hits.

The statement gave no details of how many civilians died in each of those incidents but local officials put the total at more than 20, including women and children.

“The president will be assured of our commitment to take any and all appropriate actions to minimise the likelihood of similar occurrences in the future,” the statement said.

The number of civilians killed in Afghanistan’s war has risen steadily each year for the past five years, reaching a record of 3,021 in 2011, the great majority caused by militants, according to UN statistics.

NATO has some 130,000 troops in Afghanistan, mostly from the United States, but they will withdraw by the end of 2014.

The latest civilian casualties come on top of a series of incidents this year that have rocked relations between the United States and its Afghan allies.

Videos and pictures have emerged of US forces abusing Taliban corpses, copies of the Koran were burnt on a major US military base and an American sergeant has been charged with 17 counts of murder over a massacre of civilians.

onlyinpakistan:

Nothing special, just a JF-17 fighter aircraft crossing the road…

:D

(via lipsandtits)

Obama administration quietly forms Internet surveillance unit

cognitivedissonance:

aheram:

CNET’s Declan McCullagh breaks this staggering news:

CNET has learned that the FBI has formed a Domestic Communications Assistance Center (DCAC), which is tasked with developing new electronic surveillance technologies, including Internet, wireless, and VoIP communications.

…

DCAC’s mandate is broad, covering everything from trying to intercept and decode Skype conversations to building custom wiretap hardware or analyzing the gigabytes of data that a wireless provider or social network might turn over in response to a court order. It’s also designed to serve as a kind of surveillance help desk for state, local, and other federal police.

The Celebrated Peace Laureate is watching.

So if I quit posting for more than a few days, you guys know what happened. 

mehreenkasana:

Pakistani Pride.

A doodle by Mehreen Kasana who talks about herself in third-person tone.

reuters:

Inside Syria: Escalating violence pushes country toward full-blown war 

Joshua Landis, director of the University of Oklahoma’s Center for Middle East Studies, tells Reuters TV that President Bashar al-Assad’s minority Alawite Shi’ite forces and the Sunni-led popular rebellion are on a collision course that could plunge the country into all-out war.

(via socialuprooting)