Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Germany on Friday backed Pakistan’s position on the US drone attacks in its tribal areas saying it too had ‘apprehensions about the strategy.’ German Special Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Bernd Mutzelburg, who called on the Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Germany had full understanding of Pakistan’s concerns. The support for Pakistan’s position […]

WASHINGTON: The Obama administration may triple development aid to Pakistan while also boosting military assistance to secure more help in fighting the insurgency in Afghanistan, a US official said on Friday. The official, who spoke on condition that he not be named because President Barack Obama has yet to unveil his fresh strategy on Afghanistan, […]

No one in Pakistan will support the reported plans in Washington to extend American drone attacks from the Tribal Areas to the already disturbed province of Balochistan. The Foreign Office in Islamabad has dismissed the news about the broadening of attacks published in the New York Times as speculation, and the Frontier Corps commander in […]

MULTAN: A gang-rape victim who shunned custom and rose to global fame by speaking out about her case has defied another local taboo – she just got married. Mukhtar Mai is now the second wife of Nasir Abbas Gabol, a police officer who was assigned to protect her as her case gained notoriety. He said […]

WASHINGTON: A bipartisan group of 15 US congressmen warned the US administration on Wednesday that increased US military activities in Pakistan would have dangerous consequences for the entire region. In a signed letter to President Barak Obama, the lawmakers also opposed US drone attacks in Pakistan, saying that it’s the continuation of the Bush administration’s […]

Islamabad, Pakistan — On a day of delirious public celebrations over Pakistan’s popular chief justice getting his job back, President Asif Ali Zardari stayed conspicuously out of sight. The 52-year-old president, whose popularity had been flagging even before Pakistan’s latest political crisis, was like an unwelcome guest Monday at a raucous nationwide party, pilloried for […]

WASHINGTON — President Obama and his national security advisers are considering expanding the American covert war in Pakistan far beyond the unruly tribal areas to strike at a different center of Taliban power in Baluchistan, where top Taliban leaders are orchestrating attacks into southern Afghanistan. According to senior administration officials, two of the high-level reports […]

WASHINGTON: The US State Department has said that Washington is not going to tell Pakistani politicians how to end the governor’s rule in Punjab or to revoke the disqualification order against the Sharif brothers.   ‘Well, look, that’s the decision that’s going to be left to Pakistani authorities. That’s not an issue for the United […]

WHAT prompted the government’s change of heart at the eleventh hour that led to the announcement about the reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry? Whatever other factors may have been at play, we also know that America, Britain and the Pakistan Army were active behind the scenes. But did anyone note that in the days […]

The “victory” celebration after the calling off of the Long March was still going on when a suicide-bomber struck at the Pirwadhai bus station in Rawalpindi, killing 14 people. The immediate speculation was that the suicide bomber was despatched to hit the Long March itself since it was to pass near where the terrorist finally […]

WASHINGTON: The United States not only used the threat of an aid cut to defuse a potentially explosive situation in Pakistan but also had doubts about the Zardari government’s ability to fight terrorism, US officials and lawmakers said on Tuesday. Senator Patrick J. Leahy, who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that funds US foreign aid […]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The promised reinstatement of Pakistan’s chief justice defused a protest movement threatening the U.S.-allied government, but it could still spell trouble for the country’s struggling president. The army is said to have directed President Asif Ali Zardari to defuse the developing showdown with opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and lawyers leading a column […]