by JOSHUA BROLLIER and KATHY KELLY
(One of the best reports on where Pakistan stands today. A must read. Ed.)
Throughout the past several months, demonstrators burned tires nearly every day in the streets of Karachi, Rawalpindi, Lahore and other population centers as they voiced their opposition to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and it’s insistence on the implementation of a Value Added Tax (VAT) along with a proposed 11.3 billion dollar bailout package. In a special meeting convened by the Farmers Association of Pakistan, (FAP), participants said that the VAT would “totally kill the farmers and cause irreparable damage to the agriculture sector by making inputs more expensive.
…
We should also simplify our lifestyles and consumption patterns to require less of a share in the world’s resources, so that corrupt institutions like the U.S. government and the IMF do not have a pretext or a supposed mandate to continue interfering in the lives of others in order to serve the so-called U.S. “national interest.”
The Huffington Post for more