India may open more land routes for trade with PakistanIndo-Pak Economic Conference in Lahore makes headway
Asha Rai | Times of India
LAHORE, May 8: India is willing to look at more land border transit points with Pakistan and opening new border crossings at places like Munnabao in Rajasthan is a possibility , Sharat Sabharwal, India’s high commissioner to Pakistan said on Monday. He was addressing the inaugural session of the 2nd Aman Ki Asha Indo-Pak Economic Conference . At present, Attari-Wagah …
US Marks Bin Laden’s Exit Anniversary with Fanfare‘Mother lode’ of Information Released from Abbotabad Home
David Ignatius - washingtonpost.com
Before his death, Osama bin Laden boldly commanded his network to organize special cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan to attack the aircraft of President Obama and Gen. David Petraeus. “The reason for concentrating on them is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make (Vice President Joe) Biden take over the presidency,” the al-Qaida leader …
British Humanitarian Aid Worker Found Beheaded in QuettaTehrik-i-Taliban Negotiated for Months for Ransom
Jon Boone in Islamabad and Shiv Malik
Islamabad, April 29: The beheaded corpse of a British aid worker has been discovered in the Pakistani city of Quetta, almost four months after he was kidnapped. The body of Khalil Rasjed Dale was left on a road outside the city, in southern Baluchistan province, with a note attached which said he had been killed because a ransom had not …
Where have Washington’s Pakistan Experts Gone?Michael Kugelman | 26th April, 2012 | dawn.com
Something is missing in Washington, and I’m not referring to bipartisanship. I’m talking about Pakistan expertise. Last year, Shuja Nawaz, head of The Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, lamented the exodus of Pakistan experts from Washington policy-making jobs. Yet this only represents the tip of the iceberg. Scan the speaker rosters of the city’s think-tank symposia, study the bylines of …
Probe Launched on Links between Pak Jail Break and Afghanistan AttacksAP
PESHAWAR, April 16: Authorities on Monday removed four senior officials over a jail break in the restive northwest and launched a probe into whether it had any link to multiple attacks in Afghanistan. The provincial government said a “total failure” of intelligence was to blame for the break-out, in which dozens of inmates including Taliban militants and death row prisoners …
Zardari Yatra Eggs on Indo-Pak Peace ProcessEditorial - The Express Tribune
One of the more unheralded achievements of the PPP government has been the way it has repaired relations from the nadir of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, when war seemed a very realistic possibility. Rather than try to be overly ambitious, the government has cautiously taken small steps towards lasting peace, with trade and regular high-level meetings inching the process forward. …
Pakistan Third Largest Arms Importer in Asia – SIPRIAFP
STOCKHOLM, March 19: Asia tops other regions when it comes to weapon imports, according to a study released Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Over the past five years, Asia and Oceania accounted for 44 percent in volume of conventional arm imports, the institute said. That compared with 19 percent for Europe, 17 percent for the Middle …
Karzai Calls on U.S. to Pull Back as Taliban Cancel TalksBy Rod Nordland and Matthew Rosenberg – nytimes.com
KABUL, Afghanistan, March 15 — Prospects for an orderly withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan suffered two blows on Thursday as President Hamid Karzai demanded that the United States confine troops to major bases by next year, and the Taliban announced that they were suspending peace talks with the Americans. Getting talks started with the Taliban has been a major …
International Crisis Group Weighs in on BalochistanFarrukh Saleem – thenews.com
India hasn’t done it; neither has America nor Israel. I am behind the crisis; I created it and I am responsible as well as answerable. Yes, India and America, both opportunists par excellence, are now taking advantage of our weaknesses but no one can break Balochistan away from me but me. Baloch demands have always been political in nature-political empowerment …
Cultural Ignorance behind the Koran Burning in AfghanistanBy the ATDT Author
The Koran burning incident, which has raged in Afghanistan since the last couple of weeks, is symptomatic of the mutual misunderstanding with which the US and regional players have bumbled on for the last 10 1/2 years – with no clear goal in sight. If the US goal in Afghanistan was to train the security forces to handle their own …
When is Journalism Really Independent?By Issam Ahmed - The Christian Science Monitor
Islamabad, Pakistan: Two Pakistani journalists filing reports home from Washington are quietly drawing their salaries from US State Department funding through a nonprofit intermediary, highlighting the sophisticated nature of America’s efforts to shape its image abroad. Neither of the two media organizations, Express News and Dunya News, discloses that their reporters are paid by the nonprofit America Abroad Media (AAM) …
Taliban linked Jundallah Owns Sectarian Killings in Pakistan’s NorthBBC.Com
Gunmen have killed at least 18 Shia Muslim bus passengers in a sectarian attack in the northern Pakistani district of Kohistan, officials say. The attackers are reported to have checked the identity cards of all the passengers before removing the Shias and shooting them. About 27 other passengers on the bus were spared. Meanwhile, a Chinese woman was shot dead …
Redrawing the Regional Boundaries of Afghanistan?Baloch Resolution Sponsor, US Congressman Rohrbacher Meets Afghan Opposition
Thomas Ruttig - Jan 19
When former Northern Alliance leaders met with a group of influential US congressmen and businessmen in Berlin in early January, the meeting made a lot of waves in Kabul, because it created the impression that a broad anti-Karzai alliance was in the making and that it had started to muster support in the US. Furthermore, the meeting’s participants released a …
`When Alliances Between States End, Another History Begins’By Humayun Gauhar - Pakistan Today
With the US-Pakistan relationship in turmoil, and hopefully resetting itself to a healthier, more equitable and less dependent one, our usual conventional lack of wisdom has it that America has painted itself into a corner by making us no longer dependent on it while remaining dependent on us to get it out of Afghanistan. It’s never quite that simple. No …
Making the Case for Baloch AutonomyBy Haider Nizamani, Feb 23
The Express Tribune
In an op-ed titled “Be strong, not hard”, published in these pages on February 21, Ejaz Haider problematises conflict in Balochistan and offers suggestions to Islamabad on how to tackle the crisis in the troubled province. The premise of his argument is on the assumption that all states are alike when it comes to dealing with people wanting to secede …
Harvard and Islamabad Classrooms to Connect through Video CoursePublic Announcement
HARVARD UNIVERSITY SUMMER SCHOOL’S SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN PAKISTAN South Asian Studies SAST S-140 (4 credits undergraduate or graduate) Cross-listed in Anthropology and Government This is the only ‘live’ video con course linking U.S. and Pakistan-based participants with Pakistani leaders and change-makers Admission is open to traditional and non-traditional students (adult learners) Sessions are on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from June …
Taliban Rules Return for Afghan WomenWomen TV Presenters become the Canaries in the Mines
AFP
KABUL: Afghanistan has instructed women TV presenters to stop appearing without a headscarf and to wear less make-up, officials said, raising fears about creeping restrictions on the fledgling media. “All the TV networks are in seriousness asked to stop women presenters from appearing on TV without a veil and with dense make-up,” the information and culture ministry said. “All women …
US Congressional Reps Briefed on Balochistan Rights Violationsdailytimes.com
Washington DC, Feb 8: The United States Committee on Foreign Affairs convened a congressional meeting on Thursday for an exclusive discussion on the gravity of situation in Balochistan. The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired by Republican Dana Rohrabacher, held a session to discuss target killings and human rights situation in Balochistan, and termed …
Violence Puts Brake on Foreign Investment in 2011 – State Bank of Pakistan
KARACHI, Jan. 17: Pakistan received $386.6 million in foreign direct and portfolio investment in the last six months of 2011, a fall of 64 percent from one year earlier, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Tuesday. In the July-December 2010 period, investment totalled $1.06 billion, a statement from State Bank of Pakistan said. During 2011, violence in Pakistan’s …
Swat Operation – Back to the FutureBy the Author (Excerpt from ATDT Pgs 208-211)
By the time Zardari took over as president, the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariati- Mohammedi (TNSM) had established a parallel Taliban state in parts of Malakand division where it ostensibly practiced Nizam-i-Adl (Order of Justice: essentially Sharia law). Awami National Party’s Senator Afrasiab Khattak told me that his new government was taken aback to find it had inherited an ill-trained, ill-equipped police force that …