Word: asia
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...assassination last December of Benazir Bhutto, a former Prime Minister who was likely to win parliamentary elections in February, capped a year of devastating bloodshed. Some 3,600 people died in terrorism-related violence in 2007, according to the organization South Asia Terrorism Portal, and this year will be worse, as militant groups have joined together to wage war on the central government. The February elections brought Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, headed by her widower, Zardari, to power and a brief hiatus in the violence. But the new governing coalition collapsed over petty power struggles, and the militancy...
...Baghdad Petraeus Hands Over the Keys General David Petraeus turns over control of U.S. troops in Iraq to his former deputy, Lieut. General Raymond Odierno, on Sept. 16. In July the Senate voted to promote Petraeus to head the military's Central Command, covering central Asia and the Middle East, including Afghanistan and Iraq. He assumes his new post this fall, filling the void left by Admiral William J. Fallon, who resigned in March over clashes with the Bush Administration...
...Sharif's party to drop out of the coalition government, taking with it the highly regarded Finance Minister, Ishaq Dar. The economy, already burdened by skyrocketing food and oil prices, collapsed, and there was a run on the stock market, which had been one of the best-performing in Asia...
Will anything work? "The military has pursued two bad policies in the tribal areas--appeasement and excessive use of force," says Samina Ahmed, South Asia project director for the International Crisis Group. "Either way, all they have achieved is empowering the militants, helping them in recruitment and in obtaining funding." She laments the lack of a coherent strategy. "Militaries are blunt instruments; they are not good at counterinsurgency," she says. "The police would be a far more effective instrument, but there is no coordination between the military and the civilian government, so political reform and economic development--essential elements...
...Rates might rise sharply not just on mortgage securities but for all kinds of U.S. debt, including Treasuries. Such fears say a lot about this country's newfound financial dependence. So does Paulson's preference for making announcements on Sunday--just before the markets open for the week in Asia. "I suspect this is the first case where foreign central banks exercised their leverage as creditors to push the U.S. government to make a policy decision that protected their interests," wrote Brad Setser, an economist at the Council on Foreign Relations who closely tracks capital flows. One suspects...