America, Pakistan and the $26m barbed wire bill

Hundreds of millions of dollars in American military aid to Pakistan earmarked for fighting Islamist militants was not used for that purpose, US diplomats discovered after conversations with Pakistan's military top brass.
Pakistan's army chief said the money, including $26m (£15m) for barbed wire and $70m (£43m) to defend against non-existent Taliban warplanes, had been diverted into the Islamabad government's coffers, according to leaked cables to Washington.
The row, which played out over several years, reflects the tense, transactional relationship between reluctant allies. Closed-door conversations revolve around money and military supplies. Mutual suspicion abounds.
"The relationship is one of co-dependency we grudgingly admit," the embassy noted in February 2009. "Pakistan knows the US cannot afford to walk away; the US knows Pakistan cannot survive without our support."
Dozens of cables from the Islamabad embassy portray US officials dangling billions in aid, offering sophisticated weapons and pushing to provide counterinsurgency training for Pakistan's "1940s" army.
In turn, General Ashfaq Kayani worries his army is seen as a force "for hire", chafes at demands for greater transparency and punishes American diplomats for allegedly siding with arch-rival India.
In October 2009 US officials celebrated after a small team of its special forces soldiers was allowed to deploy alongside Pakistani soldiers in the tribal belt. It was only the second time such permission had been granted, the cable noted.
Military spokesman General Athar Abbas declined to comment on the leaks saying that only when "we can see how it affects Pakistan, will we be able to make a comment".
One of the most contentious issues is coalition support funds (CSF) – US payments for the war against the Taliban and al-Qaida in the tribal belt that have exceeded $7.5bn since 2002.
In December 2007 US diplomats reported multiple instances where "funds have been diverted and reimbursed claims figures have been seriously inflated". Despite $55m for helicopter maintenance, sometimes only two Cobra helicopter gunships were ready to fly. Although $335m had been given for medical care and a fleet of 26 helicopters, the frontier corps still had no medical rescue service. The army claimed $70m for radar maintenance even though the Taliban have no air attack capability, and a "highly suspect" $26m for barbed wire.
When the CSF payments slowed in January 2009 Kayani spoke candidly about the matter with General David Petraeus, a cable reported. Most of the military funds had been diverted to the federal government, he said.
But Pakistan's generals are equally capable of dishing out punishment. Angry that the US was favouring India, and worried Washington wanted to increase the power of Pakistan's civilian leaders, the "military and intelligence establishment" was quietly punishing the Islamabad embassy, one frank dispatch in February 2010 noted. The military had delayed visas for diplomats, blocked import permits for armoured vehicles, "sabotaged" a security contract and was "stopping and detaining embassy vehicles".
The cable coincided with a period of intense criticism of America in the Pakistani press that US diplomats believed was orchestrated by the ISI.
"Engagement with the Pakistani military has been frustrating," one dispatch said. "Transparency is often nonexistent. Offers of assistance go unanswered or are overruled at headquarters, even as Pakistan's maintenance and training are inadequate." The US vice-president, Joe Biden, described relations with Pakistan as "transactional" and "based on mutual distrust".
The US seems to feel it has little choice but to play along. At the height of the Swat offensive against the Taliban in May 2009 Kayani told the US ambassador he was desperate for troop-carrying helicopters. Otherwise, he said pointedly, he would not be able to move against Taliban strongholds in South and North Waziristan – key objectives under American US policy. The US scrambled to help and numerous cables hail a programme to supply F-16 warplanes as "a symbol of renewed post 9/11 co-operation".
But Pakistan's generals want to play down their reliance on the US. Kayaniasks the Americans to "stop the constant stream of leaks from Washington" that "always made it appear as if he were taking steps in response to US demands".
Sometimes the Americans appreciate the value of tact. In a March 2009 cable diplomats told the visiting FBI director, Robert Mueller, they wanted to establish a national safety hotline – a telephone hotline offering cash rewards to terrorist informers. It would be fronted by the Pakistan government but "discreetly" funded with US money.
The diplomats recognise that few Pakistanis trust them – "we are viewed at best as a fickle friend and at worst as the reason why Pakistan is attacking its own" – and feel they have been made scapegoats for Pakistan's failures.
"While the army remains fixated on India as Pakistan's mortal enemy, the common man is just as likely to point to America."

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'US aid will not stop Pakistan supporting militants'

Pakistan's army is covertly sponsoring four major militant groups, including the Afghan Taliban and Mumbai attackers Lashkar-e-Taiba, and "no amount of money" will change the policy, the US ambassador warned in a frank critique revealed by the state department cables.
Although Pakistan had received more than $16bn (£10bn) in American aid since 2001, "there is no chance that Pakistan will view enhanced assistance … as sufficient compensation for abandoning support to these groups", Anne Patterson wrote in a secret review of Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy in September 2009.
The assessment highlights a stark contradiction – that one of Washington's key allies is quietly propping up its enemies – and is an admission of the limits of US power in a country that still views India, not the Taliban, as its principal threat.
With Washington fearful of deploying troops to fight al-Qaida in Pakistan, money has been its main weapon since 2001. It has given the army $9bn to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida in the tribal belt; on 22 October the White House announced an extra $2bn over the next five years.
Pakistan has paid a heavy price, losing more than 2,500 soldiers and many more civilians. Its generals insist they have cut erstwhile ties with the Taliban and other militant groups. But secret cables show US diplomats and spies believe the army and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency continue quietly to back selected militant groups.
Four are singled out: the Afghan Taliban, its allied Haqqani and Hekmatyar networks on the western Afghan frontier, and Lashkar-e-Taiba on the eastern border with India. Some ISI officials "continue to maintain ties with a wide array of extremist organisations, in particular the Taliban, LeT and other extremist organisations," Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, wrote in December 2009.
A senior ISI official said: "These are assertions without evidence and nothing more than allegations or points of view, as such do not merit a response." The main concern, he said, was "how such sensitive information could find its way to a media outlet, and continues to do so".
But Dr Peter Lavoy, a senior intelligence official, told a meeting of Nato allies in November 2008 that the ISI allowed the Taliban's Quetta Shura leadership council to "operate unfettered" in Balochistan, while it provided the Waziristan-based Haqqani network with "intelligence and financial support to conduct attacks in Afghanistan against Afghan government, Isaf and Indian targets … Pakistan continues to define India as its number one threat and insists that India plays an overactive role in Afghanistan."
The army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, had been "utterly frank" about the consequences of a pro-India government coming to power in Kabul, noted a 2009 briefing in advance of his visit to Washington. "The Pakistani establishment will dramatically increase support for Taliban groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which they see as … an important counterweight."
Alarmed by the links with Haqqani, whose fighters kill American soldiers in Afghanistan, and fearful that policy towards Lashkar-e-Taiba could trigger nuclear war with India, US officials have urged Kayani to change course. "The biggest single message Kayani should hear in Washington is that this support must end," said one dispatch.
As ISI chief from 2004-07 Kayani presided over the spy agency as the Taliban surged in Afghanistan and Lashkar-e-Taiba prepared the Mumbai attacks. US officials consider it a sensitive point. "Kayani … does not want a reckoning with the past," they said before last year's US visit. "We should preface that conversation with an agreement to open a new page in relations. What is in the past is behind us."
US allegations of collusion cast fresh doubt on the credibility of former president Pervez Musharraf, who chafed angrily against suggestions of a "double game". "We are not a banana republic and the ISI is not a rogue agency," he told a congressional delegation led by a senior Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, in January 2007. Asked about the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, he said: "I do not believe Omar has ever been to Pakistan."
Yet there are also hints that ISI policy towards militant groups is complex and changing. In a March 2009 briefing to the FBI director, Robert Mueller, the embassy noted that the ISI chief, General Shuja Pasha, "continues to profess a determination to end ISI's overt and tacit support for proxy forces". Speaking to the Guardian this year a senior ISI official acknowledged "historical links" with the Haqqanis but insisted the spy agency was not in a position to dictate action terms. Last spring Kayani and Pasha flew to Kabul offering to broker peace with the Haqqanis.
The cables betray much American frustration and anger at alleged Pakistani duplicity, but there is also questioning of America's own covert policies. "Unilateral targeting" of al-Qaida operatives in the tribal belt – a euphemism for CIA-directed drone strikes – had killed 10 of the 20 top al-Qaida leaders, Patterson noted last year. But the drones could not entirely eliminate the al-Qaida leadership and ran the greater risk of "destabilising the Pakistani state, alienating both the civilian government and military leadership, and provoking a broader governance crisis without finally achieving the goal".
While American efforts are fixated on using money to wean Pakistan away from militants, there is little fresh thinking. One exception is last year's policy review by Patterson, a well-regarded diplomat who left Islamabad earlier this year.
Pakistani paranoia was fed by insecurity towards India and America, she said. The only way to end support for the Taliban – and ultimately root out the group – was to "change the Pakistan government's own perception of its security requirements".
Resolving the 63-year-old Kashmir conflict "would dramatically improve the situation", she said, adding: "We need to reassess Indian involvement in Afghanistan and our own policies towards India, including the growing military relationship through sizeable conventional arms sales, as all of this feeds Pakistani establishment paranoia and pushes them closer to both Afghan and Kashmir-focused terrorist groups while reinforcing doubts about US intentions."
Such a suggestion is politically highly sensitive. New Delhi has fiercely resisted any attempt to link Afghanistan and Kashmir. Indian officials portray an ideological, power-hungry Pakistani army as the problem. Most of Pakistan's woes "can be traced to the capacity and intentions of Pakistan's military", the Indian foreign secretary, Shivshankar Menon, told US special envoy Richard Holbrooke in February 2009. Holbrooke has pointedly avoided mentioning Kashmir.
Politicians in Washington are reluctant to antagonise India, an emerging global power. As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama identified the Kashmir conflict as being key to achieving peace in south Asia, including the war in Afghanistan. But he avoided mentioning it at all in his recent address to the Indian parliament.
Patterson's logic is shared by other western diplomats. Last year the Spanish ambassador to Kabul, Jose Turpin Molina, told 236333 his Pakistani counterpart that "It's over. You've won." The Pakistani replied that his country was an ally of Spain, to which Turpin said: "you are an ally to both sides".
The Pakistani "laughed heartily".

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Pakistan opposition 'tipped off' Mumbai terror group

Pakistan's president alleged that the brother of Pakistan's opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, "tipped off" the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) about impending UN sanctions following the 2008 Mumbai attacks, allowing the outfit to empty its bank accounts before they could be raided.
Six weeks after LeT gunmen killed more than 170 people in Mumbai, President Asif Ali Zardari told the US of his "frustration" that Sharif's government in Punjab province helped the group evade new UN sanctions.
A month earlier, Shahbaz Sharif, who is chief minister of Punjab, "tipped off" the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), LeT's charity wing, "resulting in almost empty bank accounts", Zardari claimed in a conversation with the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson.
US diplomats were unable to confirm the allegation and noted that they came at a time of rising political tension between Zardari and Sharif. But they conceded that JuD did appear to have received a warning from somewhere. "Information from the ministry of the interior does indicate that bank accounts contained surprisingly small amounts," said the cable in January 2009. A Punjab government spokesman vigorously denied the charge. "There's nothing true in it," said senator Pervaiz Rashid, an adviser to Sharif. "Zardari is our political opponent and he wants to topple our government." Sharif couldn't have known about the UN sanctions, he said, because the UN co-ordinated its action with the federal government and not the provincial one.
The accusation, which has never been publicly aired, is one of several dramas that unfolded behind the scenes after the November 2008 attacks, now revealed by the embassy cables.
US diplomats and CIA spies found themselves playing the role of harried intermediaries to prevent Pakistan and India from going to war. One week after the bloodbath an Indian official said his government was distinguishing between Pakistan's civilian government, "which India believed was not involved in the attacks", and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI). We are not yet ready to give ISI a clean chit," he said.
Four weeks later the US embassy grew alarmed by Indian plans to release a "sanitised" intelligence dossier that, they feared, could scupper intelligence sharing or thwart efforts to prevent a second attack.
"There are still Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) sleeper and other cells in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well as many law enforcement leads which need to be pursued," the note said.
Pakistan's generals, usually antagonistic towards India, appeared unusually conciliatory. Six weeks after the attack Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, said he was "determined to exercise restraint in his actions with India". "If there is any clue about another attack," he told General David Petraeus at his Rawalpindi headquarters, "please share it with us."
His intelligence chief, General Shuja Pasha, went even further, acting as a regional fixer for some of his most bitter enemies. In late 2009 Pasha travelled to Oman and Iran to "follow up on reports he received in Washington about a terrorist attack on India".
He sent warnings to Israel – a country that Pakistan does not officially recognise – "about information about attacks against Israeli targets in India". Earlier in the year, he reminded Patterson, information about a second attack on India had "come his way", which he conveyed to Delhi via the CIA.
The cables suggest Pakistan's ardour for bringing the alleged Mumbai masterminds to justice appears to have wilted as time went on. The secretive trial of Lashkar leader Zakhi ur Rehman Lakhvi and six other suspects "is proceeding, though at a slow pace", US diplomats noted in February.
The secretive trial of Lashkar leader Zakhi ur Rehman Lakhvi, and six other suspects "is proceeding, though at a slow pace" last in February 2010.
ThePakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency (ISI) refused access to Abdur Rehman Syed, a retired army major and alleged LeT accomplice. Instead the FBI was told it could "submit questions for Syed through the ISI".
American officials say there is "no smoking gun tying the Mumbai LeT operation to ISI" but are less sure if the spy agency has, as promised, cut all its ties.
"Despite arrests of key LeT/JuD leaders and closure of some of their camps, it is unclear if the ISI has finally abandoned its policy of using these proxy forces as a foreign policy tool," notes a briefing to the US special envoy Richard Holbrooke in February 2009. Dealing with LeT has long been a vexed issue for American diplomats in Pakistan. In March 2006 the US ambassador Ryan Crocker requested the US government to delay by two weeks the designation of JuD.
American helicopters were still delivering aid to earthquake victims in Kashmir, he explained, and they risked attack if still in the area when the designation was approved.
That same month, embassy officials met with Pakistan foreign office director Tasneem Aslam, who told her that Pakistan had "no evidence" linking JuD to terrorism – a conclusion US officials judged "dubious".
Later, in November 2007, the US ambassador presented the foreign secretary, Riaz Khan, with evidence that senior government ministers were publicly helping militant groups, including a declaration from the ministry of defence parliamentary secretary "that he was proud to be a member of LeT and that he seeks to extend support to jihadi organisations when they seek his 'co-operation.'"
"Each of these reports is disturbing in itself, the ambassador said, as they seriously damage Pakistan's image in the international community."
JuD denies that it is a front for LeT

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Pakistani army chief considered plan to oust president

Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, considered pushing President Asif Ali Zardari from office and forcing him into exile to resolve a political dispute, the US embassy cables reveal.
Kayani aired the idea during a frantic round of meetings with the US ambassador Anne Patterson in March 2009 as opposition leader Nawaz Sharif rallied thousands of supporters in a street movement that threatened to topple the government.
Kayani said that while he disliked Zardari, he distrusted Sharif even more, and appeared to be angling for a solution that would prevent the opposition leader from coming to power.
The cable illustrates the strong behind-the-scenes hand of Pakistan's military in civilian politics only six months after the last military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, resigned.
It also highlights the central role of western diplomats in Pakistani power games – as the Americans spoke with Kayani, British diplomats forged their own plan to broker a political deal between warring factions.
The crisis was sparked by Zardari's attempt to bar Sharif from running for parliament and his refusal to reinstate the deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry.
As a powerful protest movement of opposition supporters and lawyers grew in Sharif's stronghold of Lahore, western diplomats scrambled to defuse the situation with Kayani's help.
During his fourth meeting with Patterson in less than a week, the taciturn army chief "hinted that he might, however reluctantly, have to persuade President Zardari to resign if the situation sharply deteriorates".
He said Zardari could be replaced by Asfandyar Wali Khan, leader of the Pashtun nationalist Awami National party, but the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, would remain in place.
As such, this "would not be a formal coup", Patterson noted, but would leave in place a government led by Zardari's PPP party.
But Kayani made it clear he hoped the US could resolve the crisis through negotiation because he did not want Sharif in power. "Regardless of how much he disliked Zardari he distrusted Sharif even more," it said.
Kayani told Patterson that his top generals, known as the Corps Commanders, had expressed disquiet about Zardari because he was thought to be corrupt and had neglected Pakistan's "economic and security challenges", he said.
The military's spymaster, ISI chief General Shuja Pasha, made similar complaints about Zardari during a flight to America for a review of the strategic relationship between the two allies, the ambassador reported. "We have multiple sources demonstrating army complaints about Zardari," she said.
The preference for Gilani fuels long-standing speculation that the army leadership views the prime minister as a more palatable, or pliable, figure.
Patterson speculated that the army chief did not air his grievances directly with Zardari because he wanted to avoid any confrontation that might prompt Zardari to try to oust him – a "disastrous" possibility.
The British ambassador, Robert Brinkley, was working his own lines. He told the Americans he had received permission from London to "approach the various sides [and] discern their bottom lines". But the UK had not decided whether it would take on the role of mediator.
In the end Zardari was forced into a humiliating climbdown on 16 March when, under massive pressure, he dropped the ban on Sharif and reinstated Chaudhry. Reports at the time speculated that Kayani had played a central role in forcing Zardari to change course.
The drama prompted an American re-evaluation of the critical relationship between the president and army chief. Only a month earlier, the embassy reported that they had developed a "respectful if not entirely trusting working relationship".
"Kayani has gone out of his way to publicly defer to Zardari because he needs political support to wage successful military operations. After eight years of military rule under Musharraf, Zardari is re-shaping civilian-military relations in the shadow of Pakistan's history of repeated military coups."Sharif has much in common with the army leadership – his Punjabi roots, conservative politics and a history of supporting military rule. But he earned the army's wrath in 1999 with his bungled attempt to fire the then army chief Pervez Musharraf – a mistake that ultimately forced Sharif into exile.

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David Cameron on radicalised Muslims

The US was promised before the British general election last May that a Conservative government could be tougher on Pakistan, as the Tories claimed to be less dependent than Labour on domestic votes from people with Pakistani connections.
In a leaked 10 December 2009 cable the US ambassador to the UK, Louis Susman, recorded meeting the Tory frontbencher Liam Fox, now the defence secretary.
"Fox criticised the Labour government for policies which reinforce the Indian government's long-held view that HMG's [Her Majesty's government's] foreign relations on the subcontinent are 'skewed to Pakistan'."
He is quoted as assuring Susman that "the Conservatives are 'less dependent' than the Labour party on votes from the British-Pakistani community".
As soon as he became prime minister, David Cameron made a significant point of trying to build a special relationship with India, travelling to Delhi in June on a trade mission.
While in India, the Conservative leader urged Pakistanis not to face both ways on the issue of terrorism. His remarks caused a diplomatic furore: they were directed at Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, long regarded by the US to be playing a double game in Afghanistan by covertly supporting the Taliban.
Cameron's approach can now be seen prefigured in Washington's previously secret dispatches. The London embassy reported that he and "an eager group from his frontbench" met a congressional delegation led by the Republican senator John McCain in 2008.
"Cameron … raised Pakistan, noting that 60,000 individuals travel to Pakistan from the UK each year and that this has implications for the UK's own significant domestic 'terror threat'."
McCain stressed to him how worried he too was about Pakistan: "If they don't co-operate and help us, I don't know what we are going to do."
On 9 April 2009, Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, met Cameron and George Osborne in London "to urge HMG [under possible future Conservative leadership] to engage more on Pakistan".
Holbrooke pressed Cameron to help combat terrorism by capitalising on the "striking connections" between the large Pakistani community in the UK and "its home country".
"Cameron noted that most of the approximately 1 million UK citizens of Pakistani origin (mostly Punjabis and Kashmiris) living in the UK were not pro-Taliban but had been radicalised by the Iraq war and were militant over Kashmir. The Conservative party leader agreed that HMG 'must get UK-Pakistan relations right' and stressed the Conservatives' commitment to this goal should they assume power."
Cameron went on to criticise Labour's dealing with groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the Muslim Council of Britain. "On the radicalisation of British Pakistanis, Cameron said the UK had 'gotten it wrong domestically' … He argued that PM [Gordon] Brown's policy had been too willing to engage with radicalised but non-violent Muslim groups … 'We let in some crazies,' Cameron said, 'and didn't wake up soon enough.'"

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Saudi Arabia wants military rule in Pakistan

America is often portrayed as the big dog in Pakistan's yard: a swaggering power that makes rules, barks orders and throws its weight around. But the WikiLeaks cables highlight the understated yet insistent influence of another country with ideas about Pakistan's future: Saudi Arabia.
In recent years Saudi rulers have played favourites with Pakistani politicians, wielded their massive financial clout to political effect and even advocated a return to military rule.
"We in Saudi Arabia are not observers in Pakistan, we are participants," the Saudi ambassador to the US, Adel al-Jubeir, boasted in 2007. A senior US official later bemoaned as "negative" the Saudi influence.
As home to Islam's holiest sites, Saudi Arabia has longstanding ties with Pakistan. In the 1980s Saudi intelligence, along with the CIA, funded the anti-Soviet "jihad" in Afghanistan; since then the Saudis have given billions in financial aid and cut-price oil.
But the close relationship has grown "increasingly strained" in the past two years, with King Abdullah and the ruling princes displaying a clear preference for the opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, over the president, Asif Ali Zardari, who is viewed with thinly veiled contempt.
In January 2009 Abdullah told James Jones, then the US national security adviser, that Zardari was incapable of countering terrorism, describing him as the "'rotten head' that was infecting the whole body". Abdullah added that Pakistan's army was "staying out of Pakistani politics in deference to US wishes, rather than doing what it 'should'".
Abdullah's preference for military rule was recorded by the Saudis' American guests: "They appear to be looking for 'another Musharraf': a strong, forceful leader they know they can trust." His views were echoed by the interior minister, who said Saudi Arabia viewed the army as its "winning horse" in Pakistan.
The anti-Zardari bias appears to have a sectarian tinge. Pakistan's ambassador to Riyadh, Umar Khan Alisherzai, says the Saudis, who are Sunni, distrust Zardari, a Shia. Last year the United Arab Emirates' foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, told Hillary Clinton that Saudi suspicions of Zardari's Shia background were "creating Saudi concern of a Shia triangle in the region between Iran, the Maliki government in Iraq, and Pakistan under Zardari".
The Saudis betray a strong preference for Sharif, who fled into exile in Jeddah in 2000 to avoid prosecution under General Pervez Musharraf. The cables contain details of Sharif's secret exile deal – he was to remain out of politics for 10 years – as well as hints of Saudi anger when he returned to Pakistan in 2007.
Since then, however, Saudi displeasure has abated, and the Saudis clearly view him as "their man" in the Pakistani power game. In early 2008 the Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, described Sharif as a "force for stability" and "a man who can speak across party lines even to religious extremists". American officials noted that Sharif had obtained preferential business deals during his time in Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile the Saudis have pressured Zardari with oil and money. In late 2008 Pakistani officials complained that "not a drop" of Saudi oil promised at concessionary rates had been delivered, while the annual aid cheque of $300m was well below the regular rate. "Muslim brotherhood is not what it used to be," fretted an economic counsellor at the Pakistani embassy.Pakistani officials echo the American fears about the radicalizing influence of Saudi money, some of it from the government. In April 2008 Pakistani interior advisor Rehman Malik said he was "particularly concerned about the role of the Saudi ambassador in funding religious schools and mosques" in Pakistan.
"Malik said that [President] Musharraf had come close to "throwing him (the Saudi ambassador) out of the country" but Malik said he knew the Saudi royal family well and would work with them."
Zardari has asserted his independence from the Saudis. The king was unhappy that he made his first official visit to China and skipped the opening of a new university in favour of meetings in Europe and the US.
US officials noted that the go-slow was part of a broader Saudi policy of "withholding assistance" – slowing the flow of cash and oil – when it suited policy in Lebanon, Palestine and Pakistan. Such economic tactics may be familiar to US officials, who used them against Pakistan for much of the 1990s.
US diplomats see the Saudis as allies but also competitors for influence in Pakistan. In 2009 special envoy Richard Holbrooke warned Prince Mohammed bin Nayef of "unimaginable" consequences for Saudi Arabia if Pakistan fell apart, especially if its nuclear weapons fell into unfriendly hands.
"God forbid!" responded the prince.
But in Islamabad, American diplomats have sought to diminish Saudi influence by allying with another Muslim country, Turkey. After a meeting with the Turkish ambassador in May 2009, ambassador Anne Patterson noted that moderate, progressive Turkey presented a "positive role model" for Pakistan.
It was well positioned, she said, to "neutralise somewhat the more negative influence on Pakistan politics and society exercised by Saudi Arabia".

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WikiLeaks cables expose Pakistan nuclear fears

American and British diplomats fear Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme could lead to fissile material falling into the hands of terrorists or a devastating nuclear exchange with India.
The latest cache of US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks contains warnings that Pakistan is rapidly building its nuclear stockpile despite the country's growing instability and "pending economic catastrophe".
Mariot Leslie, a senior British Foreign Office official, told US diplomats in September 2009: "The UK has deep concerns about the safety and security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons," according to one cable classified "secret/noforn [no foreign nationals]".
Seven months earlier the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, cabled to Washington: "Our major concern is not having an Islamic militant steal an entire weapon but rather the chance someone working in government of Pakistan facilities could gradually smuggle enough material out to eventually make a weapon."
The leak of classified US diplomatic correspondence exposes in detail the deep tensions between Washington and Islamabad over a broad range of issues, including counter-terrorism, Afghanistan and finance, as well as the nuclear question. The cables also revealed that:
• Small teams of US special forces have been operating secretly inside Pakistan's tribal areas, with Pakistani government approval, while senior ministers have privately supported US drone attacks.
• The ambassador starkly informed Washington that "no amount of money" from the US would stop the Pakistani army backing Islamist militants and the Afghan Taliban insurgency.
• The US concluded Pakistani troops were responsible for a spate of extrajudicial killings in the Swat Valley and tribal belt but decided not to comment publicly to allow the army to take action on its own.
• Diplomats in Islamabad were asked by the Pentagon to survey refugee camps on the Afghan border, possibly for air strike targeting information.
• The president, Asif Ali Zardari – whose wife, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated – has made extensive preparations in case he too is killed, and once told the US vice-president, Joe Biden, that he feared the military "might take me out".
Pakistan's rulers are so sensitive about their much-prized nuclear weapons that in July 2009 they stalled on a previously agreed plan for the US to recover and dispose of highly enriched uranium spent fuel from a nuclear research reactor, in the interests of preventing proliferation and theft. They told the US embassy: "If the local media got word of the fuel removal, "they certainly would portray it as the US taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons".
US fears over Pakistan were spelled out in an intelligence briefing in 2008. "Despite pending economic catastrophe, Pakistan is producing nuclear weapons at a faster rate than any other country in the world," the secret cable said.
Leslie, director general of defence and intelligence at the Foreign Office, made clear the UK shared these anxieties when she spoke to US diplomats at a London arms control meeting in September 2009. The Pakistanis were worried the US "will drop in and take their nukes", she said, according to a US cable to Washington. Pakistan was now prepared to accept "nuclear safety help" from British technicians, but only under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The cable said Leslie thought nuclear proliferation was the greater danger to the world, but it "ranks lower than terrorism on the public's list of perceived threats".
Another senior British official at the meeting, Jon Day, the Ministry of Defence's director general for security policy, said recent intelligence indicated Pakistan was "not going in a good direction".
The Russians shared concerns Pakistan was "highly unstable". Yuri Korolev, from the Russian foreign ministry, told US officials: "Islamists are not only seeking power in Pakistan but are also trying to get their hands on nuclear materials."
Speaking in February in Washington, he called for the problem of Pakistani nuclear sites to be addressed in ongoing missile control talks, claiming: "Over the last few years extremists have attacked vehicles that carry staff to and from these facilities. Some were killed and a number were abducted and there has been no trace seen of them."
Korolev said: "There are 120,000-130,000 people directly involved in Pakistan's nuclear and missile programmes … There is no way to guarantee that all are 100% loyal and reliable."
He claimed extremists were now recruiting more easily: "Pakistan has had to hire people to protect nuclear facilities that have especially strict religious beliefs, and recently the general educational and cultural levels in Pakistan has been falling."
These fears are expressed in the secret state department files against a backdrop of Pakistani determination to build more nuclear warheads.
A Chinese foreign minister, He Yafei, sought to explain to the Americans why Pakistan was blocking fissile material control talks. At a London meeting in 2009, he said: "The underlying problem … is that India and Pakistan view each other as enemies. Nuclear weapons are crucial to Pakistan. Indeed, a Pakistani military leader said his army was no match for the Indian army."
US diplomats in Islamabad were told Pakistan was working on producing smaller, tactical nuclear weapons that could be used on the battlefield against Indian troops. "The result of this trend is the need for greater stocks of fissile material … Strategic considerations point Pakistan in the direction of a larger nuclear force that requires a greater amount of fissile material, Pakistani officials argue."
The US conducted its own secret analysis of India's military contingency plans, which are codenamed Cold Start. India has said that if sufficiently provoked, it would mount a rapid invasion of Pakistan.
The US said in a cable that it doubted the Indian army was capable of doing so: "It is the collective judgment of the mission that India would likely encounter very mixed results. Indian forces could have significant problems consolidating initial gains due to logistical difficulties and slow reinforcement."
But the US ambassador to India, Tim Roemer, warned in February that for India to launch Cold Start, would be to "roll the nuclear dice". It could trigger the world's first use of nuclear weapons since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
"Indian leaders no doubt realise that, although Cold Start is designed to punish Pakistan in a limited manner without triggering a nuclear response, they cannot be sure whether Pakistani leaders will in fact refrain from such a response."

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History

The WikiLeaks website first appeared on the Internet in December 2006. The site claims to have been "founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa". The creators of WikiLeaks have not been formally identified. It has been represented in public since January 2007 by Julian Assange and others. Assange describes himself as a member of WikiLeaks' advisory board.[18] News reports in The Australian have called Assange the "founder of Wiki Leaks". According to Wired magazine, a volunteer said that Assange described himself in a private conversation as "the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all the rest".As of June 2009[3] and listed an advisory board comprising Assange, Phillip Adams, Wang Dan, C. J. Hinke, Ben Laurie, Tashi Namgyal Khamsitsang, Xiao Qiang, Chico Whitaker and Wang Youcai. Despite appearing on the list, when contacted by Mother Jones magazine in 2010, Khamsitsang said that while he received an e-mail from WikiLeaks, he had never agreed to be an advisor.
WikiLeaks states that its "primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations."
In January 2007, the website stated that it had over 1.2 million leaked documents that it was preparing to publish. An article in The New Yorker said:
One of the WikiLeaks activists owned a server that was being used as a node for the Tor network. Millions of secret transmissions passed through it. The activist noticed that hackers from China were using the network to gather foreign governments’ information, and began to record this traffic. Only a small fraction has ever been posted on WikiLeaks, but the initial tranche served as the site’s foundation, and Assange was able to say, "[w]e have received over one million documents from thirteen countries."
Assange responded to the suggestion that eavesdropping on Chinese hackers played a crucial part in the early days of WikiLeaks by saying "the imputation is incorrect. The facts concern a 2006 investigation into Chinese espionage one of our contacts were involved in. Somewhere between none and handful of those documents were ever released on WikiLeaks. Non-government targets of the Chinese espionage, such as Tibetan associations were informed (by us)". The group has subsequently released a number of other significant documents which have become front-page news items, ranging from documentation of equipment expenditures and holdings in the Afghanistan war to corruption in Kenya.
The organization's stated goal is to ensure that whistleblowers and journalists are not jailed for emailing sensitive or classified documents, as happened to Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was sentenced to 10 years in 2005 after publicising an email from Chinese officials about the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
The project has drawn comparisons to Daniel Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. In the United States, the leaking of some documents may be legally protected. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution guarantees anonymity, at least in the area of political discourse.
Author and journalist Whitley Strieber has spoken about the benefits of the WikiLeaks project, noting that "Leaking a government document can mean jail, but jail sentences for this can be fairly short. However, there are many places where it means long incarceration or even death, such as China and parts of Africa and the Middle East."
On 24 December 2009, WikiLeaks announced that it was experiencing a shortage of funds and suspended all access to its website except for a form to submit new material. Material that was previously published was no longer available, although some could still be accessed on unofficial mirrors. WikiLeaks stated on its website that it would resume full operation once the operational costs were covered. WikiLeaks saw this as a kind of strike "to ensure that everyone who is involved stops normal work and actually spends time raising revenue". While the organisation initially planned for funds to be secured by 6 January 2010,] it was not until 3 February 2010 that WikiLeaks announced that its minimum fundraising goal had been achieved.
On 22 January 2010, PayPal suspended WikiLeaks' donation account and froze its assets. WikiLeaks said that this had happened before, and was done for "no obvious reason". The account was restored on 25 January 2010.
On 18 May 2010, WikiLeaks announced that its website and archive were back up.
As of June 2010, WikiLeaks was a finalist for a grant of more than half a million dollars from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, but did not make the cut. WikiLeaks commented, "WikiLeaks was highest rated project in the Knight challenge, strongly recommended to the board but gets no funding. Go figure”. WikiLeaks said that the Knight foundation announced the award to "'12 Grantees who will impact future of news' – but not WikiLeaks" and questioned whether Knight foundation was "really looking for impact". A spokesman of the Knight Foundation disputed parts of WikiLeaks' statement, saying "WikiLeaks was not recommended by Knight staff to the board." However, he declined to say whether WikiLeaks was the project rated highest by the Knight advisory panel, which consists of non-staffers, among them journalist Jennifer 8. Lee, who has done PR work for WikiLeaks with the press and on social networking sites.
On 17 July Jacob Appelbaum spoke on behalf of WikiLeaks at the 2010 Hackers on Planet Earth conference in New York City, replacing Assange because of the presence of federal agents at the conference. He announced that the WikiLeaks submission system was again up and running, after it had been temporarily suspended.
Assange was a surprise speaker at a TED conference on 19 July 2010 in Oxford, and confirmed that WikiLeaks was now accepting submissions again.
Upon returning to the U.S. from the Netherlands, on 29 July, Appelbaum was detained for three hours at the airport by U.S. agents, according to anonymous sources. The sources told Cnet that Appelbaum's bag was searched, receipts from his bag were photocopied, his laptop was inspected, although in what manner was unclear. Appelbaum reportedly refused to answer questions without a lawyer present, and was not allowed to make a phone call. His three mobile phones were reportedly taken and not returned. On 31 July, he spoke at a Defcon conference and mentioned his phone being "seized". After speaking, he was approached by two FBI agents and questioned.

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WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit media organization that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous news sources and leaks. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press. Within a year of its launch, the site claimed a database that had grown to more than 1.2 million documents. The organization has described itself as having been founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Newspaper articles and The New Yorker magazine describe Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, as its director.
WikiLeaks has won a number of awards, including the 2008 Economist magazine New Media Award. In June 2009, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange won Amnesty International's UK Media Award (in the category "New Media") for the 2008 publication of "Kenya: The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances",[9] a report by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights about police killings in Kenya.[10] In May 2010, the New York Daily News listed WikiLeaks first in a ranking of "websites that could totally change the news".
In April 2010, WikiLeaks posted video from a 2007 incident in which Iraqi civilians and journalists were killed by U.S. forces, on a website called Collateral Murder. In July of the same year, WikiLeaks released Afghan War Diary, a compilation of more than 76,900 documents about the War in Afghanistan not previously available for public review. In October, the group released a package of almost 400,000 documents called the Iraq War Logs in coordination with major commercial media organisations. In November 2010, Wikileaks began releasing U.S. State department diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks was launched as a user-editable "wiki" site and still uses MediaWiki as the content management system, but has progressively moved towards a more traditional publication model, and no longer accepts either user comments or edits. The site is available on multiple online servers and different domain names following a number of denial of service attacks and its severance from different Domain Name System providers.

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3 Product Based Online Advertising Tips

Selling your knickknacks online...

You may already have a website, chock full of all your marvellous products but what you may be struggling is pushing a particular from product from within you range. You can use your internet skills to get your business out there by using search results, social media and offline advertising. But when it comes to making one product stand out ahead of others; perhaps you have a product with a great profit margin or a brand new invention you think will be a smash hit?

This advice should give you some solid ways to push an individual product amidst all your others, into people's baskets.

Special Offer

It may feel like a little obvious, but never underestimate the power of a special offer. With a well worded press release or a feature box on your homepage you can bring many of your users to a specific product. What you need to do though is make your product seem more appealing than all the others with a percentage discount or by offering a free gift or membership or something along with it. Alternatively try producing a memorable YouTube video of your product in action and embed it on your homepage. If it's good enough, and you're lucky, it might go viral.

Focus On Benefits

Any brand identity design agency will tell you that the most important thing to convey to your customers is the benefits they will receive from your product. Whether you are working on a product design for print or online you must always tell the audience what they will get from this product. Make people see themselves using it and benefiting from it. Product design companies spend a lot of money on advertising making it clear to us what we will gain from their product. You need to do the same.

AdWords

If you don't have an AdWords account already, then you should get one now. You can use this to easily promote your business using pay per click (PPC) adverts on search engine results page. This means that when people search for a specific phrase (which you choose yourself) your advert will appear at the side or at the top of the page. So you would choose the name of your product e.g. 'Green Converse Shoes' as your keyphrase, write a short advert (AdWords helps you do this) and set a budget for how much you want to spend on your PPC campaign. AdWords uses an auction type system to decide whose advert goes top, meaning that you decide how much you want to pay for every click you receive, and your advert goes live. The more you're willing to pay, the more likely you are to get to the top. Having an advert for your product at the top of the search results for your exact product will bring you a lot of traffic.

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Top 5 Daily Deals Websites

Clipping through weekly serials, chewing through magazines and newspapers only to find one precious deal that may or may not have expired - those days are over. These days with so many immediate updates, finding daily deals isn't hard; you just have to know where to look. Read on to know the five best one deal a day websites.

1. Groupon: This site works with your local restaurants, bars, and other businesses to give you great deals via Facebook, Twitter and your e-mail. You can print vouchers or bring them up on your smartphones to get your daily deals. The deals are only activated once a certain number of people purchase them, which usually isn't a problem when you're talking about city-wide deals. Once you personalize your details, you can be sent the most relevant deals to your inboxes, and then start shopping.

2. LivingSocial: One deal a day is a similar idea on this site, but it could be even better. If you have already bought 1 deal of the day and then share it with your friends, at least three of whom buy it, you get the deal for free. How's that for social networking?

3. DailySteals: If you're looking for one deal a day on great electronics, this site is worth a visit. Some of their deals are so low that they're practically free. It's not uncommon to find one deal a day on this site for almost 90% off MSRP. Their rewards store is like the arcades from your youth that offer prizes when you redeem tickets - collect enough and get the flying helicopter, or the adult equivalent.

4. FatWallet: Their user forum is particularly helpful because readers post deals from all over the internet. They also use shopping bots, which search all across the internet to find the best deals.

5. Slickdeals:These guys also scour the internet for different deals ranging from electronics and food to clothing to music. They also have forums, but not just for deals - you can discuss sports, finance and technology and get a sense of what's going on in these specific spheres.

If I've forgotten or overlooked any one deal a day websites let me know! There are always new deals cropping up, and the best way to know about them is to talk to and alert other deal masters.

Now that you have a good idea of how to deal hunt, get out there and start deal shopping. All it takes is a valid e-mail address, and the desire to be a master deal finder. Be careful though, you don't want to start deal shopping too fast; you can really hurt your credit card that way.

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Legit Online Jobs Review - Can I Earn From Home?

The internet explosion over the last number of years has made many companies turn to the internet to further their businesses and explode their marketing efforts, and it is very clear to see why - (1) consumer spending habits are more and more into searching online first before buying, not to mention the convenience of online-shopping; and (2)the reach is global, taking the businesses to exponential proportions. With this, online money-making opportunities have mushroomed and suddenly it becomes confusing and difficult to discern which one is suitable, workable and most importantly legitimate. One of this is Legit Online Jobs program.

So what is this Legit Online Jobs program? When companies worldwide started to realize how the internet facility can literally grow their business to mammoth proportions, they are now faced with the overwhelming realization of how to market and advertise their products - the business growth potential is just too fast and rabid for them to handle to the tune of several billions of dollars. With this is in mind, Legit Online Jobs bank on the premise that these companies need as many hands to assist them with online advertising and promotion by typing their ads and posting them online. Thus, if you enroll into the Legit Online Jobs program, you will be given the opportunity to promote and post ads for thousands of companies. You do not need experience as the program will show you a step by step video of how to do this.

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Benefits Of Offline Marketing for Online Marketers

At some point or another, many Internet marketers or Internet business owners decide to experiment with the idea of developing an offline business either to complement an existing, web-based business or simply as another means to make money.

We're currently in the Information Age - an era where information is shared among people almost at the speed of light. This, of course, was made possibly through the Internet. As more and more people are getting online, online marketing has reached a level in a way that marketers from decades ago can only ever dream of. With that in mind, many marketers have used the Internet as a powerful medium to market their products and services that they completely shelved the notion of using the ever reliable method of offline marketing.

This is a grave mistake any marketer shouldn't commit, since offline marketing is as essential as it was decades ago. It is also made more significant if used hand in hand with online marketing.

Benefits Of Offline Marketing for Online Marketers

The recent surge in popularity of the Internet has led many to believe that offline marketing is a thing of the past. Dead wrong. Sure, it can't be denied that online marketing can help bolster a business and catapult it to new heights, but while more and more people are logging in to the Internet, there are still billions of people who still haven't had the inclination or the resources to do so.

Go to a city and look around you. Billboards, flyer, newsprints and other advertising mediums still surround us; a large portion of the populace still relies on the Television and the radio to entertain them selves. This proves that the influence of TV ads and radio ads still has the same effect on consumers as it had before. Even up to this day when online marketing has hit its stride, offline marketing, still, has advantages its online counterpart couldn't have.

Brand Awareness

Most people are more likely to trust products that they have seen offline. This is pretty understandable if you take into account the amount of scams that have proliferated over the Internet. Offline advertisements also seem to give a more "tangible" effect on people, since they are more traceable to something that is deeply rooted in reality. This is not to say that online ads are a figment of our imagination, but you have to admit that the companies that turn up offline ads have a more profound sense of accountability since you can directly contact the TV stations, radio stations, or the publishing house that have agreed to display those ads.

Another great thing about offline marketing is that you yourself can be your own walking advertisement. A T-shirt displaying your brand name and its accompanying slogan is a powerful advertising material, especially if you are always out and about and interact with lots of people. If you travel by car frequently, a car sticker can be extremely helpful in increasing awareness of your products and services.

This one is also extremely important: never forget to place the URL of your website on your ads. It will be a total waste if your ads are able to grab the attention of consumers only to have them scratching their heads in the task of trying to find out how they can avail of your products.

A Vast Market Reach

As has been mentioned earlier in this article, there are still a lot of people who have never logged in to the Internet. Internet users comprise only a small portion of the demographics. To remedy this situation, offline marketing needs to be administered in order to fill in the gaps.

Packs More Punch

The tangible aspect of offline marketing also provides you a lot of room to use your creativity and imagination. For example, you can set up your own booth in a country fair, maybe hire some mascots or entertainers, or maybe set up a contest where many people will be introduced to your product while they're having fun at the same time.

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Pay Per Click Advertising and Pitfalls

Internet marketing, as its name implies, is the promotion of a product or service using the Internet. This is one of the marketing outlets today that entrepreneurs are taking advantage of because (1) the Internet captures a wider audience (think worldwide), and (2) it is a cheaper than television, radio, newspaper and magazine advertising.

But as the demand for the Internet as a marketing vehicle becomes grows, it becomes a new battlefield where various businesses compete for attention of a prospective customer. Whoever is persistent and is on the top of the search engine gets the sale.

To be on top, Internet marketers employ various strategies and ties together all the aspects of the Internet - its design, development, advertising and sales into one moving force to engage customers and get the sale.

If you want to venture into making business in the Internet, you must know the basics of how you will be able to make your website, your products and services remain visible to web users.

Pay Per Click Advertising

The Pay Per Click advertising model involves a trigger that generates a payment from the merchant. The trigger is that the ad is clicked and the merchant pays the affiliate.

The advantage of this set-up is that even if an affiliate does not generate clicks, and therefore no sales, the merchant has no costs at all. Follwing the main business Models

Bid-based PPC In a bid-based PPC, an advertiser competes with other advertisers in an automated fashion in a private auction of the publisher or advertising network. The bid is the amount that an advertiser is willing to pay for a given ad spot, which is usually a keyword.

Flat-rate PPC In a flat-rate model, the advertiser and publisher agree upon a fixed amount as payment for each click. Advertisers can negotiate a lower fixed amount committing to a long-term contract.

The flat-rate PPC model is popular in price comparison services. Price comparison services present the various list of prices for a specific product or service. Examples of this are PriceWatch and Streetprices. An advertiser do not pay to be listed, instead pays for every click on a price.

Automated bid management systems are used to maximize success and cover as many areas as possible.

Getting Started

The following are what you need to remember in getting started with PPC advertising:

1. Choose 10 to 15 keywords and expressions of different categories related to your product or service. You must use quality keywords to get the target audience. This is the trickiest part of PPC advertising and must be the subject of a study before finalizing the keywords. Reach-out to those who really wants to buy and no one else.
2. Use selling words, such as sale, guarantee, delivery, etc. in the composition of your advertisement to eliminate non-commercial inquiries.
3. The three important components of an ad for a PPC are the header, the advertisement text and the link to the website of the advertiser. The ad must be interesting and able to convince a buyer. It must also be concise, without stops, and precise.
4. You have to bid if you want the most desirable keywords. The higher the bid, the higher is your ranking.

PPC Advertising Pitfalls

A problem with this online advertising method is that it is open for abuse. Click fraud, which generates a charge using a simulated user of a web browser maliciously, clicks on the link without having a genuine interest in the target of the advertisement. This type of Internet crime is a cause of controversy because the fraud benefits the advertising network. It has since been considered a felony in a number of states in the USA.

Pay Per Click Advertising is only one of lots of other possibilities to make your web visible on the Internet. There are other similar models like PPV (Pay Per View) or getting found naturally with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques.

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How to Improve Your Email Campaign Performance

If you setup your sender authentication records, they will absolutely help but still may not be enough. There are a few more things you can do to build your email sender reputation and improve your email campaign performance:

• Every few email campaigns check your mail server's IP address against DNS based blacklists. You can use the MX Lookup tool to see if your server's IP address is blacklisted. If it is, there is nothing wrong with emailing to the admins of those sites and ask them how you can be removed from the blacklist.

• Sign up at email deliverability services. These services work as whitelists and ensure the email delivery to the recipient. When you sign up, your server's IP address is included into their database. The ISPs check those databases, and if your IP is found there, your email is delivered. Only note that the email deliverability services are not free. They charge a monthly fee or the fee is based on the quantity of sent emails.

• Whitelist your server with ISPs. Large ISPs have a procedure you can follow to facilitate the delivery of your email messages directly to the subscriber's Inbox and not to the bulk email folder. The bad thing is that the ISP may not whitelist you if you are using a shared mail server. Even the host owning the mail server may come into troubles with getting the server whitelisted if shared accounts are in use. The experience shows that in order to send the emails as reliably as possible, email marketers should use a dedicated mail server and implement all the steps I described above. And the final thing to do is to follow the ISP whitelisting procedure. There is also a concern about the quantity of emails sent at a time. ISPs tend to meter incoming emails and accept only a certain number of messages per hour. Gone are the days when it was possible to continuously blast thousands of messages. Now the emails should be metered to leak over time.

• Do not change your mail server's IP address without any evident reason for it. Some ISPs are more cautious to new IP addresses and restrict the amount of emails that can be sent from a new IP address.

• Do not change your "From" email address without need. The recipients have already used to your From field and probably added your From email address to their whitelists. Sending from a new email address may make them think it is spam and hit "Report Spam" button or just delete your email message. If you are forced to change your From email address, consider sending a short notification to your subscribers before the change takes place. This way, they can update your records in their address books or whitelists and your future emails will more likely to be received in the Inbox.

• Do not send the first welcome email in HTML. It's better if you send your welcome message in plain text format and after your subscribers whitelist you, you can email your regular newsletters in the HTML format. Plus, some email services (AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail) do not display images in a HTML email until the recipient loads them.

To conclude, keep in mind that nowadays the sender's reputation question is timely as never before. It's easy to fool anti-spam filters using some tricks but it's not easy to restore your good name. Your email sender's reputation determines the success of your mailings so put your efforts to create a good picture of yourself.

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Hidden Benefits Of A Newsletter

Newsletters are great because they offer you the opportunity to send out your words to a huge number of people. They establish you as one of the lead players in your field. But there is also another side to electronic newsletters, and that is the fact that it helps you to establish yourself as having a 'Web presence.' Now some of you may think that having a Web presence is not a big deal, but that is where you are wrong. A Web presence can really help turn your business around!

Importance of a Web Presence:

A presence on the World Wide Web will get you noticed. It is a strange fact of Internet life that, if you have a number of articles, newsletters, and informative pieces out there, then search engine spiders will start to pick up on you and your business.

If you have a one-page website, with little genuine content on it, few links to other websites, and no other information in cyberspace, then your business will not grow in terms of Internet markets. Unless you have an extreme niche market, you will simply be ignored by the big search engines; in fact, you will not be ignored, but you will be under their radar, so they will not pick up on you. So what you need to do is to establish yourself on their radar so that when the little search engine spiders crawl through the World Wide Web, they will pick up on you and your business.

So an electronic newsletter is not just about ensuring that you establish a good relationship with your customers; it is also about a little bit of self-promotion through hidden means!

Although the newsletter itself should not be written in a style that is about how great you are and how many big words or jargon terms you know, the hidden function of ensuring that you get maximum exposure on the Web should not be overlooked, since this will help to get your message across and help people to know who you are and what service you provide.

Search Engine Optimization:

When writing your newsletters, be conscious of search engine optimization techniques, but do not let them dominate the content of the newsletter.

For best results, it is better to have a few keywords that you insert naturally into your content. But use keywords appropriately. If, for example, your keyword is 'lock' or 'locks,' then fit these in when you can. But if you inject them into every sentence, then you will lose the flow of your writing, and the whole newsletter will lose focus and simply seem like it is a vehicle for you to circulate items containing your keywords. So use keywords sparingly, especially if they are obscure or difficult to insert with ease.

You also need to be specific about keywords. Do not start off a page with a certain set of keywords, then change them halfway through. Devote a good 10 or 15 minutes thinking about what your keywords should be and write them down so that you can prompt yourself when writing. But beware of overuse and do not let them dominate the text!

Forward to friends:

Any good newsletter will make it really easy to forward it onto friends or colleagues that will increase your Web presence even more. Make sure that you make this link really easy so that people who don't have much time will be able to forward it onward without too much difficulty; in that way, you will be able to get more people to read it and receive more Web presence!

Sign up for newsletter section:

Make sure that on any routine correspondence you send out electronically that you have a link that allows people to sign up to your newsletter. It is also advisable to tell them how often you send out a newsletter. For example, if it is a quarterly publication, then you will probably get more people signed up than if they assume that it is once a month!

Make sure that the link encourages people to sign up. It is not enough to say 'Sign up for our quarterly newsletter.' You need to say something like 'Sign up for our exciting quarterly newsletter that will tell you of the latest developments and trends in the world of (insert your business area here) and will also keep you posted about any special offers,' or some such wording. Remember that you have to persuade them to join up!

Encourage backlinks:

Encourage anyone who has read your newsletter and who likes it to create a link back to it so that your Web presence becomes more widespread.

The more backlinks you can have, the more you will start to get recognized by the search engine spiders and the closer you will come to the top of the search engine ratings.

Remember that the newsletter is forever:

Ensure that you have the capacity and the resources to devote to a newsletter before you start. If you publish a few newsletters then grow tired of it, you will undoubtedly lose the trust of many of your customers, so plan ahead and avoid failing through lack of planning!

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How to Do Email Marketing for Promoting a Website

Email marketing has countless advantages to for promoting website. It can in reality benefit you to follow-up on the leads, authenticate you as a professional in your field, and print your business in the minds of your potential customers. Email marketing could be a very efficient way for you to upturn traffic flow to your website and your online profits. There are several key points to consider while using email marketing to make it as gainful as possible.

In order to start email marketing, you must have a list of contacts and email addresses for marketing to promote your website. This list can be made through advertisings that need this information, or with opt-in boxes on your website, among many other ways. With this list, you achieve targeted audience that you can market, while you start to promote your services and products.

One of the major problems in email marketing is encouraging recipients go through with your emails. When they notice that the email is from your website, they may suppose that you are tempting to sell them something, they simply put your email to trash can. The bottom line is your only hope for grasping their notice. While putting the subject title for a special promotion, use the addressee's first name to turn the email into more personalized one. This can only works if you use their name carefully. However, do not adopt it as a permanent approach, like if you post a monthly newsletter.

The list of contacts is possibly your targeted audience so you had better known what they are searching for at your website. If you can find out needs, provide it to them in the email, they will definitely read the emails. Along with, include a testimonial that you are offering them what they were looking for, in the subject title, so they could not to resist reading the email.

For your convenience, here are some fundamental tips for you to get started with email promotion for your website:

Describe Your Purpose
There are various motives for a marketing campaign; however, commonly marketing done with email is meant to stay in touch with clienteles or to follow-up with your leads.

Lead Generation
Many people advise buying email lists. However, that is a wicked approach in itself. If you send, business-related emails to someone who has not wished to receive mails from you, it is a SPAM, unwelcome commercial email, the law put restrictions, and even penalties regarding SPAM mails. To encourage traffic to subscribe to your opt-in list, offer free mini-eBooks and reports as it is a successful approach.

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Making the Most of a Report Writing Service

Building an email list is one of the core requirements to make any business succeed online. And what better way to do this than to write a report with valuable information that people would want to read. A report is considered to be a very powerful tool that can help you acquire a sizeable subscriber list, and as you know, the larger the list is, the more likely that your business can gain future sales. Unfortunately, report writing is not something that everyone can do, which is why many online businesses have relied mostly on a report writing service to handle this aspect of marketing.

The Essence of Report Writing

Now you might be wondering what it is about report writing that makes it a good tool to build your email list. Firstly, a report can be just as helpful as an eBook or a video, but a lot easier to accomplish. It will entice website or blog visitors to opt-in to your email list, especially if the report is something that is relevant and useful in their field of interest. Usually, websites offer these reports as giveaways in exchange for a person's email address, although there is always that strategy to sell it for a really low price of $6 to $7, just so you could earn a bit of money in the process.

Why Use a Report Writing Service

Although making a report can be accomplished with only a few steps, it can be a daunting task for most webmasters. Initially, you will be required to determine what the report "topic" will be, and it should be something that will interest a certain group of people. Going to ClickBank and other affiliate marketing provider is often required to find out what products are saleable. Once that's been done, researching about the topic is needed prior to writing the report because even if you are already an expert in a particular topic, gathering information is still necessary. Such things can be considered a hassle and a waste of energy for many busy webmasters.

The Importance of Using a Professional Report Writing Service

The problem with many webmasters today is that they would rather scrimp on costs than pay premium for a report writing service. However, little do they know that it could eventually affect the number of people who will want to opt-in to their email list. Obviously, a poorly researched report that does not meet the current demands in terms of what your target market is looking for, will also not be effective even if you give it as a free incentive. In the end, you will be paying for a report that's going to be rendered useless. This is exactly why you need a company that has experience in writing reports, that is, if you want the most bang for your buck.

Understanding the value of a report is just the initial step to building your online marketing strategies. The challenge is to be able to come up with a report that will earn you a lot of money. This is where a professional report writing service can help you; and by going with the right company who knows exactly how to "upsell" your report, you can be sure that you will get what you have set out to achieve: a very large email list that you can use to sell your products to.

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9 E-Mail Marketing Tips That Most Internet Marketers Forget

Introduction

Thanks to the Internet, marketing methods have also adapted and changed in the last two decades. Banner ads, flash videos, and other methods are popping up like wildfire on websites all over the place. But the one tried and true method that seems to work better and surpass all others is email marketing.

This form of marketing reaches the customer directly, and can be custom created to fit the shopper's needs based on past history, personal preference, and much more. While email marketing is an excellent way to garner new customers and maintain old ones, there are some very important things every business needs to know. Here are thirty great tips to getting more people to open up that email every time you send it.

Following are a few email marketing tips to get you started..

eMail Marketing Tip #1: Announce Big Sales

Always let your email subscribers know when a big sale is coming up. Do not wait until the last minute, however. Give your email list members a fair heads-up, and then send another reminder or two before the big sale day. If the sale stretches across several days, be sure to let them know this as well. If a coupon code has to be used, make absolutely sure it is included in the email.

eMail Marketing Tip #2: Use Strong Subject Lines

The subject is what brings people to determine whether or not they hit the delete button automatically or whether they actually click on, open, and read the email. Without an interesting or intriguing subject line, customers might not even bother. Come up with something clever that will grab their attention and make them want to open the email. Use creative one-liners or fun catch phrases. You can also cut right to the chase and say something like: 50% Off All Products For The Next 72 Hours! Another powerful way is to ask a question like: Did you download your free report yet? The point is, if it makes the reader open the email, then the subject line has done its job.

eMail Marketing Tip #3: Make the Call to Action Clear

In other words, always let your customers know what you expect of them, and what they can expect of you. Whether it is a sale with free shipping if they purchase $25 or more worth of products, or a free promotional offer or item if they attend a local event, you need to make the message clear. Any "fine print" should always be out in the open so the reader knows any catches, details, or other provisions they have to meet well in advance.

eMail Marketing Tip #4: Use Social Networking to Your Advantage

Facebook is all the rage right now, so be sure to include a reminder to have your email readers click "like" for your company on Facebook. You can easily include this link inside of the email, so all they have to do is click the icon or link, and it takes them right to Facebook with the option to click on the like button. Facebook is currently showing a valuable asset and additional help to businesses all over the world.

eMail Marketing Tip #5: Include Fun, Informative Content in Your Emails

You do not have to make every single email a sales pitch. Instead, include some interesting information about your product, how it can be used, or another topic closely related to your business. If your email subscribers tend to get nothing but sales letters, they may begin deleting them. However, if those emails make for an interesting read, they might just press onward and even go to the website and make purchases or ask questions.

eMail Marketing Tip #6: Take Advantage of the Holidays

The holidays, especially major ones, are a good time to market your product or service. Use this to your advantage in emails by creating special, holiday and email only discounts. You can get creative by offering special holiday related items, or just have sales during select times of the year.

eMail Marketing Tip #7: Avoid Spamming

If a customer makes a purchase on your website but does not opt in to being on your email list, do not send them emails or add them to the list unsolicited. This is a sure fire way to turn someone off, and have them spread the word about your spam emails. Instead, offer for people to join the list on their own when they are on the home page, inside of the shopping cart, or at check out. You never want to make customers feel as if the emails they are receiving are forced.

eMail Marketing Tip #8: Create Target Lists for Different Demographics

New mothers might only want to receive emails about goods for babies, while a man will certainly not want to hear about the latest heels and handbags you have to offer. Instead, create several different email lists for various demographics, so you can easily reach the people who want to read only what they get in their in box. Try to hone in on your current customer base by offering surveys to get a better idea of the age and sex demographics you are receiving the most business from. This can make a huge difference when it comes to garnering sales.

eMail Marketing Tip #9: Keep the Quantity to a Minimum

Most people that join email lists like to get an email every now and then, but every day or even once a week can be too much, unless the content is purely informative and designed to be sent that way. Otherwise, marketing type emails should be sent as sparingly as possible. Often, people only respond to these types of emails when a good discount or offer is included. Otherwise they might be prone to either just deleting them on sight or opting to unsubscribe. If you overdo the number of emails you send, it's almost a guarantee you will see your email database dwindle in no time.

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Tips on Domain Scalping

Domain names are the unique names used to define websites. There give a particular website solitary identification on the internet. There are many home based businesses that can be done on the internet. Domain scalping is one of these. In domain scalping one can buy and sell domain for three to four times profit than what they had initially bought it for. One doesn't have to be experienced with website for taking up t his business. Nowadays there are many companies that are hiring professional scalpers for this purpose. One just has to be familiar with the proper working of the internet.

The first reason it is called a home based business is because people can earn a considerable amount of profit just by sitting on their computer at home. Organizations involved in the business relating to domains hire scalping experts. These experts are well experienced when it comes to buying the right domain names. They do their research on which websites have more traffic and make a purchase based on this research.

Unique domain names are considered to be very important because they explain about the content on your website in the name itself. For example if someone wants to buy a mobile phone online then they will type in a keyword relating to which brand they want to purchase so that the search engine will display the websites with the domain names closest to the keyword.

One must know to choose keyword-rich domains for cheap so that when they sell it they can make a lot of profit. They should learn to discern hungry buyers from normal ones so that there are domains are sold for a lot of money. Domain scalping can be done by almost anyone. They don't even have to any capital to start with. It doesn't take much effort on the part of the buyer and the domain bought can be flipped and sold within 48 hours. there are many domain scalping reviews on the internet.

There are several websites that guide people to buying and selling domains. One can just go through the guidelines and get started without any kind of experience. Once it is done on a regular basis you can get a hang of it and business will pick up faster. Many entrepreneurs have made this their main business and it can also be taken up as side business.

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Your Domain Name Has Expired - What Can You Do

If you are a webmaster or site owner then you will have a domain name, or a url, which is the address that people type into their browsers to view your website. This is basically the same as your front door on your home, which means that it is the access point to your website as without it - you do not have a website that can be found or accessed by the general public.

If you have a domain name that has expired, don't panic immediately because all is not lost because you actually have more time than you might think.

If a renewal request is not received from your registrar, then Nominet will send you a renewal reminder by email as long as you are talking about a.co.uk or a.uk domain name. You have 30 days to arrange for your registrar to renew the domain name or you can do this yourself if you buy your domains or store them with a domain registrar or host.

If Nominet do not receive a renewal request for your domain name within 30 days of the expiry date, the domain name in question will then be suspended. At this point, it does not mean it's lost forever or back on "general sale". You can contact Nominet and try to save your domain name before it goes back onto the market, but you must act quickly at this point to make sure you do retain the rights to the domain name.

If you then forget to do this or miss the time period, your domain name will then be cancelled 60 days after suspension if they have still not received a renewal instruction for your domain name from your registrar or your domain registrar. This means that you will not be able to get this domain name back unless you can quickly grab it when it goes back on sale after the cancellation has processed.

Do bear in mind that if your domain name is quite old, has history and has had a site connected, there will be domain catchers set up ready to grab your domain name when it expires, so unless you act quickly then you really can kiss goodbye to your domain name for ever, which is a stunning blow for any webmaster that has a good history with the same name.

It is always best to make sure that you renew your domain name at least two weeks before it is set to expire, because if you do not, you are running the risk of losing the domain name for ever.

The company you registered your domain with will usually have the option to auto renew, dependant on your credit card or payment method still being valid, so if you are of a forgetful nature make sure that you turn this option on when you buy the domain name so that they can do all of the hard work for you.

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How To Find A Great Unregistered Domain Name

When trying to find a great unregistered domain name it can be a frustrating experience where all the good names seem to have been taken. Here are some tips on finding a good unregistered domain.

Sometimes, only the.com may have been registered, so in this case I would register the.net,.org or.co.uk (if applicable).

Now, to start searching for an available domain name, you want to get together a list of keywords that relate to your proposed website. An online keyword suggestion tool is a great way to do this. But avoid trademarked terms such as popular brand names.

Starting with some seed keywords, enter these into the search term suggestion tool, sort them in order of search volume, and scroll down the list looking for key phrases of 2 words or more. If there is strong competition for the keywords, you need to go deeper down the list to have a chance of finding keywords that have not been registered as domains yet. Also, ensure that there is sufficient search volume to make it worthwhile optimizing for a particular keyword.

Another way of getting keyword suggestions is to enter your seed keywords into search engines and see what they suggest as they try to guess what you may be searching for.

Both these methods are using data from the search engines, so you know that people are searching for these words. Ideally you will register an exact match domain without filler words. So if the.com is taken, check for the availability of the.net or.org versions. If all are taken, then consider adding a filler word such as "best", "review", "guide" etc. But, avoid using dashes and numbers since it makes it difficult to pass on your domain name by word of mouth or remember it correctly.

However, sometimes it does make sense to insert a hyphen where it is applicable or to avoid having a very long keyword domain.

By preparing a list of potential keywords before visiting the domain registrar, you can save time, and frustration when having to try multiple ideas to identify an unregistered domain name.

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What Is a High Impact Domain Name?

Otherwise known as Premium domains which are simply common keyword terms that are either 1 or 2 words and typically embody the.Com extension. The extension is considered to be a TLD ( Top Level Domain ) and there are plenty of to select from, but to date.Com supercedes all. Investing in a premium website name is a necessary step in bringing your business on the internet.

A premium domain will be more expensive than a new domain (premiums range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars) depending on the name. The price is determined based on marketability, spelling, traffic, and economic trends. Highly notable domains have stronger branding potential, are easier to remember, and attract more traffic - so they may bring a higher price tag - but depending on the name and what you intend your site to do for your business, it may be worth the investment.

One of the reasons why a premium domain is particularly sought after is because of the traffic it can generate. Increased visibility can produce Lead Generation. There are 2 kinds of traffic that come from a premium domain Direct navigation & search volume. Direct navigation has proved to convert the best. Nonetheless search volume commands much more traffic than direct navigation and the benefit is the SEO can be optimised. This in turn promotes business expansion and allows you to reach a larger audience.

Web site names are virtual real estate and premium domains are similar to properties in Bel-Air and Palm Beach. Just like getting a house that is in need of repair in a nice locality you can score a premium domain and increase its equity via development and promoting. Traffic, conversions & cash all increase a domains equity which in turn allows you to sell the domain for an acceptable return or sell the domain along with your business for multiples of the money it produces. Therefore a high impact domain name can be a good investment. Premium domains that are developed and ranking in search engines continue to drive leads with out the often exuberant cost of a continuing paid for promotional program. All in all a premium domain is an investment in your business and your selling objectives.It is becoming widely recognised that domains have and will continue to go up in worth faster than any other known commodity.

High Impact Domains offer a sense of credibility to the business that owns it. Owning one can often mean that you are the definitive resource online for that niche. Owning a premium domain also allows you to create emails specific to the domain rather than a universal e-mail service like hotmail or yahoo. This promotes professionalism and unity in your web presence. All in all a premium domain should be a category blaster. This means ensuring that it is the dominant keyphrase in its vertical and is a generic term.

If you're the owner of the rights to a particular term it is in your interest to acquire premium domains that revolve around your vertical to prevent rivals in your space. In other words a top value domain can protect your brand. High impact domains are an advantage to any business and help drive hundreds of thousands of potential clients to your website.

It's a known fact that owning a keyword specific domain can help a website rank quicker in the search sites. Nothing tops it, This method definitely saves time & money. In the domain industry it's not about quantity, it's truly about quality. Target 10-100 highimpactdomainnames rather than a big portfolio of low quality domains. In the final analysis you'll be satisfied you kept speculation to a minimum and invested only in premium domains. In my experience a domain name increases its value when some other person wants it. Hence for a little extra investment, you could secure an intuitive, memorable name that could help your business differentiate itself in a crowded market by building a memorable online brand and help your business on its way to making a great impact on the web.

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Internet Marketing Tips - Should You Buy Your Name As A Domain Name?

A lot of people ask if they should invest money in buying a domain with their name in it. As a matter of fact, just this morning, that same question came up yet again over at the Warrior Forum. Well, as simple as the question itself is, the answer is not so simple. Keep reading to find out why. Hopefully, this article will help you decide if getting a domain with your name in it is right for YOU.

At the top of the list of things to consider is this. How visible, personally, do YOU want to be? Does your business and marketing revolve around your name and your putting yourself out there as an expert on whatever niche you're targeting, or are you more or less in the background...doing a number of things that, quite honestly, you'd prefer people didn't know you were doing? I won't get into all the reasons here as some of them aren't quite on the up and up. Use your imagination.

Another thing to consider is this. How common is your name? If it's something like John Smith, for starters, you might have a difficult, if not impossible time, buying the domain as it's probably already taken. Even a name like Steven Wagenheim, if you can believe this, was taken and I had to settle for Steve Wagenheim as my domain name. I was shocked when I discovered this. So imagine how much trouble you're going to have finding a domain name with your name in it if it's a common name.

And if you DO find the domain name available, don't you think that there are going to be other people out there with similar names? Do you really think anybody is going to remember John Doe dot com with so many similar names out there? Sure, you can get the domain, but how much it's actually going to do for your business is questionable at best. So commonness of the name itself is a factor in deciding.

Then of course there is the privacy matter on a much more serious scale. There are a lot of crazy people out there who, because they have nothing else to do, will try to find out everything that they can about you and make your life less than pleasant. So before you put your name out there for the whole world to see, think about whether or not you want to put up with all the nonsense.

There is no question that if you're looking to brand yourself as an authority on a subject that getting your own name as a domain can be a big help. But please keep in mind that there are downsides to doing this and that some of them are less than pleasant.

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7 Top Tips To Website Flipping

BUY, BOOST, AND SELL!

This is the idea behind flipping websites. What you want to do is buy a website, boost its value, and then sell it on.
While there are many different ways to do this, at least now you should have an idea where to start!

CREATE A QUICK AND PROFITABLE WEBSITE!

If you can't afford or don't want to buy a website to flip it - create a quick one by yourself! Sure, it might take a little longer - but a fresh website can be sold for profits that are JUST AS LARGE so long as it is dragging in some profits.

KNOW YOUR MARKET

When you're flipping websites, your product is the website itself, and you need to know your market - i.e. the people who are interested in BUYING these websites! Know what they want, what they need, and what they're looking for!

That way, you'll be able to GIVE them exactly that.

BUY WEBSITES THAT CAN BE IMPROVED!

When you're flipping websites, you're not just looking to buy random websites. What you should be looking for are websites that you can actually improve in terms of traffic, profits, and so on. This is ESSENTIAL, because it is the key to increasing the VALUE of the website so that you can sell it at a big PROFIT!

PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

No doubt you've heard of SEO before, and make no mistake - it is important! Through SEO, you'll be able to bring more traffic to your website, and by doing so - gain more customers! Traffic, customers, and more sales - these are the three things that will really help you to maximize the profits that you gain from flipping a website!

BE SURE TO MARKET WEBSITE SALES!

When you sell a website, you need to MARKET it, not just put up an ad and sit back. Focus on the strong points of your website, and make sure that everyone knows exactly what it has to offer! Do this, and you'll find that the bids keep rolling in.

DECIDE EXACTLY HOW TO IMPROVE A WEBSITE BEFORE BUYING!

One of the problems many amateurs have with website flipping is that the 'leap' before they 'look'. Don't make that mistake. When you're thinking about buying a website, be sure to know EXACTLY how you're going to improve it, optimize it, and boost its value.

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