"Taliban leaders are holding Saudi-brokered talks with the Afghan government to end the country's bloody conflict - and are severing their ties with al Qa'eda, sources close to the historic discussions have told CNN. "The militia, which has been intensifying its attacks on the US-led coalition that toppled it from power in 2001 for harbouring Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, has been involved [in] four days of talks hosted by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, says the source. "The talks - the first of their kind aimed at resolving the lengthy conflict in Afghanistan - mark a significant move by the Saudi leadership to take a direct role in Afghanistan, hosting delegates who have until recently been their enemies.... "According to the source, fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar - high on the US military's most-wanted list - was not present, but his representatives were keen to stress the reclusive cleric is no longer allied to al Qa'eda. "Details of the Taliban leader's split with al Qa'eda have never been made public before, but the new claims confirm what another source with an intimate knowledge of the militia and Mullah Omar has told CNN in the past." The Associated Press reported: "A former Taliban ambassador said Monday that the hard-line militants sat with Afghan officials and Saudi King Abdullah over an important religious meal in Saudi Arabia late last month as the insurgency raged back home. "Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, denied that the get-together could be construed as peace talks. But President Hamid Karzai has long called for negotiations with the Taliban, and the meeting could spur future initiatives. "With US and Nato forces suffering their deadliest year so far in Afghanistan, the top UN envoy, Kai Eide, said Monday that the war 'has to be won through political means.'" In The Sunday Times, Christian Lamb reported: "Britain's most senior military commander in Afghanistan has warned that the war against the Taliban cannot be won. Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said the British public should not expect a 'decisive military victory' but should be prepared for a possible deal with the Taliban. "His assessment followed the leaking of a memo from a French diplomat who claimed that Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British ambassador in Kabul, had told him the current strategy was 'doomed to fail'. "Carleton-Smith, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, which has just completed its second tour of Afghanistan, said it was necessary to 'lower our expectations'. He said: 'We're not going to win this war. It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army.' The Guardian said: "Britain has denied that it believes the military campaign in Afghanistan is doomed to failure after the French weekly Le Canard Enchaine reported that Sherard Cowper-Coles, UK ambassador to Kabul, told a French official that foreign troops added to the country's problems. "The newspaper reported that Cowper-Coles had said Afghanistan might best be 'governed by an acceptable dictator', that the American strategy was 'destined to fail', and the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan was 'part of the problem, not the solution'. The French foreign ministry said the newspaper report did not 'correspond at all with what we hear from our British counterparts in our discussions on Afghanistan'." Reuters reported: "US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday dismissed as 'defeatist' comments by Britain's military commander and its ambassador in Afghanistan that the war there could not be won. " 'While we face significant challenges in Afghanistan, there certainly is no reason to be defeatist or to underestimate the opportunities to be successful in the long run,' Gates told reporters en route to Europe for meetings with defense ministers. "The Pentagon chief said part of the solution in Afghanistan, where soaring violence has made that war zone more deadly than Iraq, would be negotiating with members of the Taliban who are willing to work with the government in Kabul." In Asia Times, Syed Saleem Shahzad said that Nato: "showed its willingness to compromise on core principles by publicly approving Washington-backed Karzai's proposal, made on Friday, that Mullah Omar, who is believed to spend time in Pakistan, return to Afghanistan. Overnight, Mullah Omar has gone from 'condemned terrorist' to Karzai's brother. "For the Taliban, though, this does not change anything and the battle will continue, although it is accepted that it will increasingly spill over into Pakistan, where the Taliban already control large chunks of territory in the border areas - and even spread into India. The executive director of the Pakistani Center for Research and Security Studies, Dr Farrukh Saleem, has claimed that 12,000 square kilometers of Pakistan have already been lost to the Taliban, and that their march continues. Pakistan has tried to counter the Taliban through military offensives, local pro-government militias and through the secular Awami National Party (ANP), which governs North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), all without success." The Times reported: "The Taliban threatened to attack polling stations and candidates during Afghanistan's second presidential election, due to be held next summer, as the lengthy and dangerous process of voter registration began yesterday. "The chief spokesman for Mullah Omar, the Taliban's leader, told The Times that the group would use its increasing influence in the country to disrupt the poll. 'This is not an election, it is a joke that is putting dust in people's eyes,' said Qari Yousuf Ahmadi. 'Where will they have an election? How much of Afghanistan belongs to the Government and foreign troops?' "The poll is seen as a crucial test of the credibility of the fragile Western-backed Government and the seven-year reconstruction effort. The Taliban made little attempt to oppose elections in 2004 and 2005, and Afghan officials have expressed hope that it will allow the democratic process set for August 2009.
Former Goldman Sachs VP to oversee Wall Street bailout
"A 35-year old Indian-American whiz whose parents migrated from Jammu and Kashmir is being entrusted with [the] task of rescuing Wall Street, the US economy - and the pretty much the entire financial world tied to its coat tails - from a dizzying tailspin that is crushing markets and people across the globe," The Times of India reported. "US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Monday named Neel Kashkari, currently the Assistant Secretary for International Affairs in the Department of Treasury, as the interim head for its new Office of Financial Stability, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program, to oversee the $700-billion bailout programme aimed at arresting the US economy's precipitous slide arising from the mortgage crisis." The Financial Times' Alphaville blog said: "we can't help noting some of the bemused reactions to news that US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson is expected to put 35-year-old Neel Kashkari, a Treasury assistant secretary for international affairs and a former Goldman Sachs banker, in charge of overseeing the $700bn US financial sector bailout plan. "First and foremost, for those who believe Paulson has a slightly tin ear, not just for the constitutional separation of powers... but also for political currents and growing public aversion towards what you could call the 'Goldmanisation' of the US economy, it seems a curious time to appoint a young acolyte from 'The Firm' to run one of the most critical financial rescue programmes in US history . "Kashkari, who originally trained as an aerospace engineer and worked on developing technology for Nasa before earning an MBA at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, caught Paulson's attention when he joined Goldman Sachs. Once there, he headed up Goldman's IT security investment banking practice in San Francisco before joining Paulson at the Treasury in 2007. "Second, there is a small matter of experience. He is 35 years old and - if appointed and confirmed - will, as the Wall Street Journal points out, gain a 'position of substantial power' overseeing Treasury's effort to buy the financial industry's bad loans and other distressed securities." Meanwhile, after financial markets around the world plummeted on Monday, The Guardian reported: "Shares in London suffered their biggest one-day points fall on record yesterday as [the finance minister,] Alistair Darling failed to halt a wave of selling that saw fears of global recession prompt panic-stricken investors to dump stocks, oil and vulnerable currencies. "The chancellor pledged to do 'whatever it takes' to end the 14-month crisis, but the lack of policies in a statement to MPs disappointed the City, where almost £100bn was wiped off the value of the leading 100 companies. "Bank shares were most affected on a day that saw selling begin overnight in the far east, move to Europe and finally engulf Wall Street, where the Dow Jones industrial average was down 785 points by mid-afternoon - on course for its biggest-ever one-day fall, although it later rallied finishing 370 points down." The Guardian also reported: "Germany's go-it-alone decision to prevent a run on its banks by guaranteeing up to 1 trillion euros of individuals' deposits was followed yesterday by several other EU countries. "But the rush to take unilateral action underlined a sense of disarray among EU governments over the crisis and the difficulties of drafting joint action. "Amid bitter recriminations about Berlin's shock move on Sunday, Spain indicated that it could soon join Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland and Sweden in offering a full government guarantee for deposits. "But Germany rowed back slightly, insisting that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was not offering a full state guarantee to all banks - just to private depositors. "The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, the current EU president, insisted that EU leaders were acting together and would separately and collectively do whatever was necessary to ensure financial stability." As the US Congress opened its own investigation into the roots of the financial crisis, The New York Times reported: "Even as the investment bank Lehman Brothers pleaded for a federal bailout to save it from bankruptcy protection, it approved millions of dollars in bonuses for departing executives, a Congressional committee was told Monday. "The first Congressional hearing into the causes of the financial crisis began with a portrayal of Lehman Brothers as a firm run by irresponsible leaders who continued to reward executives and spend billions on stock buybacks and other capital-depleting programs even as internal documents warned about the impending crisis. " 'It was a company in which there was no accountability for failure,' the chairman of the House Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee, Henry A Waxman, said in his opening statement. "One Lehman document among thousands reviewed by the House committee showed that four days before the bank filed for bankruptcy protection, Lehman's compensation committee was asked to grant $20 million in 'special payments' for three executives who were leaving, Mr Waxman said. An e-mail exchange recommending a delay in bonus payments was apparently brushed aside." Reuters said: "France's biggest employers' group proposed on Monday scrapping so-called 'golden parachutes' for failed business chiefs after President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened legislation if no action was taken. " 'It is not acceptable that the management of a company that has failed or who have themselves failed should leave with compensation payouts,' a proposed code of governance drawn up by the employers' association said. "Sarkozy declared in a speech last month that business would have to come up with proposals to curb executive pay abuses or the government would step in and enforce compulsory controls."
pwoodward@thenational.ae
