A challenge facing Khan is that, for many Pakistanis, the optimism that accompanied his initial rise has yielded to wariness, if not outright cynicism. His critics see him as an opportunist who is poised for power now because he has accepted back-door support from the country’s powerful Army. Read Here – The New Yorker
Prime Minister Imran Khan it is. Some of it, we already know what it means. A lot of it, no one can really know. A door has been opened, but opened to what? Few would be willing to bet about much right now. Read Here – Dawn
Pakistan’s upcoming general elections on July 25 may be the most tense and fraught in the country’s brief period of democracy, and there are lingering doubts about whether they will even be held on time. In Pakistan, the political establishment appears to be following the example of Turkey and Egypt, where those in power clamped down on the […]
Pakistan’s general election is set for July 25, and the battle lines are clear. Three parties are contending for the national leadership—the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan’s People’s Party (PPP), and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)—and all three have big issues to confront: the problem of deep ethnic divisions, the implications of Chinese-backed economic growth, […]
Pakistan today suffers from a crisis of governance. The radical right is ascendant. Institutional decay is advanced; the state’s writ is eroded. We soon go to the polls in a divisive, belligerent and to a great extent despondent environment. It is time for serious reflection and introspection. Read Here – Dawn Also Read: Who wants to […]
And then there were two: Imran and the Sanjrani-type option. Shahbaz has fizzled, Zardari is embattled and Nawaz — well, what would you do if you were Nawaz? Return Nawaz has promised to do, but his words aren’t very convincing. Because return to what? It was already apparent that he wasn’t interested in fighting a bruising […]
Disqualified from holding public office, disqualified from holding party office and now, sentenced to 10 years in jail by an accountability court — it has been a year of massive political and personal setbacks for Nawaz Sharif. The legal dimensions of the accountability court judgement will be pored over by independent analysts and can be assessed at […]
After watching the G7 train wreck aghast, senior officials at NATO headquarters are quaking in their boots at the prospect of hosting a summit of the Western defense alliance featuring a raging Donald Trump in Brussels. Far from showcasing transatlantic unity and resolve, they fear the 24-hour gathering of leaders of the 29-nation alliance, scheduled for about […]
For years, most experts believed that China’s military challenge to the U.S. was regional in nature — that it was confined to the Western Pacific. After decades of tacitly free-riding on America’s global power-projection capabilities, however, Beijing now is seeking the capabilities that will allow it to project its own military power well outside its […]
The tribal areas of Pakistan have been much in the news in the past decade and a half, following the US military intervention in Afghanistan after the 9/11 terror attacks. They were the “headquarters of terror”, with some of the most dreaded terror groups such as the Pakistan and Afghanistan Taliban, the al-Qaeda and the […]
looking beyond borders 