ISLAMABAD, Oct 26: US attacks in tribal areas are harming the government's efforts to isolate extremists and mobilise people against militancy, according to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. Addressing a press conference after returning from Beijing on Sunday, the prime minister criticised the Inspector-General of the Frontier Corps for saying that the military operation in […]
PESHAWAR: Analysts and intellectuals believe that dialogue is the only way to stem militancy in the Tribal Areas, provided those responsible for the unrest surrender and guarantee they will not challenge the writ of the government. They also believe that the return of peace depends on the sincerity of both sides , the Taliban as […]
ISLAMABAD, Oct 27 – Political and ethnic Pashtun tribal leaders from Afghanistan and Pakistan began a two-day meeting on Monday to find ways to end surging militant violence including the possibility of opening talks with the Taliban. The meeting, dubbed a Pakistan-Afghanistan "Jirgagai", or mini-jirga, is a follow-up to a grand assembly in Kabul last […]
Ever since the Soviet Union's collapse, the region of Central Asia, flush with newly minted states, has struggled to come up with a regional water arrangement to suit all those involved. In recent weeks, the region's governmental leaders have been working on a short-term water sharing deal, and it now appears their work has come […]
WASHINGTON ‚ The White House has backed away from using American commandos for further ground raids into Pakistan after furious complaints from its government, relying instead on an intensifying campaign of airstrikes by the Central Intelligence Agency against militants in the Pakistani mountains. According to American and Pakistani officials, attacks by remotely piloted Predator aircraft […]
This weekend, the liberal think tank INDEM issued a new warning that the country was headed towards a ‘developmental dictatorship’. But Russia wasn't in the mood: it was mourning Muslim Magomayev. Magomayev was the original Soviet mega-star. Throughout the 1970s, he routinely filled stadiums and garnered scores of hysterical groupies, not an easy feat […]
Beqaa valley is renowned world wide. Not for touristic purposes mind you. Its for drugs and weapons smuggling. Months ago the government said that a large part of the poppy cultures were destroyed. A trip to the Beqaa will prove otherwise. I did not read any statistics on the country's drug issue, but talking with […]
ISLAMABAD: Thirty-two percent of Pakistanis say they have cut down on food because of rising prices, a research group said on Friday. Soaring food prices and shortages of staples mean about 77 million of Pakistan's 160 million people are food insecure, a 28 percent increase over last year, according to United Nations World Food Programme […]
(of which I am one), the LA Times has a backgrounder. Livni has a two week extension on her coalition-building deadline, so we’ll need to continue following the coalition negotiations until Nov. 3.
Mohammad Raheem embraces his daughter after a spate of violence outside their Baghdad home, courtesy of the NYT's Baghdad Bureau.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan ‚ Two tribal elders lay stretched out in an orthopedic ward here last week, their plastered limbs and winces of pain grim evidence of the slaughter they survived when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the midst of their tribal gathering. These wounded men, and many others in the hospital, were supposed […]
Umer Chapra, Saudi economist and winner of the King Faisal International Prize for Islamic Studies, is quoted in the Arab News as saying that adopting the parameters of Islamic finance would protect the financial system from crises the nature of the current one in the future. Dr. Chapra was raised in Pakistan and received his […]
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