Pakistan

[LenaHuat]

MM,
Yes, it's really tragic. More so for those who survived him.

[kennynah]

but very real one such things...i just heard from my wife just 2 nights ago...


her relative side, quite a distant one, lost some 2 mil and made a bankrupt, very recently...duno if it is due to stocks investments....anyways, attempted suicide, but fortunately survived...

aiyo...what can be more important than life itself...bankrupt, then bankrupt lah...what's the big deal...certainly not big a deal enuf to take one's life...

sigh....

[millionairemind]

K - I think in Asia, bankruptcy is linked to big loss of face.. failure etc... that is y many adults cannot take it as our society has low tolerance for failing.. though it is changing now among the young...

Life is so precious. Just go and visit the children cancer ward in KK or the cancer ward in NUH and you will see ppe. struggling to live... Y give up your life so easily... sigh...

[LenaHuat]

Juz read GR's post abt the Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad and thought I'll reactivate this thread.
N Korea will be in slumber for a pretty long while whilst that potbellied vain Kim recovers from a stroke (maybe multiple for all we know). Pakistan is the biggest political threat to global stability. The whole govt will be holed up in secured houses and lose control over vast swathes of the country. It's scary how things are so quickly unraveling in Pakistan.

[LenaHuat]

Czech ambassador confirmed dead as more bodies are found at Marriott.

[millionairemind]

Not good for a country with nuclear power.

Pakistan reported nearing default, to seek IMF help

By Andria Cheng, MarketWatch
Last update: 11:42 a.m. EDT Oct. 19, 2008Comments: 74NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- After failing to get help from China, Pakistan may need to turn to the International Monetary Fund -- a politically unpopular move -- for cash to bolster its economy and avoid defaulting on its debt obligations, according to news reports Sunday.

The country, perceived as one of the world's riskiest borrowers, may need as much as $6 billion to boost its foreign-currency reserves, which fell more than 74% in the past year to about $4.3 billion, according to a Bloomberg News report.

The next interest payment for Pakistan on its dollar-denominated bonds is due in December, and the government is scheduled to repay $500 million in February on a 6.75% note, the report said.

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari returned from China late Friday failing to secure a cash commitment from its neighbor, the New York Times reported.

China had been seen as a last resort before Pakistan turns to the IMF, the Times report said. Saudi Arabia, another of the country's traditional ally, refused earlier to offer concessions on oil, it said.

Receiving help from IMF would be seen as humiliating for Zardari's government, which took office this year, as help from the world lender would require his government to cut spending and raise taxes, moves that Pakistan officials said could hurt the nation's poor, the report said.

[Niczach]

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan, Nov. 24 (Reuters) - U.S. drones fired at least three missiles into Pakistan's Waziristan tribal region on Friday, killing up to 12 people including five foreigners, government and paramilitary officials said.

The attack targeted a remote village on the border between North and South Waziristan in an area known as a hotbed of al Qaeda and Taliban support.

"We have reports that 12 people were killed, including five foreigners," a paramilitary official told Reuters by telephone from the area. (Reporting by Haji Mujtaba; Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Jerry Norton)

[millionairemind]

Pakistan Agrees to $7.6 Billion IMF Loan Program (Update3)

By Khalid Qayum

Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan reached an agreement in principle with the International Monetary Fund on a $7.6 billion loan package aimed at preventing the nation from defaulting on foreign debt and restoring investor confidence.

The loan ``will be used for the balance of payments and to build our foreign reserves,'' Shaukat Tarin, the de facto finance minister, said today at a televised news conference in Karachi.

Pakistan, a center in the war on terrorism, has been forced to seek IMF assistance after its foreign-exchange reserves shrank 75 percent in the past year to $3.5 billion last week, the equivalent of one month's imports, and a group of donor nations declined to provide funds. Hungary, Iceland and Ukraine also have negotiated IMF packages in recent weeks as the global economic crisis has radiated beyond the financial sector.

[winston]

Suspected US missiles kill 15 in Pakistan

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan : Missiles fired from suspected US drones slammed into militant dens in Pakistan's northwest tribal belt on Friday killing at least 15 people, including three children, officials said.

The strikes, which saw up to five missiles slam into two houses, were the first since US President Barack Obama took office and came one day after he appointed a veteran diplomat special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, The White House has refused to comment on Pakistani reports.

"As you know I am not going to comment on those matters," spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters despite being repeatedly pressed to discuss the reports.

Dozens of similar strikes on northwest Pakistan since August have sparked angry government criticism of the United States, a close ally which is believed to be launching the missiles from unmanned CIA aircraft.

Eight people died when missiles fired from an unmanned surveillance plane slammed into a fortress-like militant compound near a Mir Ali, a notorious Al-Qaeda hub in Pakistan's North Waziristan, security officials said.

Hours later a suspected US surveillance plane fired another two missiles into a house in Wana, another notorious Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremist hub, killing seven people in South Waziristan district, local officials said.

Although officials initially said most of the seven dead were foreigners -- a term that usually means Al-Qaeda -- a senior security official later told AFP that three children and relatives of the tribesman who owned the house died.

The first missile strike hit just outside Mir Ali, in North Waziristan at 5:10 pm (1210 GMT), a security official told AFP.

"A militant den was successfully destroyed. At least five foreign Al-Qaeda militants were killed and three locals, but there was no immediate confirmation of any high value target," a security official said.

Of the second strike in Wana, local and security officials said at least seven people were killed and dozens wounded.

"Two missiles fired by a suspected US drone hit a house in Wana," a senior security official told AFP, referring to the main town in South Waziristan district and a known hub of Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremists.

Soon after the blast in the Gangikhel neighbourhood of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, electricity went down and the area plunged into darkness, local officials said.

Wana, a known Taliban and Al Qaeda hub, is also the main stomping ground of Maulvi Nazir, a key Taliban commander accused by the United States of recruiting and sending fighters to Afghanistan to attack US and NATO forces.

Local officials said the target was a guest house owned by a local pro-Taliban tribesman. A senior security official said that as well as three children, the tribesman's relatives were killed in the blast.

Taliban militants immediately surrounded the site of the attack and barred locals from venturing close.

On Thursday, Obama said extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where US troops are fighting Taliban insurgents, posed a grave threat which his administration would tackle as a single problem under a wider strategy.

"There is no answer in Afghanistan that does not confront the Al-Qaeda and Taliban bases along the border, and there will be no lasting peace unless we expand spheres of opportunity for the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan," Obama said.

But Pakistan has repeatedly protested to Washington that drone strikes violate its territorial sovereignty and deepen resentment among the 160 million people of the nuclear-armed Islamic nation.

President Asif Ali Zardari and army chief General Ashfaq Kayani were quoted as telling top US General David Petraeus in Islamabad on Tuesday, that they hoped the Obama administration would take their concerns into consideration.

The US military as a rule does not confirm drone attacks but it and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operating in neighbouring Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy drones in the region.

US and Afghan officials have accused Pakistan of not doing enough to crack down on militants, who cross the border to attack US and NATO troops.

Pakistan rejects those accusations and more than 1,500 Pakistani troops have been killed at the hands of Islamist extremists since 2002, after the government joined the so-called war on terror.

- AFP /ls

[kennynah]

somehow....such "accidents" keep happening from time to time..and no one seem to bother...even the pakistani govt is not responding appropriately enough that her citizens are being murdered...