Sen. Kerry goes to AfPak
Senate
Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry arrived in Afghanistan
yesterday, meeting twice with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and
delivering a stern anti-corruption message (LAT, Reuters).
Sen. Kerry helped convince Karzai in principle to participate in
run-off elections for President last year, though the run-off did not
take place; however, this time Kerry told Karzai that if he did not
improve governance it would make it more difficult for U.S. troops to
win over Afghans as well as convince Congress and the American public of
the continued value of the war in Afghanistan (AFP). Kerry told reporters, "I'm not going to stand up and defend for one instant a policy that is
based on supporting a corrupt government, if that's what it wound up
being...But that's the test right now. That's why I'm
here"
(Wash Post).
Kerry also listened to Karzai's complaints of a heavy U.S. footprint in
Afghanistan and purported infringements on the Afghan government's areas
of responsibility (AP).
Complicating fair governance further, Afghanistan's Independent
Election Commission decided that it will not open 900 polling places in
mostly rural areas for next month's parliamentary elections, citing
security concerns (Guardian, AJE, WSJ). Kerry will be in Pakistan today, touring flood-affected areas and meeting with Pakistani leaders (ET).
Kerry's
visit came just hours after Karzai formally signed a decree ordering
all private security companies in Afghanistan to disband by December,
with Afghan security forces to take their place (TIME, Wash Post, NYT, BBC, AP, RFE/RL).
U.S. officials reacted cautiously in public to the news, though
Newsweek reports that the U.S. Embassy was not notified in advance of
the edict (AFP, Newsweek).
Experts expressed concern about the effect of the decree, and in
particular the chilling effect it could have on international
development and reconstruction efforts that rely on private security
personnel for protection (BBC).
Hundreds
of men protested outside of Jalalabad today, saying two "Taliban"
killed by U.S. forces in a night raid were actually civilians (AJE, Reuters).
Late Tuesday Taliban fighters broke into a provincial official's house
in Zabul, killing the official and his wife, while elsewhere explosions
killed three NATO soldiers and up to two dozen civilians (AP, AFP). And NATO forces killed 13 Taliban and freed 27 men after finding a makeshift Taliban prison in Helmand province (CNN).
Still the rain kept falling
The
U.N. today announced that it had received about half of the $459
million in initial aid requested for Pakistan, up from just a quarter of
the aid four days ago (Reuters, Dawn).
Fundraising from the West is still lagging, as millions in desperate
conditions have yet to receive assistance and people began facing the
toll of the flooding on Pakistan's economy (NYT, Dawn, AFP, ET).
Officials have given a variety of factors explaining the lagging
donations, including the (relatively) low death toll for such a
disaster, Pakistan's association in people's minds with militancy and
corruption, and donor fatigue (NYT).
The Organization of the Islamic Conference will hold an emergency
meeting today in Saudi Arabia to discuss the ongoing crisis in Pakistan (Daily Times).
TIME has a must-read breakdown of the political, economic, and other long-term consequences of the flooding (TIME).
Militants killed two members of an anti-Taliban militia in Peshawar,
while elsewhere in the city a group of fighters attacked police posts (AP, Dawn).
And reports suggest that Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
has been taken to visit fake refugee camps dismantled soon after his
departure (Dawn).
Violent protests returned to Karachi yesterday, after the killing of a
Deobandi cleric yesterday and the son of a Shi'a cleric Monday (ET).
Girl power
Women
swept all of the top spots in Punjab province's annual college exams,
earning cash prizes and exemptions from further payment for future
studies (Daily Times).
The pass rate for women on the exam was 33.81 percent, while it was
only 19.18 percent for men, with nearly twice as many women taking the
exams as men.
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