Isn't a return to democracy one of the things the US is pressing for in Pakistan
Define "pressing."
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I just heard a bit on the radio this morning about India announcing some sort of multi-million dollar development in Kashmir. Lemme see....
Here's India's announcement, which appears on Google News right after the World Bank saying, "Hey, wouldn't this be a swell idea?"
From that Forbes article: Once India and Pakistan sort out their political differences, the World Bank can step in to fund development projects on both sides of divided Kashmir, he said.
His comments came as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh winded up a two-day visit to Jammu-Kashmir state, promising investment of up to 240 billion rupees (US$5.3 billion; euro4.1 billion) in various development projects over the next four years. Some of the money, he said, will come from international financial institutions.
The funds would go to building new roads and schools, and developing infrastructure for water, power and health care. The initiatives are expected to create 24,000 new jobs, including 14,000 for women.
Earlier Thursday, Wolfensohn met with the finance minister and top policy makers to discuss the World Bank's activities in India.
"We have committed US$9 billion dollars (in aid) in the next years, US$3 billion annually," he said. The funds are mostly meant for water, power and road projects, he said.
So, not guns but butter?
Here's something from the Pakistani media on the offer (focusing on Singh telling militants to lay down their arms), and here's the China Daily News version, which paints Singh as a man trying desperately to encourage peace if only those darned Islamist militants would stop shooting.
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does anyone know what the relationship is like between the Maoist rebels in Nepal and barely-even-Maoist-in-name-only-anymore China?
I really have no idea, but I bet they're related to whatever China's equivalent to the CIA is, and their fate really depends on what goes on with Tibet (and, by extension, India, home of Tibet's gov't-in-exile). China might not be Maoist per se, but Mao is still a Big Deal there, so anything labeled "Maoist" is gonna be A-OK with most ordinary folks over there. Until they start shooting at Chinese people, I guess.
Now that you mention it, I wonder what ties China maintains with El Sendero Luminoso in Peru.....
On the other hand, check out today's news:
Kathmandu, Nov 19 : Twelve suspected Nepalese Maoist insurgents were arrested by Chinese police while trying to smuggle in arms and ammunition near the border with Tibet, reports said Friday.
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Four Maoists were arrested in October last year from the same area of China-controlled Tibet.
The latest arrests come in the wake of the Chinese authorities handing down the death sentence to two Maoists for arms smuggling in September.
The verdict created an uproar as it was the first time any Maoist rebel had been given capital punishment by a foreign country. It prompted even Nepal, which abolished the death sentence in 1997, to urge China to revoke the death penalty.
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Though the Maoists, who have been waging an eight-year-old guerrilla war to replace Nepal's constitutional monarchy with a communist republic, say they are following the doctrine of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, Beijing disowns them.
Chinese ambassadors to Nepal have been saying the Maoists tarnish the image of their leader by naming themselves after him.
So, uh, cancel what I said earlier. Heh. Apparently, the Shining Path bears no great love for modern China, either. |
