* Kh Asif says PML-N will support finance bill
* PPP, PML-N agreed on impeaching president but have differences over mechanism
* Both parties trying to find middle ground in stances

LAHORE: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) – partners in the ruling coalition – achieved consensus on increasing the number of Supreme Court (SC) judges on Friday.

Following a meeting between PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, PML-N leader Khawaja Asif told reporters that the two parties were in agreement over impeaching President Pervez Musharraf but had failed to agree on a strategy to remove him from power.

Full support: The PML-N agreed to fully support the finance bill, PML-N leader Khawaja Asif told reporters after the meeting. He said that both parties were in complete agreement over the reinstatement of the sacked judges. “We don’t have complete understanding between us,” Reuters quoted him as saying. “One or two more rounds of talks will be held to narrow down the differences,” he added.

However, to questioning, he said that the PML-N ministers would not rejoin the federal cabinet until the sacked judges had been reinstated to their pre-November 2, 2007 status.

Meanwhile, quoting PML-N sources, ARY TV said that the SC judges’ strength would be increased on a “give-and-take” basis. It reported that the PML-N leadership had said that it would not support the PPP’s constitutional package if its demands were not met. It quoted sources as saying that the PML-N had stressed during the meeting that the sacked judges should be reinstated according to the Murree Declaration, as had been promised to the nation.

Asif also told reporters that the PPP and the PML-N were agreed on impeaching the president but had differences over how to go about it, staff report adds.

The PML-N’s Shahbaz Sharif, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Khawaja Asif and Ishaq Dar, in addition to Nawaz Sharif, also attended the meeting, which lasted over four hours. The PPP’s Raja Riaz Ahmed, Jahangir Badar, Azizur Rehman Chan and others, meanwhile, accompanied Zardari.

Friday’s meeting marked the second round of talks between the leaderships of both major coalition parties. Zardari and Nawaz had conducted their first round of talks at the latter’s Raiwind residence on Wednesday, which had ended without any results.

Middle ground: Khawaja Asif was quoted by Geo News as saying that both the PPP and the PML-N were sincere in the respective stances, but would attempt to find middle ground to bridge the gap. He said the next round of talks would not be held until July, as Zardari was going abroad. Zardari had left the meeting early because the PPP co-chairman was expected in Naudero, he added.



* NWFP govt peace envoy says new policy includes talks, administrative and financial measures
* Says long- and short-term measures will address cross-border movement by militants

PESHAWAR: The federal government is changing its stance from a strictly military approach to a soft multi-pronged political approach to tackle growing militancy with a new policy linked to both shor-and long-term gains against militants, the NWFP government’s peace envoy said on Friday.

“The previous policy (of a purely military solution) has changed and a holistic approach has been adopted to make gains against militancy,” Afrasiab Khattak, the peace envoy for the NWFP government, told Daily Times. “The new policy is one which the political parties had discussed before coming into power and it ... includes negotiations (with militant groups), administrative and financial measures,” Afrasiab added.

The ANP freed hardline cleric Maulana Sufi Muhammad from prison and inked a peace deal with pro-Taliban rebel cleric Maulana Fazlullah to encourage calm and order in the militancy-plagued Swat district. However, the peace deals have raised tensions between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States, with the latter two saying that such steps can “export militancy to Afghanistan” through cross-border movement.

Cross-border movement: “Both short and long-term measures will address cross-border movement (by militants),” Afrasiab, who is also ANP NWFP president, said. A senior official with the government, requesting anonymity, said that the military approach had ‘aggravated’ the situation. He said the problem could only be resolved through a solution that would bring the local population onboard.

Similarly, development and security expert Khalid Aziz said that militancy had ‘grown’ because of a “flawed Pakistan-United States security policy based on a military approach” that failed to work towards winning the hearts and minds of the people. “This approach has changed. The federal and NWFP governments have realised that the time has come to either engage the militants in peace negotiations or face a difficult governance situation,” he told Daily Times.

A high-level meeting between NWFP Governor Owais Ghani and Prime Minister’s Adviser on Interior Affairs Rehman Malik on Thursday also decided political agents in every tribal region would form jirgas. They decided that these would consist of elected members, ulema and high-ranking tribesmen. “The meeting maintained that issues related to FATA would be resolved through peaceful means. The law abiders would be protected while the lawbreakers would be dealt with under the law of the land,” a communiqué released after the meeting stated.

Former FATA security chief Brigadier (r) Mehmood Shah, when asked about the new policy, said: “It cannot be only talks and it cannot be only use of force. There should be a mix of both to keep order in tribal and settled areas.”



* NWFP minister says govt will honour peace deal in ‘letter and spirit’ to ensure stability

MINGORA: The NWFP government and the Swat Taliban resumed talks on Friday when Forests Minister Wajid Ali Khan secretly met Taliban leaders and assured them that their reservations would be addressed.

Wajid Khan met several Taliban leaders, including Ali Bakht, Haji Muslim Khan, Maulana Amin, Mahmood Khan and Nisar Khan in the Deouli area of Swat and asked them to continue peace talks. According to sources, the Taliban complained that their colleagues were still imprisoned and the army was still occupying the area. The Taliban also said that their reservations should be addressed by June 23 or there could be consequences.

Khan requested the Taliban to continue negotiations so that all issues could be settled through dialogue and assured the Taliban that he would convey their reservations to the provincial government. The local Taliban had ended contact with the government on June 17 to protest at the government’s delay in releasing 50 Taliban prisoners.

Peace deal: NWFP Senior Minister Bashir Bilour said the NWFP government would honour the peace agreement with the Taliban “in letter and spirit” to ensure stability and prosperity. Clause IV of the peace deal says prisoners would be released after “reviewing cases against them”. Under the deal, the NWFP government has conceded to a gradual withdrawal of all security forces from the Swat district.



* Leaflets threaten to blow up vehicles and houses of those dealing with coalition forces

KARACHI: Taliban have warned transporters in Karachi against supplying oil to coalition forces in Afghanistan, in leaflets distributed and displayed in Shireen Jinnah Colony on Mauripur Road.

Oil trucks are parked in the Shireen Jinnah Colony, located near the Kemari Harbour and the Karachi Port Trust. Security and transport companies officials said similar leaflets were distributed in parts of the NWFP.

Workers from transport companies, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the Urdu leaflets threatened to blow up the vehicles and houses of those doing business with the coalition forces, but did not specify if the warning was from local or Afghan Taliban. A senior truck owners’ association official said the leaflets named the Afridi, Shinwari and Khyberi transport companies. “The All Pakistan Oil Tanker Owners Association does not supply oil or any other goods to Afghanistan,” said Akram Khan Durrani, the organisation’s general secretary.

Sindh Home Secretary Arif Ahmed Khan said transporters would be given protection if they contacted the government. On May 9, three men abducted Shoukat Afridi – whose company deals with NATO forces – from Clifton Town. A police source said he had been taken to the Tribal Areas. His brother Taj Afridi declined to comment, but said negotiations with the kidnappers were underway.



* US govt-run Census Bureau says global population growing by about 1.2pc per year

WASHINGTON: The world’s population will reach 7 billion by 2012, even as the global community struggles to satisfy its appetite for natural resources, according to a new projection by the United States government.

There are 6.7 billion people in the world today. According to projections released on Thursday by the Census Bureau, part of the US Department of Commerce, the US ranks third with 304 million people, behind China and India.

According to Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, the world’s population surpassed 6 billion in 1999, meaning that it would only take 13 years to add a billion more people. By comparison, the number of people did not reach 1 billion until 1800, while it did not reach 2 billion until 130 years later.

“You can easily see the effect of rapid population growth in developing countries,” said Haub, adding that medical and nutritional advances in developing countries led to a population explosion following World War II. Cultural changes are slowly catching up, with more women in developing countries going to school and joining the work force. That is slowing the growth rate, though it is still high in many countries.

Population growth: The global population is growing by about 1.2 percent per year. The Census Bureau projects the growth rate will decline to 0.5 percent by 2050. By then, India will have surpassed China as the most populous country.

The Census Bureau updates projections each year on a variety of global demographic trends, including fertility and mortality rates and life expectancy. US life expectancy has surpassed 78 years for the first time, the National Centre for Health Statistics announced last week.

The new Census report comes amid record high oil and gasoline prices, fuelled in part by growing demand from expanding economies in China and India. “There is no consensus on how many people the Earth can sustain,” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. He said it depends on how well people manage the Earth’s resources.

Today, industrialised nations use a disproportionate share of oil and other resources, while developing countries are fuelling population growth. There are countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East where the average woman has more than six children in her lifetime. In Mali and Niger, two African nations, women average more than seven children.

“There’s still a long way to go in the developing world,” said Frey, adding, “A lot of it does have to do with the education of women and the movement of women into the labour force.” In the US, women have an average of around two children, which essentially replaces the population. Much of the US population growth comes from immigration.



ISLAMABAD: To enhance local production of urea by 40,000 tonnes, the stakeholders suggested the government to ensure additional gas supply from SNGPL during summer, officials in the ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL) told Daily Times here Friday.

Apart from above additional gas supply, the officials said the production of 40,000 tonnes of urea would be achieved if at the same time the SSGPL delayed its schedule of shutdown. Increase in local production of urea would help the government to save precious foreign exchange earning that it is spending on its import. Urea is an important input and extensively used in the production of agriculture crops. During peak times of season, the prices of urea and DAP always witness spike and that was why the government is planning to increase its local production, the officials maintained.

The current energy crises across the country have badly affected all sectors of the economy including agriculture.

In the present scenario of price hikes and food security, it has to be realised that agricultural development is more important than any other sector. Population pressure on land is growing and land and water resources are becoming scarce and agriculture productivity is generally stagnating. During the year 2007-08, the performance of agriculture sector was below the expectations. Against the target of 4.8 percent growth, only a paltry growth of 1.5 percent was achieved.

Fertilizer is the most important and expensive input used in agriculture sector andincrease in fertilizer prices necessitated attention of the government.

Productivity of all crops in Pakistan has remained below global standard as the unaware farmers continue increasing the fertilizer use without paying attention to other aspects like the quality of soil and seeds.

Agriculture experts said that blindly adding fertilizers could not ensure higher yield. Fertilizers are nutrients and their fair addition in soil does increase the productivity, experts told Daily Times.

According to the food and Agriculture organisation data, Pakistan was gradually becoming more dependent on fertilizer imports as the consumption of different fertilizers had increased at much higher pace than the local production.

Pakistan was self-sufficient in urea (nitrogen fertilizer) in 1990 when its total production of 1.119 million tonne was higher than domestic demand. By year 2000 the production of urea increased to 2.053 million metric tonnes but the consumption stands at 2.254 million metric tonnes, depicting a deficit of 200,000 metric tonnes.



KARACHI: The current account deficit of the country increased by 81.19 percent to $12.957 billion during the first eleven months of the current financial year from $7.151 billion during the same period of the last year.

Trade deficit during this period stood at $13.840 billion, higher by 55.36 percent than $8.908 billion last year. Deficit on trade of goods and services combined shot up to $19.938 billion, up by 51.52 percent from $13.158 billion last year.

The deficit on the income side stood at $3.583 billion, up by 6.10 percent from $ 3.377 billion last year.

Current transfers, including workers remittances of $5.904 billion, during this period stood at $10.688 billion, helping to reduce the current account deficit, which could have been much higher otherwise. Seeing this trend it can be safely predicted that the country will suffer a current account deficit of over $14 billion in the whole year.

It has been extremely difficult for the new government to cover this deficit, as the inflow of investment from abroad, which helped the previous government meet country's foreign exchange demand in the recent years, has declined this year.

The previous government relied on foreign direct investment and investment in stocks from abroad to meet its foreign exchange requirements.

This year both portfolio and foreign direct investment have declined. Net foreign investment dropped by 37.2 percent to $3.943 billion in July-May 2007-08 from $6.280 billion in July-May 2006-07.

Foreign direct investment fell by 14.1 percent to $3.881 billion this year from $4.520 billion last year. Portfolio investment was a mere $62.2 million compared to $1.760 billion last year.

The poor law and order situation and the shortage of energy supplies have hampered flow of investment into the country, particularly in the manufacturing sector. Even when the previous government "attracted record foreign direct investment" hardly anything was invested in the manufacturing sector.

While the political government, which has recently taken over, is trying to improve the law and order through negotiations, it has admitted it would not be able to overcome the energy crisis for a long time. This inability of the government is likely to act as a barrier for foreign as well as local investment.


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...012:34:21%20PM



JEDDAH: Saudi officials said yesterday that the Kingdom has no “magic wand” that will resolve the skyrocketing oil prices.

Addressing a press conference ahead of tomorrow’s International Energy Conference here, Deputy Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said: “There are political, economic and regulatory factors involved.

“The soaring oil prices require immediate intervention by everyone. Combined solutions are needed where roles are defined.”

Echoing a commonly held view that market speculation has at least as much of a role in current pricing as supply, the prince said that no single factor is in play and that it is in Saudi Arabia’s interests to see a stabilization of the market.

He attributed much of the cause of this current crisis to “subjective circumstances” and warned that people should not be “overly optimistic” that anything but “temporary solutions” could be reached.

Ibrahim Al-Muhana, a ministry consultant, said tomorrow’s meeting of principal producing and consuming nations is important to identifying the causes and the solutions to the current troubles. “The emergence of new players has made it difficult for us to put our fingers at a clear reason (for the current problems),” he said, attributing the shift of speculation from the US subprime crisis to commodities trading as one reason for the rise in the prices of a range of commodities, not just oil.

Al-Muhana said it was obvious right now that all market forces are in harmony so it must be something outside the supply-demand formula that is causing the hike in prices. Financial factors contributing to the hike included a weak dollar and high demand on the euro in addition to the American subprime crisis.

“The fluctuation in the oil market is what made the king call the meeting,” he said.

Prince Abdulaziz said that there is cooperation among Saudi Arabia, OPEC, the International Energy Forum and the International Energy Agency to present a working paper to the meeting.

However, Saudi officials did not reveal any details about what they intended to propose at the meeting.

To combat the rise in prices, Saudi Arabia announced recently it would increase its production capacity by three million barrels per day to 12.5 million bpd by 2009. Saudi Aramco recently announced plans to build new refineries with French Total and US Conoco in order to meet the shortage of oil derivatives. Al-Muhana acknowledged that there is a link between the shortages of refiners and rising oil prices but said that this link is not a major factor.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil, who will attend the Jeddah oil summit, said yesterday it was illogical and irrational to ask the organization to increase output so as to take the pressure off soaring prices.

“Saudi Arabia decided to hold this meeting... in order to determine the causes behind rising oil prices,” he said. “The principal objective of the Jeddah meeting is to clarify positions regarding the reasons behind this rise,” the Algerie Presse Service quoted Khelil as saying. The Jeddah meeting comes days after oil prices jumped to new record highs just short of $140 per barrel, sparking fresh concerns that soaring energy costs will both stoke inflation and depress the global economy.

Khelil said that “just because car and computer prices were high, would one ask their producers to make more?” In London yesterday, Brent North Sea crude for August rose $2.86 to settle at $134.86 per barrel.



JEDDAH: Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi announced yesterday that Saudi Arabia would increase its daily output to 9.7 million barrels next month, pumping an extra 200,000 barrels to world markets.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last Sunday that the Saudi minister had told him the plan to increase production by 200,000 bpd. “He quoted me right, that’s old news now,” Al-Naimi told reporters in Jeddah. Asked if Saudi Arabia would increase output more than that figure, Al-Naimi said: “We’ll be giving out new information within the next two days.” He was apparently referring to the International Energy Conference that opens at Jeddah Hilton tomorrow.

In addition to members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), leading non-OPEC producers such as Russia, Norway, Mexico and Brazil as well as major consumers like the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Japan, China, India and South Africa will be attending the conference.

“The conference will discuss the situation in the international oil market and how producers, consumers, oil companies and international organizations can cooperate to deal with unjustifiable hike in prices and propose suitable solutions,” an official statement said, reiterating the Kingdom’s concern over increasing oil prices. The statement emphasized Saudi Arabia’s plan to invest about $90 billion in oil and gas projects during the next four years to increase production capacity and improve refining facilities. The new projects would further increase the Kingdom’s oil output to 12.5 million bpd by 2009. OPEC President Chakib Khelil, who will attend the Jeddah oil summit, said yesterday it was illogical and irrational to ask the organization to increase output so as to take the pressure off soaring prices. “Saudi Arabia decided to hold this meeting...in order to determine the causes behind rising oil prices,” he said.

The Jeddah meeting comes only days after oil prices jumped to new record highs just short of $140 per barrel, sparking fresh concerns that soaring energy costs will both stoke inflation and depress the global economy.

Khelil said that just because computer or car prices were high, “would one ask their producers to make more?”, insisting again that oil was being driven higher by factors other than supply alone — most notably speculation and a falling dollar.

He also noted that high tax levies on fuel in some countries such as France and Britain were also to blame, with all these issues to be discussed at the Jeddah meeting. OPEC pumps about 40 percent of the world’s oil supply.
Iran, a major OPEC producer, said increased oil output would not be able to bring down skyrocketing prices. “Increased oil production does not have such an impact that it would decrease prices because enough oil exists in the global market,” Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency. “Just compare 300,000 (barrels per day) with about 86 million (bpd), which are the market’s need! What would be the effect?” Nozari asked rhetorically.

German Economy Minister Michael Glos, meanwhile, called for closer cooperation between oil producers and consumers to curb prices. “The increase in oil prices amounts to transfer of wealth from oil importing countries. This has powerful effects on the global economy,” he said and stressed the need for more energy efficiency, more investment in energy and the right energy mix including atomic power.


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