ARMY Commanders heading the relief operations in the devastated areas while briefing a group of senior diplomats, who visited Muzaffarabad and other worst towns on Thursday, observed that they faced the dreadful challenge of the forthcoming winter when snowfall will start. Fifty thousand soldiers aided by volunteers from various parts of the country and abroad are trying to send much desperately needed relief supplies to the survivors. Almost all major roads have been opened to traffic but our history’s worst quake has left behind widespread devastation whose sight makes one’s heart bleed. The Kaghan-Balkot and Chakothi roads still remain partially blocked and the survivors in the most inaccessible areas have begun to receive relief supplies through helicopters and mules. The tracks connecting hilltop villages with nearby towns cannot be used having been totally damaged or blocked by landslides. Entire villages and towns have been wiped out and survivors are languishing in the open. Relief goods including medicines are in adequate supply but to survive the bitter cold the victims need tents. The U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has made an impassioned appeal to the international community to rush tents to Pakistan. The UNICEF has already warned of a second wave of deaths in the earthquake-hit areas if relief supplies particularly tents are not immediately sent to the survivors.
In this hour of colossal damage the friendly countries are generously helping the relief efforts. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan who accompanied by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz visited the quake -devastated areas on Friday has assured long-term assistance in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the affectees. Turkey has pledged aid worth U. S. $150 million Turkey is sending one million blankets, 50,000 tonnes of flour, 25,000 tonnes of sugar and edible oil. Turkish Prime Minister told newsmen that tents were being manufactured in his country and would be sent immediately in view of fast approaching Turkey would also assist Pakistan in building quake-proof accommodation. The entire Turkish nation is contributing towards relief effort of its Government and school girls have donated even their gold rings and ear rings. The United States, Britain, Saudi Arabia are also raising their previously committed assistance. Medical teams from several countries are already busy in treating the injured in the devastated areas. This is human tragedy of unimaginable scale and President Pervez Musharraf has told CNN that Pakistan would welcome aid from anywhere.
As the days roll by, the relief work is being speeded up. The next phase will warrant careful planning and meticulous execution. The authorities will hopefully ensure that the genuine victims are accommodated and unscrupulous elements do not manage to deprive the genuine survivors of the generous assistance pouring into Azad Kashmir and ruined areas of the NWFP. The unity demonstrated by the people of Pakistan in this hour of grief and acute pain must be sustained. The reconstruction and rehabilitation will take five to ten years. The task is monumental and calls for continued support from the international community and the people of Pakistan. The wounds inflicted on the soul of the nation are deep and would therefore take time to heal.

Oil: Price & taxes

THE developed world protests loudly that high oil prices will seriously damage growth in the globalized economy. The warnings conclude by demanding that OPEC and other producing countries boost their oil output. However, as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah made clear Wednesday, this is not a correct analysis of the problem. The stability of oil prices in the current volatile market is not solely dependent on the supply of crude. Governments in consumer countries, especially Europe, have the power themselves to ease the economic burden, by reducing high fuel duties. In the UK, fully 75 percent of the cost of a gallon of fuel is tax which goes straight to the treasury.
If there is genuine concern about the impact markedly higher fuel prices are having on economic performance, the solution is simple: Governments should cut the tax. They will not actually be losing money. On the face of it, absorbing increases in the untaxed price by passing up the increased taxation is a win-win situation. Governments are not only protecting economic health, but in the long run they are also protecting their wider revenues, since an economy in decline is an economy that will yield up less tax. Downturn also boosts the demands on the public purse through the larger sums of unemployment pay that must be handed out to workers who have lost their jobs. There is an argument that finance ministries in Europe could go even further in reducing their fuel duties. If they cut deeply into at-the-pump taxes, so positively reducing the price, rather than merely pegging them at current high levels, the economic stimulus could prove dramatic. This would be especially true for continental Europe where growth remains stubbornly sluggish. A constant factor in the vigorous performance of the United States has been the low price of fuel relative to the rest of the developed world. Even though US consumers are currently suffering, America’s competitive advantage is not being undermined, since pro rata increases are being experienced among rival trading nations.
The one cogent case that could be made against reductions in fuel taxes is that they are also being used as a tool to cut down on pollution from fossil fuels. However, there is clearly a balance here. A short-term sacrifice of discouragingly high fuel prices could preserve economic prosperity and so allow the investment in the research and technology necessary to slash the emission of greenhouse gases. The hard truth is that European governments are afraid of imposing more direct taxation on their citizens, so they continue to expand their income from indirect taxation. Politicians in the eurozone faced with budget deficits and borrowing already in excess of that permitted under the Euro Stability Pact, can either risk electoral wrath by lopping expenditure or use stealth taxes such as fuel duties to fund their overspending. In such circumstances, demanding oil producers boost production is effectively asking them to underwrite the cost of their own failings.

—Arab News