As the Pakistani military continued its offensive to stop the advance of Taliban insurgents on Thursday, the United States was putting intense new pressure on the Pakistani government.
As that country battles the militants, President Obama said last night he was gravely concerned about the stability of the government as it tries to gain support of the Pakistani people. All of this comes just days before President Asif Ali Zardari visits Washington next week.
Teresita Schaffer, director of the South Asia program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, joins Martin Savidge to discuss Pakistan’s offensive and security concerns over the country’s nuclear arsenal.
Mexico’s Health Minister José Angel Córdova announced today that Government of Mexico has ordered all nonessential activity of the federal government and private business to cease for a five day period in an effort to contain the swine flu epidemic. The decision came as global health authorities warned that the swine flu was threatening to bloom into a pandemic. Friday is May Day which is a holiday in Mexico so the closure is in effect just a two day ‘forced holiday’. All nonessential private businesses must also close for that period but essential services like transport, supermarkets, trash collection, hospital will remain open.
As of Monday the daily economic impact of the epidemic was costing Mexico City alone $57 million USD. Mexico’s central bank warned the outbreak will likely deepen the nation’s recession, hurting an economy that was already hit hard by the global financial crisis. Mexico’s economy shrank 8 percent in the first quarter year-over-year. Clearly the impact to the Mexican economy and its ripple effect across the globe will continue to mount. Egypt, for example, took the highly unusual step of ordering its entire 400,000 swine herd culled sparking riots among Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. The order hits the the slum-dwelling Zebaleen rubbish collectors who rely on the hogs for their livelihood. The Zebaleen feed their animals with a country’s food scraps. The war on the poor often finds the flimsy of excuses and Egypt’s response, widely condemned, is little more than an assault on a beleaguered minority.
Empire, a new programme from Al Jazeera, examines the path from Iraq to Afghanistan and into Pakistan. With the Iraq operation apparently drawing to a close and a mini-surge underway in Afghanistan, people in the region are wondering what this will all mean on the ground and what will the repercussions be for the region. As locals worry that they will be caught in the crossfire or killed by drones, experts question whether the strategy is the correct one or if it is too little, too late. Empire investigates what went wrong and the Obama plan to fix it.