Pakistan's capital Islamabad presents a disconcerting contrast: a planned city with trees and blocks of comfy one story houses, while underneath fear grows of the spreading power of Islamists who, in this past week, took strides towards creating an Islamist state in a country with nuclear weapons.

In the tourist valley of Swat, around 100 miles from the capital, a Muslim cleric, empowered by a supine Pakistani parliament, declared that the whole democratic system had to go to be replaced by Islamic law. Meantime, as legislators and political leaders here fiddle, civil society activists sit in their homes and talk fearfully, many afraid to be quoted, of how they believe  country's intelligence agencies are linked to themilitants.

Attempting to meet a political figure in the Serena Hotel, the main upscale refuge for foreigners (and too pricey and posh for an Inqy writer), one has to go through an astonishing series of car checks and body checks. That's because the other expat watering hole, the Marriott, was blown up by a truck bomb last year. Sitting in the SErena's garden one could pretend that all was well, until the political figure, again remaining nameless, said Pakistan was facing a threat that was a matter "of life and death."  

I arrived in Islamabad at 4 a.m. on Saturday, a disconcerting time to arrive in a problematic country.

Since last year's bombing of the Hotel Marriott, fewer and fewer airlines fly to Islamabad. British Airway cancelled all flights. So one has to fly via the Arab Gulf - Dubai or Doha - where flights tend to come and go in the cool hours of early, early morning.

In Islamabad I find early signs of the ominpresent terrorist threat. One used to be able to buy a Pakistani sim card for a mobile phone at any corner kiosk. Now foreigners have to go to a main cell phone store and be fingerprinted, four times, with purple ink. Somehow I don't think this will stop suicide bombers.

There are concrete barriers and police checks on many streets. Pakistani colleagues tell me that English-language schools in Islamabad that teach western-style curriculum with co-ed classes are being threatened and several have shut down temporarily in recent days.

And radical preacher Maulana Aziz, newly released from jail, called at jam-packed Friday prayers in central Islamabad, the day before I arrived, for Islamic law to be installed throughout the country. This comes just after the government accepted Islamic sharia law for the former tourist valley of Swat, a concession which liberal Pakistanis believe means the imposition of the Taliban's version of Islamic law in this once relaxed and beautiful area.

Limits on my column space for March 8, didn't permit me to expand enough on the amazing odyssey of Aldo Magazzeni.

Aldo, 57, who is a owner and CEO of Champion Fasteners in Lumberton, N.J., has another life building water systems in Afghan villages where villagers may have to hike miles for fresh water. His wife Anna, who runs a farm and garden center in Pughtown, and shares their 79-acre organic farm in Perkiomenville, Montgomery County, has to make do without him for months at a time.

To raise money for these water systems, which involve pumping water from springs or rivers into a central tank or cistern, Aldo is trying to connect Afghan villages with communities in the Philadelphia area. In cooperation with local teachers, he has already put together a lesson plan for several area high schools that will connect students with Afghan villagers, and teach local kids how water systems are built. As part of school projects, the local students will raise money to build water systems in particular villages. He's also hoping to work with UPenn engineering professors on a program which will involve students in designing Afghan water projects.

He has 30 water systems designed for student partnerships in cooperation with Soraya Pakzad, head of the Voice of Women Organization in Herat, Afghanistan, and hopes to find a total of 30 high schools to join the project.  He has already helped build ten water systems in Afghanistan.

You can see more pictures of his, and Suraya's work  at:  http://go.philly.com/afghanphotos . Or you can visit his website at www.travelingmercies.org.

What a difference a few years makes at Davos. A plenary panel on Climate Change and preparing for the Copenhagen summit this year was packed; this issue now galvanizes corporate executives. But everyone has been asking whether, at a time of acute global financial crisis, the developed countries can afford to pay for new technology that's needed.

So you could have heard a pin drop in the hall when Al Gore described the thinking in the Obama administration on this issue. The new US leadership, he said, "is prepared to engage the world on the climate crisis." The largest component of the $820 billion stimulus package passed this week by Congress "was a green stimulus", he said.

The Obama administration "is saying we need to build a national smart electrical grid" which can transfer soar energy from the southwest and wind energy from the west. "My friends in the new administration," he added, "say that the greenest person in the room is President Obama. He is pushing hard for a bold solution. If other governments do the same we can make the move" towards a different energy future based on renewables. "I  believe the US retains the capacity to provide leadership for the world" on this issue, Gore continued.

What a difference an election makes in changing the prospects for global progress on climate change.

   Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Turkish premier RecepTayyip Erdogan got so emotional over each other's remarks at a panel on Gaza that the huge plenary hall was practically vibrating with their anger. 

    Erdogan was furious, among other reasons, because he felt betrayed by Israel over the Gaza invasion.  Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited Ankara on Dec. 23 to discuss peace talks with Syria that Turkey was mediating. The talks were going so well that Erdogan believed they could soon be upgraded to direct Israel-Syria talks. He also suggested to Olmert that Turkey try to mediate the release of a kidnapped Israeli solider with Hamas and Olmert promised him an answer on the next day.
     "We never got an answer," Erdogan shouted on the stage, "and four days later Israel went into Gaza." The Turkish leader was also furious about civilian suffering in Gaza.

    Peres was angry that the world didn't understand how unsupportable it was for hundreds of thousands of Israelis to have to rush to shelters when Hamas was shooting missiles at Israel. "What would you do?" he shouted at the audience. "What we did was due to lack of choice."

    Erdogan got strong applause, but when the audience also applauded Peres passionate defense of Israel, Erdogan lost control. "I find it sad that people applaud what you said," he shouted, "when so many people were killed."  Erdogan stalked off the stage after moderator and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius told him there was no time for a reply to Peres. Erdogan declared "I will never return to Davos because I wasn't allowed to talk."

     This astonishing exchange underscored how the Gaza tragedy has set the region on edge. If Turkey, a Muslim country which has strong relations with Israel and is doing important mediation, is so bitter, it shows how crucial it is that the lingering Gaza crisis be defused soon, and peace talks resumed.

     Here's a glimpse into why the World Economic Forum is so terrific for a foreign affairs columnist. In one hour, walking up and down the stairways in the compact, underground conference center, I spoke with the following people:

     A former Jordanian deputy prime minister who is a leading voice for social and economic reforms in the Arab world. A South African executive and his wife - he of Sri Lankan origins and she of mixed German-Iraqi background - who talked of the gains their country has recently made in fighting HIV-AIDS. A Chinese journalist who interned last year at The Inquirer and is attending Davos with her husband, the managing editor of a leading Chinese business magazine.  The energy expert Dan Yergin. A leading columnist for a Lebanese newspaper. Two well known economic analysts who predicted the current crisis, Steven Roach and Nouriel Rubini. The head of an Egyptian think tank. And on and on.

It was strange enough that the World Economic Forum invited Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to give the opening address at the conference. After all, Russia doesn't seem interested in playing by the international rules that the forum is so anxious to promote. Only recently, Moscow shut off the gas, again, to Ukraine, which impacted flows to Europe. And that's not even to mention that journalists and human rights workers get murdered regularly in Russia, with the real culprits never found.

But what was even stranger was Putin's shabby performance. Following the impressive special address by Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, the Russian premier's speech underlined why China is surging ahead economically while Russia is stuck with a limping economy that depends on the price of oil.  

Putin never cracked a smile, and clearly enjoyed criticizing America's troubled economy and calling for a multipolar world that lessened American dominance. What was incredible was when the Russian leader, whose government throws private entrepreneurs in jail when they displease him and seizes their property on bogus charges, started lecturing the West about the risks of too much government interference in the private sector. And when he claimed that the Internet was completely free and fully available in every town in Russia, even in Siberia. And when he issued veiled threats to Europe about dealing with Russia properly on energy issues.

Wen's performance was masterful. Putin's wasn't ready for international prime time.

The plenary hall was indeed crammed to hear China's premier Wen Jiabao detail how Beijing plans to tackle the global economic crisis. The slight, bespectacled Chinese leader wowed them with a detailed outline of a massive Chinese stimulus package that will sound familiar to Americans: build new infrastructure, establish a comprehensive national health system in the next three years, improve compulsory education.

What sounded different was the Chinese leader's obvious self confidence (he used the word "confidence" around a dozen times). China's banking system is in far better shape than those of the USA and Europe, and Wen predicted a growth rate of 9% for this year. He was stinging in his indictment of the "unsustainable economic model" in the United States (which he didn't refer to by name) that saved too little and relied on the "blind pursuit of profit."

Of course, China has helped fund that blind persuit by buying our T-bills with dollars earned from exporting cheap goods to America. That model is going to change, and Wen was telling the audience that he thinks China can flourish with a new model that relies more on domestic consumption.

He issued a veiled warning to the Obama administration which has already criticized China for keeping its currency artifically high against the dollar.  While saying he looked forward to "early contact" with the new administration, he said a "confrontational relationship with China will make both losers." That's true, since we will need China's cooperation if we are to wind down our heavy dependance on their financing of our debt, and do so at a speed slow enough to prevent a dollar train wreck.