Pakistan and NATO Forces Exchange Fire

The clash took place at Admi Kot Post in the North Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan, an area that American officials have long regarded as a haven used by militants to attack coalition forces inside Afghanistan. NATO officials said they were looking into the incident, and could not immediately confirm whether the helicopters had indeed entered Pakistan’s airspace.

The exchange of fire between NATO and Pakistani forces appeared likely to worsen frictions between Pakistan and the United States. The Pakistani Army “lodged a strong protest and demanded a flag meeting,” the statement said, referring to a meeting between officials from Pakistan and NATO.

Last September, Pakistan shut down for more than a week the land route through Pakistan that NATO uses to supply its forces in Afghanistan, after two Pakistani paramilitary soldiers were killed in a similar border clash.

Tuesday’s clash came as Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, traveled to Beijing. Analysts said that visit was meant to signal to the United States that Pakistan saw China as an alternative source of security and economic aid.

On Monday, Senator John Kerry met with top civil and military leaders in Pakistan in an effort to smooth the fraying relations between the two countries in the wake of the American raid by forces that killed Osama bin Laden. The Pakistani Parliament in a closed-door session last week urged the government to renew and revisit its terms of engagement with the United States. It also warned that it might sever supply lines to coalition forces in Afghanistan if there were further unilateral incursions.

Drone attacks, which are operated by the C.I.A., not by the NATO-led coalition force, are highly unpopular in Pakistan. Nationalist and right-wing Islamist political parties regularly denounce the use of drone attacks inside Pakistani territory. Government officials who in the past privately approved the use of drones have lately been joining the chorus of public criticism.

Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s leading spy organization, also maintains that it has stopped cooperating with the United States in choosing targets for drone attacks.

At the same time, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani Army chief, has resisted American pressure to start a military operation in North Waziristan, a stronghold of the Haqqani network, whose militants cross into Afghanistan to battle American and NATO soldiers.

 

Foreign Exchange Swaps To Be Exempt From Rule

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — In what was characterized as a victory for business, the Treasury Department proposed on Friday that commonly used foreign exchange swaps and forwards should be exempted from rules intended to tighten oversight of other derivatives.

The Treasury said that forcing these derivatives through clearinghouses and onto exchanges was not necessary because existing procedures in the foreign exchange market mitigate risk and ensure stability.

Any disruptions to the market “could have serious negative economic consequences,” the department said.

Foreign exchange swaps and forwards, which represent about 5 percent of the $600 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market, are used to lock in prices as protection against exchange rate fluctuations.

Businesses, big banks and the securities industry lobbied the administration to exempt the financial instruments from the rules. They argued that clearing requirements were unnecessary given that most contracts expired after one week.

The Treasury agreed.

“You would be putting more steps into the settlement process for trades that are largely short term in nature,” Mary J. Miller, the assistant secretary for financial markets, said.

Under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation enacted last year, the Treasury secretary was given the power to determine whether the narrow subset of foreign exchange derivatives should be tightly regulated.

The rest of the over-the-counter derivatives market will be forced through clearinghouses, which will stand between two parties and assume the risk if one party defaults.

The country’s biggest labor federation, the A.F.L.-C.I.O., criticized the Treasury’s decision. “We’re afraid it is going to open up an opportunity for arbitrage” in which derivatives users look to employ the least-regulated products, said Heather Slavkin, the federation’s senior legal and policy adviser.

The legislation was aimed, in part, at trying to ensure derivatives no longer pose the type of threat they did during the 2007-2009 credit crisis. Credit derivatives were implicated in the downfall of troubled financial giants Lehman Brothers and the American International GroupAIG. (NYSE:AIG).

Ms. Miller said the foreign exchange swaps market was different from other derivatives markets and that under Dodd-Frank it would be illegal to use the instruments to evade tougher scrutiny that applies to other derivatives.

The proposal is open for comment for 30 days. The Treasury’s final decision will be issued after that period.

 

More evidence of iPhone's Exchange support and RSS reader

 By Thomas Ricker posted June 29th 2007 3:11AM
The kids over at ThinkSecret have some exclusive pics of what they purport to be interface shots of the iPhone. In these, we clearly see an RSS view thanks to the reader.mac.com URL, a previously unseen SIM loading procedure (requiring a paperclip), and what appears to be an Exchange email configuration tab. TS says that the iPhone supports Microsoft Exchange servers and has likely licensed Microsoft's ActiveSync. The latter dealio we've heard before and is certainly making corporate IT departments a bit fidgety. After all, more than a few CEOs will be demanding integration of their new toys come Monday morning. Jobs himself responded to a USA Today question about the lack of corporate email support with, "You'll be hearing more about this in the coming weeks. We have some pilots going with companies with names you'll recognize. This won't be a big issue." The fact that most of these pictures still sport the old Cingular logo certainly doesn't give us much confidence for an "iDay" release.

Update: As pointed out by a number of our readers, the Exchange tab likely configures IMAP4 access to Exchange like Apple's OS X Mail.app client. Made all the more likely by yesterday's "Rollup 3" release by Microsoft which fixes Mac related issues with Exchange 2007.

 

More evidence of iPhone's Exchange support and RSS reader

 By Thomas Ricker posted June 29th 2007 3:11AM
The kids over at ThinkSecret have some exclusive pics of what they purport to be interface shots of the iPhone. In these, we clearly see an RSS view thanks to the reader.mac.com URL, a previously unseen SIM loading procedure (requiring a paperclip), and what appears to be an Exchange email configuration tab. TS says that the iPhone supports Microsoft Exchange servers and has likely licensed Microsoft's ActiveSync. The latter dealio we've heard before and is certainly making corporate IT departments a bit fidgety. After all, more than a few CEOs will be demanding integration of their new toys come Monday morning. Jobs himself responded to a USA Today question about the lack of corporate email support with, "You'll be hearing more about this in the coming weeks. We have some pilots going with companies with names you'll recognize. This won't be a big issue." The fact that most of these pictures still sport the old Cingular logo certainly doesn't give us much confidence for an "iDay" release.

Update: As pointed out by a number of our readers, the Exchange tab likely configures IMAP4 access to Exchange like Apple's OS X Mail.app client. Made all the more likely by yesterday's "Rollup 3" release by Microsoft which fixes Mac related issues with Exchange 2007.