Ford Motor Co will receive nearly $5.9 billion in U.S. government loans to build fuel-efficient vehicles as the Obama administration deepened its commitment to reshaping the cash-strapped auto industry.
Japan's Nissan Motor Co Ltd will receive $1.6 billion and start-up Tesla Motors Inc will receive $465 million in low-cost loans to build all-electric cars in the first wave of financing from an Energy Department program intended to offset the cost meeting sharply higher new fuel economy standards.
"By supporting key technologies and sound business plans, we can jump-start the production of fuel-efficient vehicles in America," Energy Secretary Steven Chu said at an event at Ford's sprawling engineering and product development campus.
"These investments will come back to our country many times over by creating new jobs, reducing our dependence on oil, and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions," he said.
The Energy Department has $17 billion remaining in funding under a program first authorized by Congress in 2007. Chu said the agency would work quickly to approve further loans in the coming months to other auto companies.
The announcement of the first round of funding at Ford represented a win for the automaker, the United Auto Workers union and Michigan's congressional delegation after an intense lobbying effort to get the long-stalled funding approved.
One of the conditions of receiving the subsidized loans was a determination of viability. That ruled out Ford's rivals Chrysler and General Motors Corp since they have been pushed through a federally funded bankruptcy process.
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President Barack Obama said on Saturday he is "ready to fight" for a tough new agency to protect consumers from risky loans and other financial products and lashed out at groups that might stand in the way.
"These interests argue against reform even as millions of people are facing the consequences of this crisis in their own lives," Obama said in a weekly radio address.
"These interests defend business-as-usual even though we know that it was business-as-usual that allowed this crisis to take place."
Obama said opponents were already "mobilizing" against his proposal earlier this week to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency as part of the most sweeping set of financial regulatory reforms since the 1930s.
The new agency, which Congress would have to approve, would have the power to write rules and design or ban financial products. It could also examine firms and impose fines and other penalties on almost any institution that offers products such as home loans or credit cards.
Critics argue that the new agency would stifle financial product innovation, boost the cost of regulatory compliance and cause prices for consumers to rise.
"It's going to create exactly the type of duplication, second-guessing and layering that we feared," David Hirschman, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for Capital Markets, said earlier this week.
Obama said the proposed agency was badly needed to help consumers make sense of complex financial instruments and to keep loan companies honest.
"Today, folks signing up for a mortgage, student loan, or credit card face a bewildering array of incomprehensible options. Companies compete not by offering better products, but more complicated ones -- with more fine print and hidden terms," Obama said.
"The American people sent me to Washington to stand up for their interests. And while I'm not spoiling for a fight, I'm ready for one."
Senior lawmakers have said they expect to pass financial reform regulation by the end of the year.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, at a Senate hearing on Thursday, faced the most opposition to Obama's proposal to give the Federal Reserve new powers to police broad risks in the economy.
Some lawmakers believe the central bank failed to halt practices that led to the global financial crisis.
Giving the Federal Reserve more authority "is like a parent giving his son a bigger, faster car right after he crashed the family station wagon," said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat.
US President Barack Obama has written a letter for his daughters on the occasion of Father's Day Sunday, saying that he could not be a perfect father.
'I know I have been an imperfect father. I know I have made mistakes,' said Obama in the letter that will be published in a magazine reported people.com
'I drove Michelle and newborn Malia home from the hospital nearly 11 years ago and I think about the pledge I made to her that I would give her what I never had. And that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father,' he added.
Obama has two daughters Malia,10, and Sasha, eight.
The financial sector will make up a smaller part of the U.S. economy in the future as new regulations clamp down on "massive risk-taking," President Barack Obama said in an interview published on Saturday.
Obama, whose young administration has spearheaded a raft of reforms in the banking sector as part of efforts to tackle the financial crisis, said the industry's role in the United States would look different at the end of the current recession.
"What I think will change, what I think was an aberration, was a situation where corporate profits in the financial sector were such a heavy part of our overall profitability over the last decade," he said told the New York Times Magazine.
"Part of that has to do with the effects of regulation that will inhibit some of the massive leveraging and the massive risk-taking that had become so common."
Obama said some of the job-seekers who may normally have gone to the financial sector would shift to other areas of the economy, such as engineering.
"Wall Street will remain a big, important part of our economy, just as it was in the '70s and the '80s. It just won't be half of our economy," he said.
"We don't want every single college grad with mathematical aptitude to become a derivatives trader."
The Obama administration in March proposed sweeping reforms to curb risk-taking on Wall Street and close regulatory gaps to prevent the kind of excesses that led to the worst financial crisis since the 1930s Great Depression.
The president said in the interview that better regulation would help restore confidence in the U.S. financial system.
"A more vigorous regulatory regime, I think, will help restore confidence, and you're still going to see a lot of global capital wanting to park itself in the United States," he said.
REGAINING TRUST AND CONFIDENCE
Obama expressed optimism that the market for securitized products would pick up, though he said that could take time.
The Federal Reserve, with taxpayer capital from the U.S. Treasury, is supporting consumer and real estate lending markets through a loan facility that could reach $1 trillion.
Holders of existing asset-backed and commercial mortgage-backed securities can get loans from the Fed by putting up their securities as collateral.
The facility aims to unclog frozen credit markets and jumpstart securitization.
"We're going to have to determine whether or not as a consequence of some of the steps that the Fed has been taking, the Treasury has been taking, that we see the market for securitized products restored," Obama said.
"I'm optimistic that ultimately we're going to be able to get that part of the financial sector going again, but it could take some time to regain confidence and trust."
Part of Obama's regulatory reforms include the creation of a new "systemic risk regulator" with broad powers to seize large non-bank financial firms, such as insurers, hedge funds or private equity companies, if they are deemed to threaten the stability of the financial system.
Large, "systemically important" firms would be required to hold bigger capital cushions.
Obama also said financial rules should be crafted according to what an institution actually does to avoid a regulatory gap in areas such as commercial and investment banking.
"Other countries that have not seen some of the problems in their financial markets that we have nevertheless don't separate between investment banks and commercial banks," he said, citing Canada as one example in that area.
"The experience in a country like Canada would indicate that good, strong regulation that focuses less on the legal form of the institution and more on the functions that they're carrying out is probably the right approach to take."
Michelle and Barack Obama : US First Couple Barack and Michelle Obama are seen as a perfect married couple. Michelle, who was working at law firm, was assigned the role of advisor to a summer associate from Harvard, Barack Obama. Michelle Obama is quoted to have said, 'Barack didn't pledge riches, only a life that would be interesting. On that promise he's delivered.' He sure did - he has made her the First Lady of the United States! In photo: President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama dance together at the Obama Home States Inaugural Ball in Washington,Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009.
Abhishek and Ash : When they first came together for the role in 'Dhai Akshar Prem Ke', they were both in love, but to different people. Ash was dating Salman Khan and Abhishek was dating Karishma. And over the years, fate brought them together. Their friendship flourished. And before long, there were whispers of Abhishek spending extra time with Aishwarya. Abhishek proposed to Aishwarya after the premiere of their movie 'Guru' in Toronto and Ash did not have to think twice before saying 'I do'. In photo: Indian actor Abhishek Bachchan and his wife Indian actress Aishwarya Rai arrive for the premiere of the film 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' during the 61st International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on Saturday, May 17, 2008.
Victoria and David Beckham: He went down on his knee to propose to her. And they both shed tears after they got married. The romance between Posh Spice and David Beckham got off as a low key affair but ended in a marriage. Though the wedding was a low key 'all family and close friends' affair, the reception was extravagant. In photo: David Beckham and wife Victoria Beckham arrive at the ESPYs Awards on Wednesday July 16, 2008 in Los Angeles.
Aamir and Kiran Rao: Aamir, it is said got close to Kiran on the sets of his super hit movie 'Lagaan'. Kiran was assisting director Ashutosh Gowariker in the production of 'Swadesh' while Aamir was working on his movie. It was in the sleepy town of Panchgani that they met, fell in love and it was here that they married too. The wedding had the who is who in entertainment industry in attendance. And things have been perfect till now. In photo:Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, right, and his wife Kiran Rao, second left, meet guests at their marriage reception in Bangalore, India, Monday, Jan. 2, 2006. Khan tied the knot with film director Rao last Wednesday at simple ceremony in Bombay. Khan, 41, met Rao during the making of his 2001 hit film 'Lagaan' or 'Land Tax,' which was nominated for an Oscar in the foreign film category.
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes: It was a whirlwind romance for Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes since he proposed to her on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The marriage was solemnized at a castle in Italy, according to Scientology rites. And it had their close associates flying down just for the wedding. In photo:U.S actor Tom Cruise, right, and his wife U.S. actress Katie Holmes pose for pictures during the red carpet premiere of Cruise's most recent film "Valkyrie" in Rio de Janeiro, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2009.
Akshay Kumar and Twinkle : Akshay Kumar, the action hero of Bollywood, was romantically linked with many Bollywood actress before he fell for actress Twinkle Khanna. They had a whirlwind love affair and got married. While Akshay retains the action hero title, Twinkle has settled down as an interior designer and co-owner of The White Window store. In photo: Actor Akshay Kumar, left, and his wife Twinkle Khanna arrive at a screening of the feature film "Chandni Chowk To China" at Warner Bros. studios in Burbank, Calif. on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009.
Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni: Was it love at first sight for Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president when he was introduced to Carla Bruni? The paparazzi felt so. After being introduced to the husky-voiced supermodel turned singer Carla Bruni, the freshly divorced Sarkozy.spent much of his time chatting with her. The attraction, they say was mutual and instantaneous. In photo: French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy visit the archeological site of Carthage, outside Tunis, Wednesday, April 30, 2008. Sarkozy ended a three-day state visit to Tunisia Wednesday.
SRK and Gauri Khan: What makes Shah Rukh Khan's marriage tick? He says, 'Gauri and I have one thing in common. I like me and she likes me.' May be that is the secret of their successful marriage. Even though they both hail from different religions, it has never been an issue between them feels Gauri. She is the face of the fashion line, 'Aftershock' and has also appeared on cover of the Indian edition of Vogue magazine. In photo: Bollywood actor Sharukh Khan, left, and his wife Gauri Khan, right, listens to Mushtaq Shiekh, writer of Shahrukhs biography Still Reading Khan, during its release in Mumbai, India, late Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2006.
Beyonce and Jay-Z: She normally does not talk about her personal life. And she kept quiet rumors began to circulate about her relation with rapper Jay-Z. The couple remained discreet and till they formally announced their wedding. Beyonce, still has not made any comments about how the romance started. In photo: In this Dec. 1, 2008 file photo, Hip-hop singer and entrepreneur Jay-Z and his wife singer-actress Beyonce Knowles attend the premiere of "Cadillac Records" in New York.
Tina and Anil Ambani: He is a powerful scion of Corporate India. She, a model turned actress who ruled the silver screen. And now, they are the among the first couple in the corporate world. They strike the perfect balance. While Anil runs his business from the corporate board rooms, Tina works on "Empowering Indian Senior Citizens" and runs magazine called "Harmony".
Washington, President Barack Obama's tech-savvy administration has taken another leap into cyberspace with the roll-out of 'White House 2.0.' linking it to social networks MySpace and Facebook and hot micro-blogging service Twitter.
'Today the White House is taking steps to expand how the administration is communicating with the public,' the White House blog said Friday announcing the additions to the recently launched official Flickr photostream.
'Technology has profoundly impacted how - and where - we all consume information and communicate with one another. WhiteHouse.gov is an important part of the Administration's effort to use the internet to reach the public quickly and effectively - but it isn't the only place.'
The blog post contains links to the White House's pages on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Vimeo, YouTube, and iTunes.
'The WhiteHouse blog will power a lot of the content in these networks,' the blog post explains, 'but we're looking forward to hearing from our fans, friends and followers.'
During the White House race, Obama's campaign pioneered extensive use of social networking technologies that helped power him into the Oval Office.
Content from Obama's website WhiteHouse.gov is being fed in real time to White House profile pages on MySpace and Facebook and members of the communities can sign up as Facebook 'fans' or MySpace 'friends.'
The White House had more than 31,000 fans on Facebook and more than 4,000 friends on MySpace within a few hours of the pages going online while more than 8,500 people had signed up as 'followers' of the White House on Twitter.
The blog post referred to an Obama speech from a week earlier in which he said the government needs to 'recognize that we cannot meet the challenges of today with old habits and stale thinking.'
Besides revamping WhiteHouse.gov, the Obama administration has created several other websites including recovery.gov to track the economic stimulus bill and transparency.gov to monitor spending.
After finishing 100 days in the office, US Secretary of state Hilary Clinton has trumped President Barack Obama in job approval ratings.
A recent polls shows Clinton having an approval rating of 71 percent, while the the President has a 65 percent approval rating.
"She's acting like a statesman and diplomat and representing her President instead of herself. She hasn't gone off on her own as many predicted. It's been very rehabilitating for her image," said a prominent Democrat on the former presidential candidate.
The Daily News quotes experts as saying that her former president husband, Bill Clinton, has helped in revamping her image.
Hillary also has labored to smooth over lingering rifts from the campaign with Obama and his inner circle, most notably First Lady Michelle Obama.
Declaring a truce at Foggy Bottom in March, Obama joked about her refusal during the campaign to mention Clinton's name, calling her "the other candidate." With a grin, Obama said, "Let me thank Secretary Clinton - I love saying that!"
Former National Security Council member Elliott Abrams opines that Obama has absorbed much of the foreign policy flak that would have gone Clinton's way.
Obama has piled the diplomatic plate high for Clinton, tasking her with risky openings to Iran and Cuba, while getting North Korea to disarm, putting down the Taliban threat in Pakistan and bringing the Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations.
Clinton said she would give priority to "acknowledging our own errors where we have made them, which will serve as an example to others to do the same."
"Clinton is using her political talents in the building. Morale is good. And she's playing well with others. Unlike former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, who was barely civil to Bush Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice," said Abrams.
Even Republicans are lauding the new and improved Hilary Clinton.
"It's nice to see the relationship the two of you have built...and I'm very pleased with what you're doing," Senator George Voinovich told Clinton and Gates.
A large passenger jet flew low over Manhattan, closely pursued by a fighter aircraft. Unsurprisingly, New Yorkers panicked. Few were amused to discover later that the plane was Air Force One, and that the White House had ordered it to buzz the Statue of Liberty for a publicity photo. For Barack Obama's detractors, the incident perfectly captured the new president's penchant for style over substance. "Wouldn't Photoshop have been cheaper?" asked a conservative blogger.
After 100 days in office, Mr Obama is still scorned by the people who scorned him as a candidate. But they are a minority. A YouGov/Polimetrix poll for The Economist (see left) found that fully 70 per cent of Americans like Mr Obama as a person. Many are struck by his intelligence and wholesome family, complete with new dog. Few can see in him any personal vices worse than the occasional cigarette.
Mr Obama scores less well as a president than as a person, but not much. YouGov found that 60 per cent of Americans like the way he is handling the job. Other pollsters put the number even higher. In general, Mr Obama is much more popular than Congress and slightly more popular than the policies he espouses. So long as this lasts, he is in a strong position to cajole Congress into approving his agenda.
On April 28th, his position grew even stronger. Arlen Specter, a Republican senator from Pennsylvania, announced that he would defect to the Democrats (see article). If the Democrats also win a disputed seat in Minnesota, as seems likely, Mr Specter's defection would give them a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. This would make it much easier for Mr Obama to pass his two big domestic proposals: heath-care reform and a cap-and-trade system for curbing carbon emissions. However, Mr Specter said he would continue to oppose a bill that would let unions dispense with secret-ballot elections.
Mr Obama is both cursed and blessed to have taken over in the middle of a blazing financial crisis. Cursed, because he has had to spend his first 100 days frenziedly fire-fighting. Blessed, because no one blames him. Even as joblessness soars and Americans' savings turn to cinders, Mr Obama wins plaudits for acting boldly to douse the flames. He has enacted a huge fiscal stimulus, unveiled a hyper-Keynesian budget, propped up tottering car firms and hastily drafted new rules for how financial bail-outs will proceed.
No one knows if Mr Obama's fiscal firehose will work. The economy shrank at an annualised rate of 6.1 per cent in the first three months of this year, as businesses slashed inventories and cut investment by a shocking 38 per cent. This makes the current recession at least as bad as any since the second world war. And it is unlikely to end soon: the commercial property market is groaning and swine flu is sure to cause jitters.
Republicans protest that since the money Mr Obama is spraying about is borrowed, he is dooming the nation to higher taxes in the future. On April 15th, the day by which Americans must file their taxes, hundreds of thousands held "tea party" protests against Mr Obama's plan to double the deficit.
But overall, Americans are much more optimistic about the economy since Mr Obama took over. Most think he is handling economic issues well. Most do not mind if he increases the size of government to tackle the crisis, so long as he scales it back when it is over. Strikingly, 45 per cent of Americans now think the country is on the right track, up from a miserable 15 per cent before Mr Obama was elected. The stock-market, too, is up by a quarter since its low point on March 9th.
Mr Obama has been able to keep some of his campaign promises without Congressional say-so, simply by signing executive orders. In January, he ordered the closure within a year of the prison for terrorist suspects at Guantánamo Bay. This delighted his supporters, but he has not yet decided what to do with the detainees, and has not ruled out detaining some of them indefinitely. In March, he gave an order to lift George Bush's restrictions on federal funding for stem-cell research, while delegating the task of drafting more detailed ethical rules to the National Institutes of Health. And in April, he lifted some restrictions on Cuban-Americans travelling and sending money to Cuba.
Abroad, Mr Obama has won applause. He was received warmly during a visit to Europe, where audiences appreciated his promise to show more respect for world opinion than his predecessor did. Republicans berate him for exuding weakness, noting that his big speech on nuclear disarmament was upstaged by a North Korean missile test. Democrats retort that Mr Obama can be tough when necessary. He has fired missiles into Pakistan to kill suspected Taliban fighters hiding there. And he is ramping up the war in Afghanistan even as he withdraws troops from Iraq. Republicans snipe that however much foreigners may like Mr Obama, they are still not prepared to send many troops to help America in Afghanistan.
Some of Mr Obama's biggest headaches are being aggravated by his own party. He has banned "waterboarding", a form of torture that was used on at least three al-Qaeda members thought to have information about impending attacks. But he is resisting his supporters' demands that Bush-era officials be prosecuted for authorising such methods of interrogation. His reluctance may stem from the knowledge that his own party is also complicit. For example, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, was briefed about waterboarding and raised no objections.
Plus, he has bigger priorities. He is trying to save what is salvageable of the American car industry. He wants to reshape the American health-care system, which is nearly a fifth of the economy. He wants to tackle climate change, but has not yet begun to explain to voters that this will raise their energy bills. His honeymoon will not last for ever. If he is to build on the promise of his first 100 days, he must spend his political capital cautiously.
US President Barack Obama is new Oprah? Every book that gets tagged to with him sees a spurt in sales, as it has now happened with a novel on 9/11 and cricket that he is reading these days.
In an interview on economic policies, published in the New York Times magazine Sunday but available on the net since Thursday, the president was asked about his reading. 'At the end of our conversation, when I asked him if he was reading anything good, he said he had become sick enough of briefing books to begin reading a novel in the evenings - 'Netherland,' by Joseph O'Neill,' interviewer David Leonhardt wrote.
That casual hint was enough to send publisher Random House to the press.
'The May 2008 book, published by Random House's Pantheon imprint and one of the New York Times's Best Books of the Year, has already gained market traction. According to Random House's Paul Bogaards, the title has sold 90,000 copies. But with this new presidential seal of approval, RH has decided to go back to press for an additional 2,500 copies as 'a start', according to Bogaards,' the trade publication Publishers Weekly has reported.
'The bigger message is that the president, at the end of the day, is making time to read a book,' Bogaards said.
'Netherland' is about a European man in Manhattan after 9/11 who has two loves - that for his wife, and that for his adopted country. Among other themes, the novel explores the cricketing subculture of New York, as well as a tragic friendship with a Trinidadian immigrant.
The New York Times review last year had described it as 'the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we've yet had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell'.
Last month, a lesser-know title 'Open Veins of Latin America' by Eduardo Galeano, published in English translation in 1971, reached Amazon's sales ranking No. 2 after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gifted a copy of it to Obama.
Given the effects of 'Obama plug' on book sales, the Publishers Weekly wondered if the president was the new Oprah Winfrey whose recommendations have seen even classics like 'Anna Karenina' getting a new lease of life in the US.
Warren Buffett is fond of newspapers -- he reads five a day -- but the billionaire investor warned shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc that the reeling industry may never recover because it lacks a sustainable business model.
At Saturday's annual meeting of Berkshire, which owns the Buffalo News and has a big stake in Washington Post Co, Buffett said that as readership falls, so does the attraction of newspapers for advertisers, and for investors in the companies that publish them.
"For most newspapers in the United States, we would not buy them at any price," Buffett said. "They have the possibility of nearly unending losses. ... I do not see anything on the horizon that sees that erosion coming to an end."
Many U.S. newspapers have lost 20 percent or more of their advertising revenue as changes in technology and reading habits shrink circulation and more readers to get their news online.
Several newspapers in large U.S. cities have closed in recent months, and the future of the money-losing Boston Globe, owned by The New York Times Co, remains up in the air.
"Twenty, thirty years ago, they were a product that had pricing power that was essential," said Buffett. "They have lost that essential nature."
Buffett said Berkshire would hold on to the Buffalo News, a daily newspaper in the New York state city of the same name, if only because Berkshire buys businesses for the long term and does not sell simply because the companies hit a rough patch.
He did not rule out having to squeeze out excess costs, including possible job cuts, or eventually shuttering the paper if it goes too deeply into the red.
"On an economic basis you should sell this business. I said I agree 100 percent but I am not going to do it," he said. "The union has been cooperative in having an economic model that will at least give us a little bit of money."
Charlie Munger, Berkshire's vice chairman, called the decline of the newspaper industry "a national tragedy."
"What replaces it will not be as desirable as what we are losing," he said.
The latest news from the Hindu Kush makes one thing painfully apparent: The Taliban/Al Qaeda jihadistani quasi state, 'Jihadistan Emirate', has achieved critical mass. It has now metastasized into a killer disease that threatens the survival of Pakistan's fragile democracy.
The decisive indication that coherent political integration has been achieved by the Taliban is their successful conquest of Swat. This initial incursion outside their montane territorial fortress now shows that Taliban/Al Qaeda can call the shots regarding subsequent targets. This is evident from their deliberate and systematic expansion from Swat into the contiguous portions of Malakand Division, commencing with Buner district.
What is striking is that they are undertaking the latter in blatant defiance of agreements that were ostensibly ratified between them and the Pakistani government. It is clear, in other words, that the Taliban/Al Qaeda leadership view understandings and agreements that have been made with government authorities in the course of their politico-military expansion purely in tactical terms.
They sense the weakness and paralysis of the Pakistani government, and its consequent willingness (nay eagerness!) to engage in political appeasement, as a golden opportunity to gradually overpower and gain control of the Pakistani state.
The signs are everywhere that the Taliban/Al Qaeda strategy is working, and the authority of the Pakistan government is gradually waning despite official assurances to the contrary. Pakistani officials insist that the situation is under control when all the evidence points in the opposite direction. When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton alluded to the 'existential threat' to Pakistan's survival posed by the extremists, Pakistan's Ambassador in Washington, Husain Haqqani, replied that 'we do not have a situation in which the government or the country of Pakistan is about to fall to the Taliban.'
His statement exemplifies the state of denial the democratically elected government of Pakistan is in. Clearly, President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and even army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani are in a state of paralytic inaction.
If one is searching for an analogy to what may be forthcoming from the Hindu Kush, in the face of the breakdown of popular government in Pakistan, it might not be far fetched to look no further than the Pol Pot phenomenon and the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. There are disturbing similarities between the two cases.
As the Khmer Rouge germinated and perfected their retrograde Maoist extremism in the remote jungle backwater of Cambodia, so the Taliban and Al Qaeda have honed their brand of doctrinal extremism and their accompanying organizational apparatus in the remote valleys of the Hindu Kush. As in the case of the Khmer Rouge, the Americans and the purportedly more advanced segments of Pakistani society at first took the extremists lightly, slighted them strategically, and indeed played political footsie with them until it became apparent that they were a serous threat.
When it seemed to then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger that the Khmer Rouge could be useful in opposing the North Vietnamese, in January 1968 the US Army helped the Khmer Rouge establish the Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea, which materially strengthened them. Much as ISI and the CIA from time to time bolstered the Taliban when it seemed they might be of value to both countries' regional strategic interests.
There is another horror scenario waiting in the wings should a political collapse result in a 'Cambodian Moment' for Pakistan. A Taliban regime in Pakistan would not only tear at the social fabric of Pakistan and plunge millions of Pakistanis into fratricidal conflict, it would potentially place nuclear weapons in the hands of lunatics like Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar!
This would impose on US President Barack Obama a moral dilemma beyond anything he could have imagined or contemplated when he assumed office. The only option open to him would be to take out the Pakistani nuclear facility at Chagai Hills in much the same manner, but on a grander scale, than Israel did when it feared that Saddam Husain's Daura reactor near Baghdad would go critical by July or August of 1981.
The ramifications this would have for South Asia and indeed the entire world boggle the mind.
Yet this is a scenario whose occurrence cannot be dismissed as long as Pakistan's civil society acting through its elected secular government, in consonance with the United States and the UN, move decisively before it is too late.
As American confidence in the Pakistani government wanes, the Obama administration is reaching out more directly than before to Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari's chief rival Nawaz Sharif, the New York Times said in a report.
American officials have long held Sharif at arm's length because of his close ties to Islamists in Pakistan, but some Obama administration officials now say those ties could be useful in helping Zardari's government to confront the stiffening challenge by Taliban insurgents, the influential newspaper said Saturday.
The move reflects the heightened concern in the Obama administration about the survivability of the Zardari government, the daily said.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the United States Central Command, has said in private meetings in Washington that Pakistan's government is increasingly vulnerable, according to unnamed administration officials cited by the Times.
General Petraeus is among those expected to attend an all-day meeting on Saturday with senior administration officials to discuss the next steps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in advance of high-level sessions next week in Washington, when Zardari and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan will meet with President Obama at the White House.
Washington has a bad history of trying to engineer domestic Pakistani politics, and no one in the administration is trying to broker an actual power-sharing agreement between Zardari and Sharif, unnamed administration officials were cited as saying.
But they say that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, have both urged Zardari and Sharif to look for ways to work together, seeking to capitalise on Sharif's appeal among the country's Islamist groups.
Obama administration officials have been up front in expressing dissatisfaction with the response shown by Zardari's government to increasing attacks by Taliban fighters and insurgents with Al Qaeda in the country's tribal areas, and along its western border with Afghanistan.
A Defence Department official cited by the Times said the administration wanted to broker an agreement not so much to buoy Zardari personally, but to accomplish what the administration believes Pakistan must do.
'The idea here is to tie Sharif's popularity to things we think need to be done, like dealing with the militancy,' the unnamed official was quoted as saying.
Both Holbrooke and Clinton have spoken with Sharif by telephone in the past month, and have urged Zardari's increasingly unpopular government to work closely with Sharif, administration officials said.
Despite fierce op-ed page debates over the Obama administration's actions so far on Israel, Iran and the Middle East, American Jews are unwavering in their support of the new president, according to a new Gallup poll.
Tracking polls conducted through Obama's first 100 days in office show that 79 percent of Jews approve of Obama's performance so far, about the same percentage that voted for him last November, reports The Jerusalem Post.
Only Muslims gave Obama higher approval ratings, with 85 percent responding that they approve of the president. Respondents who identified themselves as non-religious also indicated overwhelming support, with 73 percent indicating approval.
Liberal Jews showed overwhelming support for the Democratic president, with 96 percent approving of his job performance. Among those who described themselves as moderate, 77 percent approved of Obama.
Jewish conservatives split evenly, with 45 percent approving of Obama and 45 percent disapproving.
The poll's authors noted that Obama has taken a strong stand on the Middle East by appointing George Mitchell as a special peace envoy and dispatching Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the region. The new administration has also signaled shifts in their approach to Iran's nuclear program.
"It is not clear whether US Jews endorse Obama's approach, but the fact that four in five approve of the job he is doing - consistent with their vote for him in the election - suggests they at least tolerate it," they wrote.