| 11 December 2004 | Saturday | 28 Shawwal 1425 |
Upswing in stock market
Making roads safer
Some Nato nations' refusal to send training missions to Iraq is understandable. In what obviously was his last appearance at a Nato conference, US Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to impress upon Nato leaders in Brussels on Thursday the need for help in training the new Iraqi army but received a negative response.
Though some of Nato's European members, including Britain and Italy, have their contingents in Iraq, some major members, including France and Germany, have declined to send troops to the war-torn country. Their refusal to do so is a logical outcome of their opposition to the invasion of Iraq.
From the day it appeared that the Bush administration had decided to wage war on Iraq, many leading Nato powers, including France and Germany, opposed the idea. France even threatened a veto if the US tried to force a second Security Council resolution authorizing an attack on Iraq.
Eventually, the US decided to invade Iraq without obtaining a UN authorization - something to which Secretary General Kofi Annan recently referred by calling the war "illegal".
Some of the postulates behind the attack were so simplistic as to invite ridicule. These included the belief that the Iraqis would welcome the attackers as liberators and that soon there would be elections, turning Iraq into a democracy.
Today, more than 20 months after the invasion, Iraq is anything but peaceful. There is total anarchy in the country. The US-installed government headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is regarded by the Iraqis and all Arabs as a puppet, and it has failed to give the country even a semblance of normality.
Instead, all major cities - Baghdad, Najaf, Fallujah, Ramadi, and even largely non-Arab Mosul - have risen in revolt. The situation has been worsened by the excessive use of force by the occupation forces.
For instance, Mr Annan had warned against an all-out attack because this could lead to heavy civilian casualties. Instead, the US commanders chose to ignore the UN secretary-general's warning, leading to a high civilian death toll.
Full statistics for entire Iraq are not available, but a British medical journal has said that a minimum 100,000 civilians have been killed; a more probable figure could be as high as 200,000. The Americans too have lost 1,200 troops, more than 4,500 have been injured, and a large number of troops are suffering from psychiatric disorders.
In such circumstances, the Americans are keen that the Iraqi army and police be readied as early as possible to take over peacekeeping from the US-led forces. However, there is no possibility that this would happen.
The hostility to the new police force is evident from the regular attacks launched on its training and recruiting centres. The training, arming and expansion of the new Iraqi army and police are thus an uphill task.
To expect any country - including Nato members - to send troops to Iraq in such a situation is unreal. The only course for America is to develop a realistic exit strategy. Mr Annan's complaint is justified - that the world body is not being involved in a big way in the proposed elections next month.
Let there be an interim UN set-up which should organize the January elections, policed by a UN peacekeeping force. Elections held under the present dispensation will lack credibility as a basis for a new political dispensation in Iraq.
Upswing in stock market
The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) accomplished a feat on Thursday when its index, the KSE-100, crossed the record level of 5,700 points with trading reaching a six-month high.
From all accounts, this is a milestone achieved not only for the stock market but also for the country's economy as a whole. Investor sentiments have remained positive in the KSE throughout the week on an expectation that the economy would continue to grow and that certain sectors, like cement, will see heightened activity in the months to come.
What makes Thursday's rally particularly significant is that it was driven almost entirely by local interests. The confidence of domestic investors in the market was amply demonstrated earlier this year in the massive over-subscription seen in the public offering of Oil and Gas Development Corporation (OGDC) and the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) shares.
While local interest is encouraging, the government needs to address ways to attract foreign players as well. Despite being one of the best performing markets in the world over the past few years, the KSE has been unable to attract any significant foreign investment.
Foreign investors point to the political uncertainty that grips the country, the bad law and order situation with frequent incidents of sectarian violence, and the rise in corruption as some of the factors that act as deterrents.
Despite efforts to attract small investors through the launch of mutual funds, the response has been poor. Given that the government sees the stock market as a viable alternative to the national savings schemes for small investors, more needs to be done to ensure that such investors are able to become part of the market.
The government should take these issues seriously, otherwise the economic upswing that we expect on the basis of the positive trends that we have had in recent years will start dissipating.
Making roads safer
The announcement in Islamabad that a five-year plan to reduce the number of road accidents is being formulated is welcome news. This reaction, however, needs to be qualified with a reiteration that rather than devising new plans, perhaps the best way forward, in terms of making our roads and the highways safer would be a strict enforcement of existing traffic rules and regulations. There are several aspects to this.
One is to strengthen the screening process by which drivers get their licences. Sad to say it is quite easy to get a driving licence in Pakistan without ever having taken a test. Offices that issue licences anywhere in the country, barring a few exceptions, are not exactly known for their transparency in issuing permits.
In most advanced countries, this process is tightly monitored and regulated by the authorities who realize that issuing a driving licence to someone who does not have the knowledge or who has not acquired the skill of driving a vehicle is like unleashing a mad bull on the road.
Given that almost two-thirds of all traffic deaths occur in accidents involving buses, trucks, or other heavy vehicles, there is a very strong case to have a system in place that issues licences to bona fide applicants and only after they have passed the mandatory test.
On the highways there is also the question of vehicular fitness. Many accidents take place because vehicles are overloaded and their axels snap, their brakes fail, or their brake lights do not work and traffic behind them, coming at high speed, rams into them.
And of course, there is the general problem of a severe lack of traffic sense among many motorists, which adds to the traffic chaos. As for the traffic police, they, by and large, seem more involved in filling their pockets than in regulating traffic and ensuring a semblance of disciplined and orderly driving.
Any plan to reduce the chaos that currently rules Pakistan's roads must deal with all these aspects and implement measures to improve the efficiency of the traffic police, increase civic sense among road users, and make driving safer and move disciplined.