By Rodger Baker

Something extraordinary is happening in China, and we are not talking about the Olympics. Rather, Chinese officials have been clamping down on visa applications and implementing bureaucratic impediments to new and renewed visa applications under the guise of pre-Olympic security.

In some ways, Beijing's plan for a safe and secure Olympics appears based on the premise that if no one shows up, there can be no trouble. But placing restrictions on the movement of managers and employees of foreign businesses operating in China, even if for a limited time as Chinese officials have been at pains to reassure, makes little sense from the standpoint of gaining political and economic benefits from hosting the Olympics. Something just isn't right.

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Pakistan's North West Frontier around the Khyber Pass has become a Taliban playground. They now control over 500Kms of frontier and its environs bordering Afghanistan following a series of disasterous "peace agreements" with the Pakistan Government. And what they don't control they influence.

The latest domino is Hangu. Seven days of operations by the Pakistan Army have finished with an agreement under which they will pay compensation and withdraw. The Taliban have agreed to recognise the government's authority, stop attacks on government security forces and refrain from running parallel government and legal systems. To date they have made such agreements in half a dozen other territories - and stuck to none of them.

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