June 12, 2007:
While the Pakistani economy has been growing since 2001, the country is
still very poor. Only about 20 percent of the population could be considered
middle-class. Only about a third of the population has access to clean water
(via pipes) and about half the population is illiterate. The poverty is
greatest in the tribal areas along the Afghan and Iranian borders. Political
corruption is rampant, and most political parties maintain armed militias or
street gangs. There's never been a stable government, and usual pattern is a
few years of military dictatorship, followed by a few years of corrupt
political parties pretending to be running the country, while stealing as much
as they can.
June 11, 2007:
In Kashmir, Indian border guards continue to confront Islamic terrorists
trying sneak across from Pakistan. Three were killed today, while elsewhere in
the area, Islamic terrorists killed three civilians.
June 10, 2007:
Pakistan will allow registered Afghan refugees to remain in Pakistan at
least until 2009. But the unregistered are going to be expelled, as will any
caught breaking the law. Pakistan would like all the Afghans gone, but Afghanistan
has convinced Pakistan that Taliban violence in southern Afghanistan makes this
unwise. Best to send Afghans back only as there are facilities to sustain them.
Indian police captured a Maoist camp in central India. Two rebels were killed,
and ammo and equipment captured.
June 9, 2007:
A team of Israeli counter-terror experts is meeting is meeting with
their local counter-parts in India, on how to deal with Islamic terrorism and
infiltration of terrorists across the border from Pakistan, in Kashmir. Israel
is becoming a major supplier of military equipment to India, with sales of $1.6
billion last year. Meanwhile, the joint terrorism taskforce established with
Pakistan has failed to work. Indian requests for information from Pakistan go
unanswered. Pakistani border guards arrested two German Moslems and a Central
Asian man, near the Iranian border. The men are suspected of belonging to al
Qaeda.
June 8, 2007:
Faced with growing unrest in the cities, the government rescinded media
restrictions it had imposed earlier in the week. In southwest Pakistan, a bomb
went off, killing at least three people.
June 6, 2007:
In the Pakistani border areas, the Taliban have threatened to attack
reconstruction projects, unless the mosques damaged in fighting with the army
last year, are repaired first. The
mosques were damaged when they were used as refuges for Taliban fighters and
storage for ammunition and weapons.