Weekly EHTASABI AMAL Lahore ھفت روذھ احتسابی عمل لاھور

(The Nation)   It’s impossible to separate the  crisis in US-Pakistan relations , which now threatens the Obama administration’s entire timetable for winding down the war by 2014, from the recent flap over an effort by some members of Pakistan’s civilian government, including  ex-Ambassador Husain Haqqani , to enlist American support in blocking a military coup in Islamabad. Let’s look at the pieces of the story. First, Pakistan has announced its intention to  withdraw from the December 5 conference in Bonn , Germany, that was created as a forum to build an international consensus about ending the war through a political accord that involved negotiating with the Taliban and its main sponsor, Pakistan. According to some reports, officials from the Taliban movement were to have been present on the sidelines of the meeting in Bonn, and then United States has spent much of 2011 seeking to open a dialogue with the Taliban. Because Pakistan is the chief backer of the...

ISLAMABAD - Western officials are warning that Pakistan's decision to boycott next month's international conference on Afghanistan in Germany may render the summit on the security of the central Asian country "partially futile." Pakistan's cabinet decided Tuesday to boycott the gathering in Bonn in retaliation for a NATO helicopter attack early on Saturday which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two army posts near the country's border with Afghanistan. Pakistan also banned trucks (video) from carrying supplies from Pakistan over the border to Western troops in Afghanistan, and has served notice to the United States that it must vacate the Shamsi air base in the western Baluchistan province, thought to have been used by the CIA for launching pilotless drones. "Pakistan was going to be one of more than 90 countries who were coming to Bonn. But Pakistan's absence from the conference is not an insignificant event," a Western diplomat in Islamabad, wh...

(CBS/AP)   KABUL, Afghanistan - Pakistan resumed some cooperation with U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan following NATO strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers by working with the coalition to prevent another cross-border incident from escalating, a spokesman said Wednesday. Pakistan is still outraged by the soldiers' deaths and has retaliated by closing its Afghan border crossings to NATO supplies, demanding the U.S. vacate an air base used by American drones and boycotting an international conference aimed at stabilizing Afghanistan. But NATO said Islamabad communicated with the alliance to prevent an exchange of artillery fire late Tuesday from turning into another international incident. Will Pakistan's boycott render Bonn "futile?" Still time to prevent a U.S.-Pakistan meltdown? U.S.-Pakistan relations now at their "worst" German Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a NATO spokesman in Kabul, expressed hope that Pakistan's cooperation in resolving the inc...

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan is seeking to redefine its ties with the U.S. and other NATO forces in Afghanistan after the killing of 24 of its soldiers in last Saturday's helicopter attack on two border posts, a senior Pakistani government official told CBS News on Thursday, claiming a simple apology would not be enough to repair damaged ties. The remarks come as a report in The New York Times says President Obama will not be offering a formal apology to Pakistan to try and ease tension between the two countries right now anyway, as a step. The Times, citing Obama administration officials, says that on Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter told a group of White House officials, "a formal video statement from Mr. Obama was needed to help prevent the rapidly deteriorating relations between Islamabad and Washington from cratering". NATO: Pakistan cooperates in new border raid Will Pakistan's boycott render Bonn "futile?" Still time to prevent a U.S.-Pak...

(AP)   ISLAMABAD - The United States is vacating an air base in Pakistan used by American drones that target Taliban and al Qaeda militants, complying with a key demand made by Islamabad in retaliation for the NATO airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, the U.S. ambassador said Monday. The move is not expected to significantly curtail drone attacks in Pakistan, since Shamsi air base in southwestern Baluchistan province was only used to service drones that had mechanical or weather difficulties. But Washington's decision to leave the base shows how the NATO attacks on Nov. 26 have plunged the already-strained U.S.-Pakistan relationship to an all-time low. The crisis threatens U.S. attempts to get Pakistan to cooperate on winding down the Afghan war. Pakistan immediately retaliated by blocking its Afghan border crossings to NATO supplies and giving the U.S. 15 days to vacate Shamsi — a deadline that falls on Dec. 11. It is also boycotting an international conference in B...

(AP)   LAHORE, Pakistan - Pakistan wants to rebuild ties with the United States despite ongoing retaliation over deadly NATO airstrikes on its troops along the Afghan border, the country's prime minister told The Associated Press on Monday, stressing that he believes "it won't take long" to achieve a new relationship with the old ally. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's remarks indicate that Pakistan is looking for a way to restore some normalcy to ties with the United States following the Nov. 26 airstrikes, but wants to leverage the situation to try and reset the relationship in ways more beneficial to Pakistan. Gilani also said the country remained committed to working with Afghanistan to bring insurgent leaders — many of whom are believed to be on its soil and to enjoy close relations with its security forces — into talks with the government and allow U.S. to begin withdrawing its troops as it is committed to doing. That may reassure international leaders me...

ISLAMABAD - Battered by Pakistani military operations and United States drone strikes, the once-formidable Pakistani Taliban has splintered into more than 100 smaller factions, weakened and running short of cash, according to security officials, analysts and tribesmen from the insurgent heartland. The group, allied with Al Qaeda, has been behind much of the violence tearing apart Pakistan over the last four-and-a-half years. Based in the north-west close to the Afghan border, it is known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban, or TTP. "Today, the command structure of the TTP is splintered, weak and divided and they are running out of money,'' said Mr Mansur Mahsud, a senior researcher at the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Area) Research Centre. "In the bigger picture, this helps the army and the government because the Taliban are now divided.'' The first signs of cracks within the Pakistani Taliban appeared after its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a d...

Ready for a little Ice Cream Sandwich – that's Android 4.0 – for your smartphone? Keep waiting, although you can now complement your patience with a little bit of hope. New reports from company employees indicate that Google has started to roll out Ice Cream Sandwich internally, testing the latest version of the mobile OS on Googlers' Nexus S smartphones. What does that mean for you? It doesn't improve the schedule-slash-guessing-game of when Ice Cream Sandwich might receive its public release, but this "dogfooding," as it's called, is an important part of the process to reach that stage. The ultimate goal is to use a large group of testers to weed out bugs and other software quirks before Ice Cream Sandwich goes live. So how did this all come to pass? On Google Plus, of course. Google employee Adel Saoud, an Adsense policy applications and signals developer (according to his Google Plus profile), shot off a message on the service this Friday: "Just got ...