Pakistan Climbs Up Ranks for Sending SPAM

Pakistan has climbed up in the top 12 or “Dirty Dozen” ranking for sending SPAM emails.

Pakistan, which was last year ranked at 11th position, has now been ranked at 9th position with 3.3 percent share of total SPAM in the world.

These rankings have been established by experts at SophosLabs, who have released their latest “dirty dozen” report detailing the world’s top spam-relaying countries.

According to report, India has topped the ranks for sending SPAM beating United States of America and South Korea. India’s share for sending SPAM has risen to 9.3 percent of total SPAM being sent in the world.

The top twelve spam relaying countries for January – March 2012

1. India – 9.3%
2. USA – 8.3%
3. S Korea – 5.7%
4. Indonesia – 5.0%
5. Russia – 5.0%
6. Italy – 4.9%
7. Brazil – 4.3%
8. Poland – 3.9%
9. Pakistan – 3.3%
10. Vietnam – 3.2%
11. Taiwan – 2.9%
12. Peru – 2.5%
13. Other – 41.7%

Pakistan is considered SPAM heaven just because there’s no legislation available to deal with SPAM in any form or at any level. This is why even multinational companies were caught sending SPAM emails.

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Breaking: Link Dot Net Considering to Quit Operations in Pakistan

Link Dot Net, Orascom’s fully owned subsidiary for DSL broadband services and sister concerns of Mobilink, is considering to wrap up its operations in Pakistan, amid low returns and to shift the group focus on core cellular services and branchless banking.

Sources familiar with the development have confirmed ProPakistani that LDN has decided in principle to exit Pakistani market.

Link Dot Net has DSL operations and a WiMAX license through Dancom, which it might quit, told us a company official.

However, final decision is yet to come after annual board meeting of Pakistan Mobile Communication Limited, a company under which Orascom operates in Pakistan. Meeting is scheduled for May 15th, 2012 in Islamabad.

Another source in the company told ProPakistani that decision is yet to be made, hence nothing can be said as of now. But yes, group is considering an option to quit operations in Pakistan.

Orascom had bought World On Line and Dancom to offer DSL broadband services in Pakistan. Link Dot Net, after in operations, has been facing tough competition from PTCL, country’s largest DSL broadband service provider. In addition to competition, analysts say, LDN was victim of anti-competitive practices by the telecom giant.

Update:

Link Dot Net has a WiMAX license, we were just told, though Dancom, which it is considering to quit.

Mobilink Infinity won’t be impacted with the decision.

Source : ProPakistani

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Alter Bridge, Watch over you :)

Leaves are on the ground
Fall has come
Blue skies turning grey
Like my love

I tried to carry you
And make you whole
But it was never enough
I must go

[Chorus:]
Who is gonna save you
When I'm gone?
And who'll watch over you
When I'm gone?

You say you care for me
But hide it well
How can you love someone
And not yourself?

[Chorus]

And when I'm gone
Who will break your fall?
Who will you blame?

I can't go on
And let you lose it all
It's more than I can take
Who'll ease your pain?
Ease your pain

[Chorus:]
Who is gonna save you when I'm gone?
Who'll watch over you?
Who will give you strength when you're not strong.
Who'll watch over you when I've gone away?

Snow is on the ground
Winters come
You long to hear my voice
But I'm long gone

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PTA delays 3G licensing auction indefinitely

DUBAI: The auction to sell third-generation (3G) mobile telecoms licences in Pakistan has been indefinitely delayed, telecom operators told Reuters on Thursday.

The auction, if completed, would have raised a minimum of 630 million dollars for the country.

The auction of three 3G licences had been scheduled to be held on March 29, according to a January government memorandum, and would be open to the five existing mobile operators plus potential new entrants.

Potential bidders were due to submit expressions of interest from January 21, but they have yet not been invited to do so, Walid Irshaid, chief executive of Pakistan Telecommunication Co (PTCL), told Reuters.

“All the dates announced earlier have been put on hold, what the new date is we don’t know,” said Irshaid. “The first step was not even taken yet. No official notification has been received by us or any other operator.”

Former monopoly PTCL, an affiliate of United Arab Emirates’ Etisalat, is the third-ranked mobile operator, with a 19 per cent market share, behind Norway’s Telenor and Mobilink, a unit of Egypt’s Orascom Telecom, which respectively claim 25 and 30 per cent of Pakistan’s 116 million mobile subscribers.

A spokesman for Telenor said the government had postponed the auction until indefinitely until it hires an international consultant to supervise the process.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, which is running the auction, was not immediately available for comment.

The government, which is still owed $800 million by Etisalat as part of the UAE firm’s $2.6-billion acquisition of a 26 per cent stake in PTCL in 2006, expects to raise at least $630 million from the 3G auction, having set a base price of $210 million for each licence.

That would have raised much-needed money for Pakistan’s government, which battling doubled-digit inflation and a sharply widening trade deficit, while foreign investment into the country has also plunged.

Pakistan’s two other mobile operators are Warid Telecom – a joint venture between Abu Dhabi Group and SingTel Group – and China Mobile Communication Cooperation’s Zong.

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Punjab Youth Laptop Goes on Sale on OLX!

Just in case, if you weren’t bright enough to win Punjab’s Youth Laptop, or maybe you had graduated a year ago but still desperately want to have that sleek book in your hands – here’s the chance for you.

Just head towards OLX and search for youth laptop and bingo!

Following is the one of search result we got. The machine is available for Rs. 30,000. Users suggest a little bargain can bring the price down to 27-28K mark. Not a bad deal I would say.

We are also told that same machine is available in Lahore (Hafeez Center to be exact) at much lower price. They are talking about 20K or even low.

What I can see from here is that there gonna be plenty of such offerings in coming days. Just imagine, over 100,000 machines given away – an ultimate killer market gonna arise out of it. Nevertheless, laptop deals won’t be happy with all this.

Update: 

According to the undertaking, selling these laptops to anyone is not allowed, and if anyone found in violation of undertaking can become under the hammer of legal and administrative action from Punjab government.

Source : ProPakistani

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Collateral damage

THE younger brother of one of Osama bin Laden’s widows, Amal Abdulfattah, has filed a legal challenge in the Islamabad High Court against criminal cases filed against Ms Abdulfattah and five minor children of the Al Qaeda chief. From what the authorities have disclosed, they entered the country illegally. Perhaps the state believes that because of their proximity to the world’s most wanted man the family can provide crucial information. If this is the case, the authorities need to make it clear; otherwise it can be argued that these people are high-profile examples of the manner in which women and children in this shadowy war are written off as negligible collateral damage by militants who head households as well as the security network in pursuit.

In many cases, the militants jeopardise their families’ security by keeping them in the area of active operations. It is hard to imagine that the women and children have a choice in the matter. And when the men are targeted, via drones or bombs or raids, those affected include people whose crime was simply to be irrevocably tied to a suspected terrorist. Some argue that the militants’ intention is to use their families as human shields. Do those planning a strike against militants take such collateral damage into consideration? From the many examples, including that of Baitullah Mehsud’s wife who was killed along with her husband in a drone strike, it would appear not. The onus lies primarily on the men who drag their families with them. But military planners are not absolved of the moral responsibility for the death or victimisation of those who have no proven links with terrorism. The fate of Osama bin Laden’s family, then, becomes a litmus test. If the only charge against them is of illegal entry, the humanitarian answer lies in deportation.

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Economy update

THE State Bank’s mid-year report on the economy brings some good news. But it also raises areas of serious concern, raising doubts about the optimism with which the government has been talking about supposed improvements. The overall picture that emerges from the report is that several indicators that have improved — and that politicians have touted — are in fact at risk, and other indicators are worsening. Take inflation, for example. It finally dipped below 10 per cent in December, supported by better-than-expected agricultural output, but is expected to be back in the double digits by the end of the year. Or GDP growth: the SBP’s estimate of between three and four per cent for 2011-12 beats last year’s, but misses the target of above four per cent. The fiscal deficit has come down, but will be larger than planned for the year by one to two per cent of GDP.

A couple of developments over the last half-year have contributed to this scenario. For one, Pakistan’s external account position has worsened sharply. The prices of imports, especially oil, have pushed the trade balance into the red. Expected foreign inflows from such sources as American Coalition Support Funds, PTCL privatisation and 3G licence sales have not been realised. Send more money abroad than is coming home, and this sets off the expected chain reaction: a weaker rupee and increased domestic government borrowing (which more than doubled versus last year). Both have kept prices higher than they would otherwise be and will only make inflation worse in the months to come.

Some of these developments are beyond the government’s control. But what isn’t is the creation of a productive economy able to withstand these external shocks. Behind the broader statistics a picture emerges of an economy whose problems are deeper. The government did use up a large chunk of credit, but despite a falling interest rate, loans to the private sector in the first half of this year grew at a rate less than half of what it was a year ago. More worryingly, loans for investment were paid back by a larger amount than was borrowed last year. Pakistanis aren’t investing, and the SBP points to unsurprising factors: energy shortages, law and order, excess capacity. Some of the same reasons are behind the decline in textile exports. Political instability, corruption and law and order are leading to falling foreign investment. An economy that no one is investing in will grow slowly, yield lower taxes, continue to run a deficit and remain vulnerable to external developments. It is a vicious cycle, and short-term solutions will not be enough to break it.

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