The Daily Pakistan Politics Feb 1-15, 2019

• Feb11-2019--The Taliban however seem the only ones happy with situation..They have no problems with Pakistan and say that they have been negotiating on their own conditions and nobody has brought them to the negotiating table...The Taliban want to negotiate a withdrawal of US forces and their own role in the new system in Kabul which ultimately should be an islamic system based on scholars
  
• Feb11-2019--The PTI has succumbed to all IMF demands having implemented some even before an agreement has been reached...almost 80% of the people cant afford the PTI...with no knowledge of gas and electricity prices or inflation or the effect of a dollar upsurge and who pays for LNG the PTI is literally a burden at the moment or at best a liability...The primeminister has no gas and electricity and wants outsiders to come and invest...while a $6 billion IMF package has been agreed upon some suggest the rest of the conditionalities will come after July or in the next budget
  
• Feb11-2019--The country had better beware that Imran Khan is an IMF agent...the country supposedly needs an IMF agreement to unblock donor aid from WB and ADB etc...IMF has set Pakistan a target of around $20 billion which it has to arrange multilaterally...the country used to get 8-12 billion annually from the big donors...the only thing we hear is to let the dollar float and try to restart taxes from mobile recharge cards..Asad Umars fiasco based subsidizing of the industrial sector, refusing to start a dam, stop start methods in gas/electricity price increases are based on IMF demands...the countries IMF structural reforms are going on since the 1990's when electricity/gas was affordable...all governments upto now however did not make the peoples life miserable with gas price and availibility issues...the government should realize that dollar price variables should be less than 10% annually and not 30%...after every huddle with the IMF usually the PTI goes for another budget...lets see what orders Imran Khan has been given now...the PTI is however bent upon only growing trees at the moment...which they will get underage school children to plant...technically pakistan cannot afford a military...with pakistan no longer having an afghan army policy maybe some military funds will get freed as the only job the army has is to build an afghan border fence
  
• Feb9-2019--Medical board orders Nawaz Sharif tobe jailed in a cardiac facility
  
• Feb10-2019--Technically Imran Khan can do little about corruption within his own party or others...however he still makes the baseless claim that there will no more leniency for corrupt leaders
  
• Feb9-2019--ECP rejects Baluchistan plea to put off LG polls
  
• Feb9-2019--Imran Khan's love for the beaurocracy knows no bounds ...he now wants to depoliticise the beaurocracy...technically the beaurocracy does no work...unless a hire and fire policy is initiated the beaurocracy will be a burden on the country
  
• Feb8-2019--The PTI seems unable to handle many issues including a troublemaking Nawaz Sharif...apparently he has gone back to jail frightened of being sent to the PIC...many see it as an attempt by Nawaz Sharif tobe sent overseas...The stenting procedure clearly does not require being sent overseas
  
• Feb8-2019--Ashraf Ghani has started to play politics with pukhtuns...he is expressing concern for the killing of a PTM activist in Loralai and harassing a family in peshawar...Prof Loni a supposed PTM activist died during during an attempt by police to arrest him during a protest...PTM has run into trouble with the army who regard them as foreign inspired and are referred to as fifth generation warfare protagonists and the pukhtun nationalists are waiting for the time when afghanistan used to easily cause trouble under the pukhtunistan flag...many in pakistan thus still regard the afghan taliban as a friendlier people...The primeminister has however apparently helped in the release of a PTM activist in a Islamabad protest
  
• Feb8-2019--the government seems tobe playing politics of immaturity with gas, LPG and LNG prices...while the LNG was imported for industrialists who had agreed to pay for it they too have been given a whopping subsidy and technically the populace is paying for the industrialists...we donot know what price they fixed for domestic users but it seems tobe quite high...upto 5Hm3 and beyond they say they will have to pay Rs1480per Hm3...than why mention the five limit...no mention is made of the prices of the lowest 70% users...who supposedly will get it at cheaper rates...the rates of LPG have already been hiked...mixing LNG with natural gas and applying the whole to the populace seems shocking at best...most of countries cities use natural gas and that is surely much more than 23%...the government seems unaware of the effect of the dollar price hike on consumers...even the year on year inflation is 7% that is apart from the increase in gas/dollar prices
  
• Feb8-2019--The PTI budget rhetoric is just a pack of lies...The military budget which had been increased from Rs800 billion to Rs1.3 trillion is they say sancrosanct...that means they are frightened of the army or their economic team consists of cowardly people...The military budget should be based on pakistans ability to spend not other countries budgets..The military has been building up stores of unrequired material and spending money without thought...even the army chief has said all they need are mortars to fight todays battles...so they should have no problem reducing the military budget...if you add the defence ministry, ISI, Nust, Apsac, missile building, wah etc. than the military budget probably gets upto Rs. 2.5 trillion which is a hell of a lot by the standards of the pakistani budget...
  
• Feb8-2019--NAB has apparently started to play politics with Aleem Khan...On the one hand they say they have all the information and on the other they have got a remand of eight days...technically they should file the case in an accountability court and start proceedings and presenting theit case...
  
• Feb7-2019--The politisized MS(a Niazi) of Benazir Bhutto hospital in Rawalpindi has been reinstated...earlier he resisted the home ministers advice not to transfer the daughter of pharma companies owner Hanif Abbasi a PMLn leader jailed for producing crstal-meth. He was suspended...The MS has started to organize young doctor demos in his favor...!
  
• Feb7-2019--Nawaz Sharif clearly trying to fool the government and the doctors...he does not want to go to the PIC for another stent procedure and wants tobe sent to jail...while stent procedures are generally harmless Nawaz Sharif must be making up his problems
  
• Feb7-2019--In a move countering the state and the Supreme Courts own attitude of ridiculing and insulting the police a two judge suomotu stated that the TLP must be made to fear the state,its police and intelligence agencies. That is something that institutes a harsh police state...and is almost as horrible as those who espouse terrorism, extremism and hate...when the states premier intelligence agencies were directly involved and seen paying the protestors one can hardly see any good out of such judgements...In this country only extreme or special interest groups agitate so the court should according to its decision bann all demonstrations of all types...demonstrations are always some type of hate for one group or the other or the government. Banning one type of political group or other will cause suppression and such groups have always remerged...as for monitoring funding it is almost impossible to control international funding with pakistanis living all over the place...The TLP has played a major role in the last elections with almost all religious support shifting to them which helped out the PTI substantially and can be regarded as the third tier of actions against PTI after tareen, aleem and the TLP...The SC should just have ordered that such demos should be immediately stopped as the TLP started all the way from lahore and travelled to Faizabad in Rawalpindi where they were allowed to block the crossing...earlier the shiite groups have carried out similar actions blocking almost all city entry points without any actions being taken against them...while the police did attack the TLP cauisng retaliation shiite groups were given an almost free ride to block city entry points...The SC is therefore clearly using its judgements to grant political favors and oppose its detractors...something that is anathema to an honest lawful judiciary...the people were clearly very happy at the TLP blockade which blocked governmental activity especially of an unpopular government
  
• Feb7-2019--In a move seen as countering the complaining PPP/PMLn Aleem resigned saying he it is not morally correct tobe minister...Aleem Khan would have been chief minister barring the NAB investigation and Buzdar has just been a standin for him...
  
• Feb7-2019--In what many regard as a Usman Buzdar coup and a setback for the PTI one of the key PTI financiers Abdul Aleem Khan has been arrested by NAB for having resources beyond his known sources of income...an up and coming Bahriatown type he had building soceities in islamabad and lahore and was buying up land here and there...known in the PTI as 'The ATM' he was the PTI senior minister in the punjab...many think of him as Imran Khan's brother in law...he was also credited with the PTI victory in Punjab... Buzdar, Aleem and Sarwar are ex PMLn with Aleem being a minister in Punjab around 2005...punjab has been unable to deliver and many regard the trust that Imran places in the half seraiki Buzdar as misplaced...Buzdar has been slow and the only thing he is supposedly credited with is a south punjab secretariat which upto now has not been setup...south punjab is already breaking up even though it is still a part of Punjab...The PTI has suffered a second setback after its earlier key financier Jehangir Tareen was disqualified...It might be considered a slap in the face for the Imran Khan attitude and policy...!
  
• Feb6-2019--Taliban demand new constiution in Moscow talks between afghans
  
• Feb6-2019--PCB reappoint the pathetic Sarfraz as captain of the cricket team...Sarfraz has had immense problems as a captain and is considered quite a pathetic wicketkeeper...however his ability to occasionally bat at a lower order probably keeps him in the team...Instead of learning to avoid ethnic conflict he says he has been wrongly charged...if he mocks the ICC judgement he could be in trouble again...the PCB should make arrangements for his ethnic training and knowledge of crickets clear laws on the matter
  
• Feb4-2019--The commerce advisor says they have higher priorities than circular debt Rs1.4 trillion...a key issue in the countrys economy for the last decade the PTI only sees as another reason to issue some more bonds to collect money...only focussing on revenues is going tobe difficult for the economy to reach a plateau...the advisor has already garnered gas subsidies for punjabs industrialists and one finds it difficult to believe that the commerce sector has problems...the shifting of focus from people to the industrial sector will not make the government popular...the commerce minister owns several power stations including the huge Hubco and should be interested in solving the circular debt issue...
  
• Feb5-2019--Imran Khan launches a health scheme that could help some poverty stricken people in punjab get healthcare...people who earn Rs12500 month can hardly afford to pay for healthcare...technically government hospitals like RIC have been charging people lakhs of rupees which even the well off cannot afford...
  
• Feb4-2019--The houbara bustard is technically extinct in the wild and does not migrate from Centrl Asia...Imran Khan gave the permission to Arab luminaries to kill the poor creatures...in sindh, punjab and baluchistan desert areas...how it goes about is that the houbara is being raised in captivity...in whichever area the arabs want to hunt the prized birds bred in captivity and technically unable to defend themselves are released... the arabs falcons pounce on them and the arabs eat them as an aphrodisiac...technically they are like chickens with long legs...!It has been learnt that Imran Khan himself is a very keen eater of houbaras...and that the punjab chief minister Buzdar sends them to him personally after hunting them in DG Khan...!
  
• Feb4-2019--The primeminister(dumb i must say) seems unaware of how the inflated/high gas bills issue came about...his government first gave a Rs.40 billion gas subsidy to punjabs industrialists...that was the cost of LNG that they had earlier agreed to pay...so who had to pay the cost of LNG...the poor unpolitisized domestic consumers...how by making them pay the highest two slabs...maybe he should tell asad umar and the petroleum minister to rectify the issue...it is just a phone call away...
  
• Feb4-2019--They figure that should be going thru Imran Khan, Razak Dawood and Asad Umar's head is that foreign loans are now over $97 billion...Taxes, their number is not important technically...all bussinessman have to do to pay a hundred types of taxes is hire a few more employees...it does not trouble the industrialist given the way the dawoods have setup one industry after another...all the taxes only add up to the peoples woes as literally all taxes come out of their meagre pockets...Pakistan has just 16 taxes...that is not too many...in a good economy the people who earn should be paying the taxes not all the people...if revenues are low they usually are in the first two quarters you should reduce spending...Reduce Rs200 billion from the military budget of Rs1.3 trillion...!That is Asad Umar's job not quibbling about teddy paisas from non filers and giving subsidies to exporters which the people have to pay thru higher gas bills...!You cannot make it easier for the industrialist by literally kicking ordinary peoples livelihoods in the butt...!
  
• Feb2-2019--Taliban say Trump serious on Afghanistan withdrawal and that they will implement an islamic system...Taliban donot seek to monopolise power says a Taliban spokesman and adds that last time they faced a lot of problems in seperating men and women...Taliban now donot opose female education and propose a system based on a shura dominated by experts and scholars...
  
• Feb3-2019--Nawaz Sharif who is an avid glutton, binge eater(eats food without thinking) has been sent to Services hospital for kidney stones...apparently he cleans out even the serving dishes and there is usually nothing left when he and Marium Nawaz get thru their prison dinners
  
• Feb3-2019--People are so politisized that at an adabi(literary) conference in karachi all the speeches were about Trumps Taliban policy...!!!
  
• Feb3-2019--People are so worried at the Imran Khan style of governance that they did not even notice the earthquake a 5.8 in teh north and a 2.9 in karachi...what more damage can earthquake do they think after Imran Khan gets thru...!
  
• Feb2-2019--the surge in gas pricing mechanism by to upto 20-30 times is the cause of major inflation in January...the effect of the rupee devaluation is also taking its toll...from hardhit cold areas like balochistan domestic consumers are complaining of gas bills of upto 70000...Pakistan bureau of statistics says that year on year inflation has surged to 7%...Inflation is not taking into account major price escalations by the PTI regime like 15% in medication. Domestic gas bills have gone up by more than five or six times
  
• Feb2-2019--Russian minister says that transferring Daesh guerrillas to the Tajikistan border from Pakistan by helicopter was a slip of the tongue...!
  
• Feb2-2019--The opposition says that the government is stopping the poor from visiting Mecca and Medina...Imran Khan had himself visited Medina in a private jet before the elections...!!! there are no reports of any hyper-inflation in Saudi Arabia and one can only surmise that government is bent on looting the Hajji's...
  
• Feb1-2019--The Imran Khan government in a move regarded as anti religion given the PTI's lack of religious sentiment increased the hajj fees by a whopping 63% to Rs. 456426...This is almost double the losses caused by the PTI's whopping rupee devaluation...The religious affairs minister apparently walked out of the cabinet meeting after a subsidy of Rs45000 was removed by Imran Khan on the advice of non religious ministers
  
• Feb1-2019--The pakistani government inits lust for money has issued 'Pakistan Banao Certificates" to leach onto the foreign exchange savings of pakistani expatriates...The returns are high compared to those offered by pakistani banks and they will take as much as they can get...The PTI has no real infrastructure improvement/development plans and one can only say that they are trying to gather as much money as they can...they had said that they had gathered enough after the help of friendly countries but now they say that they are still in a bad situation economically...they are probably also aiming to gather the foreign exchange hidden by local big bussiness and the upper strata like exporters and importers...it probably indicates that they are frightened of an IMF loan who were insisting that they reduce spending to sustainable levels but the government does not agree and is continuing its aimless spending...