Pakistan remains fragile and unstable. Subservience to US foreign policy interests post 9/11 have compounded its problems and priorities. Fresh thinking is needed if Pakistan is to break away from a history of failure.

US President George Bush visited India from 1-3 March 2006. During his visit, progress was madeon the implementation of the US-India nuclear agreement, signed in Washington on 18 July 2005 during a visit by Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. Specifically, the two governments agreed a “separation plan” for India’s nuclear facilities, as required by the agreement. This plan notionally splits India’s facilities into “civilian” and “military”, as a precursor to the “civilian” facilities being made subject to IAEA monitoring.

The most unsettling thing about the earthquake that struck northern Pakistan on October 8th 2005, was the fact that the Government of Pakistan was caught totally unprepared,having neither an earthquake preparedness nor earthquake response programme in place.

Northern Pakistan, lying on one of the most active fault-lines known, is rocked regularly by earthquakes. The Indian plate’s collision with the Eurasian plate lifts the Himalaya range between two and three inches a year.The collision of the plates creates a subduction effect producing frequent earthquakes of varying intensity. 

Wei-Ch’i, or “Go” as it is also called is a strange sort of game. Intellectual and strategic activity is devoted to a pursuit that, at best, has an ambiguous result. The game is not the realm of winners or losers. It is however a pursuit of perpetual struggle for minute advantages. Unlike chess where the end game is always aspired to and can either be met as win, lose or draw, Wei-Ch’i has no endgame, unending seeking of position is the only rendering factor. Chinese policy makers brought up on many an hour spent at Wei-Ch’i tables have suddenly found the world a gargantuan Wei-Ch’i board. Using ingenuity and creativity to achieve constant and incremental advantage has led China’s leadership to the brink of becoming the world’s second super power.