Bangladesh is a firm contributor to the United Nations Peace Keeping Forces (UNPKF). In Africa and now Haiti, soldiers from the Bangladesh Armed Forces have helped in whatever security and peace keeping issue that looms ahead for the more or less inert United Nations. Perhaps, though Bangladesh’s presence within the UNPKF is a simple move, a […]
Zainab Jeewanjee continues on drones in Pakistan, with Part 3 in a series of articles on Unmanned CIA aircraft in Pakistan. She discusses the scarcely heard Pakistani perspective that the drones are actually welcome in Waziristan. Skeptical of the argument, Jeewanjee explains the consequences of dismissing valid concerns Pakistani’s have about drones.
I have been struggling for a while now to find something positive, if not uplifting about Pakistan, but despite my consistent efforts, I have been largely unsuccessful in my quest. I called friends, journalists, government officials and private citizens across Pakistan but all of them shared horror stories about life in Pakistan. So, what is […]
Two years ago – February 2008 – Pakistan began its transformation to democracy with a general election that brought Benazir Bhutto’s PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) into power. The party decided to continue its policy, introduced by its slain leader Ms. Bhutto, of reconciliation with all political players. It formed a coalition government with its rival […]
The student affiliates of the major political parties have always had a major hand in the decades long perverse politicking in Bangladesh. Time and again mutually non-deterrent and devastating clashes have shut down the major cities in Bangladesh. Student leaders of these political groups often find lucrative contracts in the private sector; alternatively they […]
The media in Bangladesh is awash in ink reporting on the highest level U.S government delegation to Bangladesh. U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Judith McHale congratulated Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s attempt to reaffirm the rule of law and pluralist democracy in Bangladesh and asserted that, going forward, Bangladesh would be amongst the […]
I opened my email today to find, once again, a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece of commentary from PacNet, the newsletter maintained by the Center for Strategic and International Studies’s Pacific Center in Hawaii. Since signing up a year ago I have consistently enjoyed fresh looks on political affairs in the Asia-Pacific and have often found […]
Can favorable consolidation of democracy in Bangladesh serve as a bulwark against fanatacism and instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The simplest answer is yes. There are two ways, cases really, in which it might serve as a bulwark. The first case: Bangladesh’s democratic consolidation serves as an exemplar to show interested parties in Afghanistan […]
The New York Times just published a heart-wrenching piece on the death of an innocent 12-year-old girl in Pakistan who worked as a servant in the home of a wealthy lawyer. That poor child, little Shazia Masih, might have died from injuries sustained from vicious physical abuse from her employer. Now, simply switch the […]
Malaysia: The NY Times has an article concerning ANOTHER Anwar Ibrahim trial. Over the last 30 years, Mr. Anwar has not been a stranger to Malaysian jails, nor to the charge of sodomy, but his latest running-a foul with the political elite may have some serious repercussions in Malaysia, as well as to the nation’s […]
A little over three months into the Hatoyama administration and it is now clear that the new government is taking engagement with its East Asian neighbors seriously. Major missions of DPJ lawmakers to China and high-level cabinet meetings with South Korean counterparts have signaled a newfound interest in and commitment to diplomacy and détente in […]
With this weekend’s spat over U.S. arm sales, yet another dispute has come to roil the U.S.-China relationship. The “world’s most important bilateral relationship,” already frayed by tense disagreements over Internet freedom, cyber-security, Iran, trade, and currency policies, has now been further burdened with the Obama administration’s sale to Taiwan of USD 6.4 billion in […]
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