How should we view the recent resurgence of Taliban activity in Pakistan?

Be afraid, very afraid.

That’s a common message voiced by media and political observers in recent weeks. Pakistan’s government could go the way of the Shah of Iran in 1979, writes the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Taliban threats to Pakistan’s leadership represent the worst global crisis since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, a RAND Corporation official tells the Financial Times.

And it’s hard not to be moved by the devastation occurring in Pakistani regions like the Swat Valley. Doctors Without Borders announced today that it was halting medical services to refugees in Swat due to escalating warfare.

But could all this fear of a Taliban takeover in Pakistan be blinding the U.S. to local realities? An Economist report notes that for all the Taliban’s repellent acts in Swat, the Pakistani military has engendered deep local hostility by its brutal strikes on civilian targets. Rather than pushing for further billions of dollars in military aid for Pakistan to stave off an unlikely Taliban takeover, U.S. leaders would do well to pay more attention to the shaping of local hearts and minds. Central Asia Institute, the education non-profit co-founded by Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson, is one example of a worthy U.S. effort to build rather than break human capital in Pakistan.

Watch the Global Pulse episode on Pakistan here.

This week, Global Pulse goes beyond today's front-page news of exec bonus furor and reports on human-scale examples of the economic crisis. From struggling carpet weavers in India to sober singles in Moscow and jobless college graduates in South Korea, we examine how gainful work is won in a new era of contraction.

In the U.S., the U.K., and South Korea, public service is billed as the next great wave of labor opportunity. The News Hour at PBS reports that more and more young Americans are turning to government and non-profit programs like the Peace Corps and Teach for America. Likewise, the Independent chronicles a generation of young Britons eager to jump from the boardroom to the classroom as grade school teachers. And from Seoul today comes word that the South Korean government will create up to 550,000 temporary jobs in coming months, many of them for young graduates to work in fields like education.

But a less rosy portrait of labor emerges from the European Union and Malaysia, where migrant workers have experienced devastating recent changes in status. Der Spiegel interviews Mongolians in Prague, Poles in England, and Ecuadorians in Madrid who explain that jobs are newly few and far between. Across the globe, Al Jazeera English speaks to Bangladeshis locked out of Malaysia, their visas unexpectedly revoked.  

Will these labor changes prove fundamental and long-term? Or will we soon see a return to boom-era ways of expansion, open borders, and private enterprise?

This week, Global Pulse is covering the controversy surrounding last week's International Criminal Court decision to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Human rights activists hope the court's action, the first against a sitting head of state, will end the bloodshed that has flared in Darfur since 2003. But many Sudan watchers worry that the warrant could set off further tensions, including a resurgence of a decades-long, north-south civil war.

The Christian Science Monitor examines how Sudan's move this week to expel 13 international aid groups cuts Darfur's humanitarian effort in half, placing over 1 million people at risk for starvation. Likewise, BBC News predicts that rising desperation in Darfur could trigger renewed conflict in south Sudan, where rebel groups have long sought political recognition from the Sudanese government.

Meanwhile, guest columnists at the Huffington Post and the Washington Post call on the Obama administration to use the ICC warrant as justification for a stepped-up military campaign in Sudan. Today's kidnapping of 3 Doctors Without Borders workers in Darfur may further stoke the fire of the military interventionists.

Should the international community enforce ICC wishes and arrest Bashir, even if by military means? Or will enforcement of the court's wishes only lead to further humanitarian catastrophe?