American special forces have conducted multiple clandestine raids into Pakistan’s tribal areas as part of a secret war in the border region where Washington is pressing to expand its drone assassination programme.
A former Nato officer said the incursions, only one of which has been previously reported, occurred between 2003 and 2008, involved helicopter-borne elite soldiers stealing across the border at night, and were never declared to the Pakistani government.
“The Pakistanis were kept entirely in the dark about it. It was one of those things we wouldn’t confirm officially with them,” said the source, who had detailed knowledge of the operations.
Such operations are a matter of sensitivity in Pakistan. While public opinion has grudgingly tolerated CIA-led drone strikes in the tribal areas, any hint of American “boots on the ground” is greeted with virulent condemnation.
After the only publicly acknowledged special forces raid in September 2008, Pakistan’s foreign office condemned it as “a grave provocation” while the military threatened retaliatory action.
via US forces mounted secret Pakistan raids in hunt for al-Qaida | World news | The Guardian.
Policy wonks and deficit hawks weren’t the only ones paying attention when President Obama signed the Fiscal Year 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act last week. HIV activists, public health experts and communities of drug users celebrated–not for what’s in the appropriations bill, but for what’s not in it: a ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs, which has appeared in the federal budget every year since 1988.
After two decades, this change is a historic achievement. Obama had already missed one opportunity to lift the ban, neglecting to pull it out of his budget in May. Still, that same month former Seattle chief of police Gil Kerlikowske was sworn in as the director of national drug control policy, calling for a new common-sense approach to drug addiction. When the drug czar calls for an end to the war on drugs, it’s clearly the start of a new era.
Unlike during the Clinton administration, when there was only mixed support for needle exchange–in 1998, drug czar Barry McCaffrey convinced Bill Clinton to renege on his stated intention to lift the ban–all of the top brass in the Obama administration are on record in favor. Kerlikowske supported Seattle’s program of exchanging needles. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and CDC Director Tom Frieden both served as New York City Health Commissioner, and both used that position to actively promote needle exchange. Still, drug policy watchers agreed that the president didn’t want to force the question of needle exchange on members of Congress. The White House was “concerned about making sure that when Congress deals with the issue, that they can win it,” says Harm Reduction Coalition Policy Director Daniel Raymond.
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ISLAMABAD: Acting Attorney General Shah Khaver presented National Accountability Bureau (NAB) report regarding Swiss banks accounts to the Supreme Court (SC), Geo News reported Tuesday.
According to the NAB reports, there are at least six foreign bank accounts maintained by President Asif Ali Zardari and Benazir Bhutto. There are at least 13,113,000 dollars in these foreign bank accounts.
There are at least 46,343,353 dollars in the accounts of 5 companies owned by President Zardari and a company of Benazir Bhutto.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) also presented to the apex court all the record from Geneva court in connection with the Swiss cases.
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s counsel Ashtar Ausaf supported the arguments put forward by Abdul Hafeez in the court.
Acting AG said this is not an opportune time for allowing any upheaval to take place. On this, Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday said stemming the crimes do not pave the way for any upheaval. Read more…
By Muhammad Saleh Zaafir
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has decided to dissolve the federal cabinet next week and the new cabinet would be formed after consultations with respective leaders of the ruling alliance.
The new cabinet will consist of about 15 members in the first phase while the expansion process will continue subsequently. All the ministers, ministers of state, special assistants and advisers will cease to stay in their offices immediately after the announcement regarding the dissolution of the cabinet.
Sources told The News on Friday that an ultimate policy pertaining to the formation of new cabinet and timings of the dissolution of the incumbent cabinet would be worked out at the highest-level consultations within two days.
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has convened a high- level meeting of his constitutional experts and senior officials of the federal ministry of Law and Justice today (Saturday) at the PM House, where the overall legal matters would be discussed threadbare and the government’s line of action would be determined vis-a-vis cases before the judiciary directly relating to the shape of the government and its officials.
Prime Minister Gilani sent a message to the members of the federal cabinet to be prepared for stepping down any time since he had made up his mind to bring about major changes in the structure of the administration. Read more…
Hugh Tomlinson and James McLean
Times Online
The engine of the black Corvette revved to a gasket-popping roar. Its driver leant out of his window. He was dressed in traditional Arab robes but wore a rubber wizard’s mask. He held an aerosol aloft and directed a jet of party foam into the air. Four-wheel drives plastered in pictures of Dubai’s Royal Family roared their engines back in approval. The cacophony was deafening.
On the opposite carriageway smoke billowed from the spinning back wheels of a new Land Cruiser as the driver pressed the brakes and floored the accelerator. This was the favourite way for many of the fervently patriotic and car crazy Emiratis to mark National Day in Dubai this week, the 38th anniversary of the founding of the United Arab Emirates, and one of the biggest celebrations of the year.
A mile away at the new Marina Yacht Club, Western expats were also working their way into a party mood. Deferential Filipino staff served a foamy lobster broth as an amuse bouche between courses. Beer and cocktails loosened tongues and a knot of dancers formed in front of the band. Tens of millions of pounds worth of powerboats bobbed at their moorings beneath the revelry on the terrace. Behind the boats a dozen skyscrapers framed the view, a few of the lights in their thousands of flats were on. “It’s so beautiful here,” said a pretty young Anglo-Indian woman clutching a large glass of chilled white wine and taking in the scene.
Welcome to the modern equivalent of the last days of Rome. The failure of Dubai World, one of the Emirate’s flagship companies, to honour a debt due last month has rocked this city state to its foundations. By any conventional logic Dubai is now a busted flush. Read more…
GENEVA: Pakistani High Commissioner in Britain Wajid Shamsul Hasan headed a secret operation in Geneva and received at least 12 cartons comprising the original documents and evidences against some Pakistani high-ups in Swiss money laundering case, Geo News reported Tuesday.
According to Geo News correspondent, the Prosecutor General of Pakistan in Geneva deposited these cartons in the era of former President Pervez Musharraf.
The sources said the secret operation was carried out at the bidding of a top personality of Pakistan, as these evidences could be used if Swiss Money Laundering case is reopened after the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) terms comes to an end.
The sources at Pakistan embassy said if the concerned officials or the courts do not interfere by taking the evidences back from Wajid, then these documents would be wasted for good. Read more…
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, “snatch and grabs” of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.
The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater’s involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so “compartmentalized” that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.
Story Via The Nation.com.
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