Pakistani's President Asif Ali Zardari, asked on NBC's 'Meet the Press' program where Osama bin Laden was, told the interviewer, "You'll have been there for eight years. (So) You tell me.You lost him in Tora Bora, I didn't, I was in prison."
Less than two weeks after her arrival in Washington, India's Ambassador-designate to the United States, Meera Shankar, became India's ambassador after presenting her credentials at the State Department to Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was obviously so impressed by her meetings with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari that she ventured into the White House briefing room after sitting in on the meetings between President Barack Obama and the two leaders, to express her optimism that a solid alliance had been formed committed to crushing the Taliban and other extremist elements destabilising the region.
Holbrooke declared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, "We do not think that Pakistan is a failed State. We think it's a State under extreme test from the enemies who are also our enemies and who have the same common enemy -- the United States and Pakistan. It just isn't (a failed State). But it is a State under enormous social, political and economic pressure. And India is always a factor."
A feisty Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari says there is no likelihood of his being deposed in a military coup, but if it does happen it will be because the United States along with other democratic countries has had a hand in it.
With regard to the sale of the new 18 F-16's that Pakistan has requested -- the C/D block 50/52s combat aircraft, he said, "We have not come to a final decision on how to proceed with this, and I know your body is looking at it very carefully," Holbrooke told Congressman Gary Ackerman, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South Asia.
"Tragically," he bemoaned, "neither President Zardari nor former Prime Minister Sharif appear to recognise the scope and seriousness of the crisis that their country is in or of the necessity of setting their personal or party political fortunes aside in order to meet the danger."
Obama Administration's top diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, who has already visited New Delhi twice to brief Indian leaders of President Obama's AfPak strategy, on Tuesday said that due to elections India had not gotten fully engaged in the regional approach that is an integral part of the US strategy.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has refuted the whining of Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani who had contended in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal that the main reason Pakistan's counter-insurgency efforts this far against the Taliban and other extremist groups was because it had not been provided with proper equipment --attack helicopters and night visions goggles -- by the United States as promised.
Senior Pentagon officials have gone to bat for the Pakistani military defending even its slow counter-insurgency mobilization efforts against the Taliban and its entrenched threat perception vis--vis India.
The US Department of State's annual Country Reports on Terrorism for 2008, released on Thursday has said that India ranked among the world's most terrorism-afflicted countries, but said India's counterterrorism efforts remained hampered by its outdated and overburdened law enforcement and legal systems.
The Obama Administration is awaiting the advent of the new government in India to engage New Delhi on the final implementation details of the US-India civilian nuclear deal, the Acting point person for South Asia at the US Department of State has said.
President Barack Obama, in a prime-time televised news conference at the end of 100 days of his presidency, said Wednesday that he's confident that the US can make sure that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure even as Pakistan's war inside the country with the Taliban rages on.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday virtually accused the Asif Ali Zardari-led Pakistan government of surrendering to terrorists.Mincing no words over the Barack Obama administration's anger over the Zardari government's striking a deal with the Taliban in Swat Valley, Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that "I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists."
While Chopra's appointment does not need any confirmation by the US Senate, Shah's nomination does, but is expected to be a formality, considering his impeccable track record at the Gates Foundation and his previous experience, expertise and tremendous qualifications which includes both an MD and a Masters degree in health economics.
Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, went ballistic at a forum in Washington DC, slamming Congressional critics, the media and leading analysts who have predicted that Pakistan is on the verge of becoming a failed state and bound to implode, and those who have accused the ISI of colluding with al Qaeda and the Taliban while Islamabad rakes in the massive largesse of American economic and security assistance.
It was imperative if the war against extremism and terrorism that threatens to tear apart both countries and could have dire consequences to the region is to be combated, Afghanistan's Ambassador to the United States Said Jawad said, adding that while Afghanistan does not question Pak civilian government's commitment to combat terrorism, the military still seemed to be obsessed with India instead of the existential threat that threatens the very fabric of Pak and Afghanistan.
'The high profit margins in this kind of crime make it little wonder why gangsters and terrorists have turned to piracy.'
Two Sikh-American military recruits, both medical professionals already in the US Army, who have been denied the right to report for active duty in July unless they remove their turbans and cut their unshorn hair and beards, have called on the Pentagon to allow them to serve their country without having to compromise their religious principles.
'We already have Indian Islamic extremist groups working in India, and secondly, if Pakistan slides even further, India will be sharing a border with the Taliban,' says Ahmed Rashid, perhaps the world's foremost expert on the Taliban.
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