Islamabad // The United States is building up pressure on Pakistan to confront Taliban militancy before a meeting in Washington this week.
The crisis in Pakistan will be the focus of a meeting between the three presidents, Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, and Barack Obama, in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday.
US officials have lambasted the Pakistani government over the past week for not grasping the significance of the threat facing Pakistan.
Gen David Petraeus, commander of US Central Command, told US officials that the next two weeks are critical to determining whether the Pakistani government will survive, US media reports say.
Gen Petraeus was reported to have said that "we've heard it all before" from the Pakistanis and he is looking to seeing concrete action by the government to destroy the Taliban in the next two weeks before determining the United States' next course of action.
A Pentagon spokesman denied he had made the remarks.
Lt Gen Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani army officer and defence analyst, said Washington's strategy has two features.
"Firstly, there is genuine alarm that the Taliban are gaining momentum. Secondly, this is a pressure tactic to force Pakistan into taking greater steps against militants," Gen Masood said.
"I don't think that the politicians have grasped the significance of the threat." The New York Times reported yesterday that Mr Obama is reaching out to a former Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, the chief rival of Mr Zardari, in a hope to find a way to strengthen the country's government.
Quoting unnamed administration officials, the newspaper said on its website that because of his ties to Islamists, the US government had long held Mr Sharif at arm's length. But now some Obama administration officials say those ties could be useful in helping Mr Zardari's government confront the challenge from Taliban insurgents, the report said. It was not clear whether the officials backed brokering a power-sharing agreement between Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif, or whether they were envisaging a post-Zardari landscape.
In the past, Washington and London have made disastrous attempts to manipulate Pakistani politics to their own ends.
Mr Zardari's party came to power after a deal was brokered between the Pakistan People's Party, then led by Mr Zardari's wife, the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and the former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf.
However, Bhutto was assassinated in Dec 2007, months after her return from exile, and Mr Zardari teamed up with Mr Sharif to oust Mr Musharraf from the presidency last year.
Pakistanis have also expressed concern with the army's reticence to tackle the militants, some accusing the army of letting the problem fester to attract more US military aid. A letter was circulated last month by prominent Pakistanis calling upon politicians and the army to save the country. It expressed "anger and dismay at the abject capitulation of the state of Pakistan before the Taliban insurgents in Swat".
It criticised a peace deal and an ordinance signed last month by Mr Zardari implementing Sharia in the Swat valley last month.
Last Sunday, Pakistan launched an attack on the Pakistan Taliban in parts of North West Frontier Province recently overrun by the militants. It began with an assault in Lower Dir, near the border with Afghanistan, in which the army claims to have killed 70 militants and lost 10 soldiers, and which displaced some 30,000 people.
On Tuesday the army launched a bigger offensive in the scenic Buner valley, just 100km from Islamabad. Many of the fighters had come from the neighbouring district of Swat.
In return for the peace deal and the implementation of Sharia the local Taliban, led by Mullah Fazalullah, were supposed to lay down their arms.
But this has not happened.
Last week they occupied the office of Médecins Sans Frontières, a non-governmental organisation, in Saidu Sharif. Early last month they occupied the northern Swati town of Bahrain, and on Tuesday shot and injured one policeman there and kidnapped another.
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Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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Company%20Profile
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Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
Neil Thomson – THE BIO
Family: I am happily married to my wife Liz and we have two children together.
Favourite music: Rock music. I started at a young age due to my father’s influence. He played in an Indian rock band The Flintstones who were once asked by Apple Records to fly over to England to perform there.
Favourite book: I constantly find myself reading The Bible.
Favourite film: The Greatest Showman.
Favourite holiday destination: I love visiting Melbourne as I have family there and it’s a wonderful place. New York at Christmas is also magical.
Favourite food: I went to boarding school so I like any cuisine really.
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.