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South Korea’s National Assembly has ratified a free trade deal with India that promises to slash tariffs on goods and services between two of the Asia’s biggest economies. The bill will officially be known as Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
The Bill is passed by a margin of 192-0, with five abstentions in the 298-seat National Assembly. The two countries will abolish or cut tariffs for 90 percent of Indian goods in terms of value and 85 percent of South Korean products.
Apparently it seems NRO (National Reconciliation Ordinance) will die its natural death. I believe the deadline for its approval from the parliament is November 28, 2009. If it is not approved by that date it will automatically become null and void.
This evening a high level meeting of Pakistan Peoples Party leadership took place in Islamabad and the news came that PPP has decided not to present the NRO Bill to parliament.
Earlier a meeting was also held between Yousaf Raza Gilani and PPP’s coalition partners in the Federal Government, namely MQM, ANP, and JUI-F.
PML-N, PML-Q and MQM openly and clearly announced that they will not support the bill in the parliament. ANP and JUI-F will announce their position tomorrow.
Present situation is that PPP don’t have the necessary votes to get this bill passed through the parliament. Therefore, they have decided not to present this bill to the house. This is this evening’s news. Situation will be quite fluid in the coming days.
PPP has been doing quite a maneuvering but it seems they have not been able to muster the support necessary to pass the bill.
Another rumor is that PPP is engaged in buying some members. But it seems very unlikely that they will get enough members on their side.
This ordinance (NRO) was issued by Ex. President Pervaiz Musharraf as part of political deal dictated by USA, UK, Saudi Arabia and UAE. There may be others but these are the names which have come out so far.
Our media is repeatedly blaming Pervaiz Musharraf that he was the proponent of the deal and the ordinance. Insiders know that this was America’s idea to bring the political process back to the arena and these were conditions put forth by Benazir Bhutto. In my previous post I have already mentioned the back ground of the NRO. Nawaz Sharif got the benefit that he returned to Pakistan three years ahead of the end of his contract.
No matter what the media say the facts remain the same.
Now we will have to see how the situation unfold. Theoretically all the cases of corruption and wrong doings (mostly financial) which will open up again and we will have to see who are going to be affected. The list of the beneficiaries is not known to public yet. But it seems it will be open.
First casualty may be Asif Ali Zardari.
Let us hope for good. It seems there is going to be some serious cleaning.
