And then they are criticized for it?
"Pakistan courts China for energy investment; US wary of deal giving Islamabad 2 nuclear plants" by Anita Chang, Associated Press | July 8, 2010
BEIJING — Pakistan’s president appealed yesterday for Chinese help in developing his country’s stagnant energy sector, pointing to nuclear power as one growth area but making no public mention of a deal with Beijing that has alarmed the United States and others.
Of course, when the US does it for India it is no concern at all.
Then it is just business.
The weeklong visit to China is Asif Ali Zardari’s fifth since he came to office in September 2008, underscoring the robust diplomatic, military, and commercial ties between the neighbors. He met President Hu Jintao yesterday and signed six agreements, including one on economic and technology cooperation. Details were not made public.
The visit highlights China’s support for Pakistan as the nations face scrutiny over a 2008 deal that would give energy-starved Pakistan two nuclear power plants. Critics said transferring the reactors would violate international nonproliferation agreements.
“This deal comes at a time to assure the people of Pakistan that despite their repeated requests to the West to give them such a deal . . . it is China once more which they can rely on as an all-weather friend,’’ said Adnan Bukhari, an associate research fellow at Nanyang Technological University of the Rajaratnam School of International Studies of Singapore.
Yeah, that is one thing history teaches: You can never rely on the United States unless you are Israel.
The deal also was reached shortly after a wide-ranging accord that allowed the United States to sell nuclear fuel, technology, and reactors to India, a regional rival of both China and Pakistan.
Bukhari said the China-Pakistan deal is sending a message in particular to India, whose relationship with Pakistan has been of varying tensions for decades. Both countries have nuclear weapons.
Zardari met with Chinese leaders in industries ranging from banking to defense in a bid to attract investment, according to a statement from his spokesman, Farhatullah Babar. He singled out energy as a growth industry in Pakistan.
Electricity shortages are chronic in Pakistan, where expansion of supply has lagged fast-growing demand. Some regions experience outages of up to 18 hours a day, and it is not uncommon for prolonged blackouts to provoke riots.
The Pakistan people literally in the dark -- and yet they see so well!
Authorities planned to feed the grid through “hydro, coal, gas, nuclear, and renewable energy sources,’’ Pakistan’s statement said, without elaborating on the growth of nuclear energy.
Pakistan, whose former top nuclear scientist has been accused of trafficking sensitive nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea, has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the main international agreement meant to stem the spread of nuclear weapons technology. China signed the treaty in the 1990s. India also has not signed the treaty.
Yeah, and NEITHER has ISRAEL and they tried to sell a bomb to apartheid South Africa!
Washington has expressed concern that China’s nuclear deal with Pakistan does not have the necessary approvals from the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which seeks to limit the spread of nuclear-related equipment, and officials have called for China to provide more information.
“Making peaceful use of nuclear energy has been a sensitive issue,’’ said Wang Lian, an associate professor at Peking University.
People are sick of the hypocrisy and double-standards of U.S. policy -- and are proving it by cutting their own deals and going their own way.
So far, planning for the construction of the two reactors at the Chashma site in Pakistan’s Punjab Province has apparently gone forward.
Other countries are also concerned about the risk of an attack on nuclear facilities by insurgents battling the Pakistani military in the country’s northwest tribal areas adjacent to Afghanistan, Bukhari said.
“The more you expand your nuclear programs or installations, there is more threat of attacks on them or maybe stealing of your equipment or your weapons,’’ he said.
Unless you are ISRAEL, INDIA, or AmeriKa!!
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Related: Obama's Mushroom Cloud of a Bailout
Patsies From Pakistan Preparing For Attack on AmeriKa
So it's going to be an attack on nuclear facilities, huh?
Of course, some trade is fine:
"Afghanistan, Pakistan initial a trade deal; Accord forged before Clinton’s visit to Islamabad" by Karen DeYoung, Washington Post | July 19, 2010
ISLAMABAD — The Obama administration has persuaded Afghanistan and Pakistan to take their first tangible step toward bilateral cooperation: a trade agreement that will facilitate the ground shipment of goods between and through the two countries.
The U.S. supply lines not working to well these days?
The accord has been under negotiation for years....
During talks between the two sides that began last week, US officials helped forge a deal in time to announce it last night, just hours after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived for a two-day visit.
Today, Clinton and the Pakistanis are expected to unveil their own bilateral agreement to spend an initial $500 million in new US economic assistance to Pakistan. Primarily for water and energy projects, the aid is part of a $7.5 billion, five-year development package approved by Congress last fall.
The trade and aid agreements are part of the administration’s efforts to facilitate Obama’s struggling Afghanistan war strategy. US officials hope that a long-term investment, along with repeated visits from senior officials, will persuade Pakistan to more solidly align its own interests with those of the United States.
Most urgently, they would like the Pakistani military to take more aggressive action against Taliban groups that use Pakistan as their headquarters and base of operations for attacks in Afghanistan.
The groups, including the Haqqani network based in the Pakistani tribal areas along the Afghan border, and the Quetta Shura based in the southern province of Baluchistan, have historically close ties with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.
Ah, yes, the Haqqani network, yes:
And now the Times Square tool, 'er, fool.
After the failed Times Square bombing attempt in May, US intelligence concluded that confessed bomber Faisal Shahzad had been trained and directed by the Pakistani Taliban, a domestic extremist group allied with those active in Afghanistan.
Administration officials warned Pakistan that a successful attack in US territory emanating from Pakistan would have a “devastating impact on our relationship,’’ Clinton said in an interview with the BBC yesterday.
You HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!
Islamabad is at least as important as Kabul, said Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Over the past year, the United States has pushed for dialogue between Islamabad and Kabul as part of its war effort.
The new trade accord, an expansion of a limited agreement signed in 1965, will boost Afghan exports by easing customs and transit permit arrangements, giving Afghanistan easier access to Pakistani sea ports, and allowing Pakistan greater access to Central Asia.So the U.S. can get that oil and gas out, no doubt.
ISLAMABAD — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistani officials agreed yesterday on plans for spending $1.5 billion a year in US aid that is meant to build Pakistani support for the Obama administration’s Afghan war strategy.
We call it a BRIBE here.
I'm glad you could afford it, American taxpayers.
Put it on the $14 trillion dollar tab.
Wars sure do get expensive, huh?
While most Pakistanis see the United States as anti-Islamic and an enemy, they will be won over “when they see through this strategic dialogue how their lives are changed,’’ Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said following talks with Clinton.
Actually, THAT is a LIE!
"We Pakistanis like the Americans. Ask all those ordinary Americans -- non military and nonofficial -- who visited Pakistan recently and they will tell you about the legendary Pakistani hospitality. There is no anti-Americanism in Pakistan, only anti-US-meddling and anti-US doublespeak."
That is so strange because I feel the same way about "them."
That is why I want my mass-murdering government to cease what it is doing over a damn lie.
“There is a legacy of suspicion’’ among Pakistanis that is “not going to disappear overnight,’’ Clinton said.
Especially with the stinking newspapers we have over here.
The United States is “committed for the long haul’’ to working with Pakistanis “as you pursue this very difficult struggle,’’ she said at a press briefing after the talks.
Translation: We aren't leaving the area anytime soon.
The United States needs Pakistan’s help to suppress Taliban and Al Qaeda militants there who attack US forces in Afghanistan and claimed responsibility for the May 1 failed car-bombing of New York’s Times Square.
After years in which Pakistan’s army has tolerated or backed militant groups, Clinton’s visit is important “to increase the speed’’ of Pakistan’s shift toward confronting them, said Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, professor of international relations at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.
The TRUE REASON for the MEETING! MORE WAR!!!!
With the Obama administration vowing to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in a year, “there is not much time left,’’ and the United States must “build conditions in Pakistan to keep the policy carry-on,’’ Jaspal said in a phone interview.
Qureshi told reporters the talks produced a “basic document’’ framing the two governments’ strategy and spending contributions in 13 sectors, including electricity supply and health care. He said the governments will review progress on the plan in Washington in October.
Clinton has said she wants to reduce years of mistrust in the US-Pakistani relationship. On May 9, she praised a “sea change in the commitment we’ve seen from the Pakistani government’’ to fighting terrorism, while saying the United States expects it to do more help to “bring to justice, capture or kill those who attacked us on 9/11.’’
How many dual-national Israelis are hanging out in Pakistan anyway?
While Pakistan’s army and government have attacked the main Taliban movement, they tolerate other guerrilla groups based near the Afghan border or in the most populous province, Punjab, analysts said.
Would that also include Jundallah?
“A mixed record on battling Islamist extremism includes ongoing apparent tolerance of Taliban elements operating from its territory,’’ South Asia analyst Alan Kronstadt of the Congressional Research Service wrote in a June report.
Richard Holbrooke, US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, told reporters Sunday that dialogue and US aid are “causing a change first within the Pakistani government and gradually more slowly in the Pakistani public opinion.’’
No more missile strikes, Dick?
Opinion survey data from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center in Washington showed that Pakistanis who view the US favorably increased to 17 percent this year from 10 percent in 2002.
That is still a very poor rating.
Sixty-four percent of respondents last year described the United States as an enemy.
Yeah, the missiles coming down from the drones and destroying villages probably isn't helping much.
After years of supporting the Taliban and other Afghan and Pakistani Islamic militant guerrillas, Pakistan’s army since October has fought offensives against Taliban guerrillas in six of seven tribal districts along the Afghan border.
Related: Who is Winning the Waziristan War?
Whoever is, the ordinary people are once again losing.
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