The tenuous nature of Pakistan’s democratic transition was put on display this Monday when the country’s army chief and Supreme Court chief justice appeared to warn one another to not transgress their constitutionally-defined roles. Pakistan’s Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani decried what he claimed were attempts to create divisions between the Pakistani military and its […]
World over, efforts are afoot to ensure that 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai’s blood counts for something. Hollywood actor Angelina Jolie suggested her name for the next Nobel Peace Prize and an online campaign to advocate her case is being signed up by government representatives in various countries. Former British Premier and United Nations Special Envoy for […]
It is hard to believe now that the founding dream of Pakistan, born out of the partition of British India in 1947, was a secular one. The founder of this oddest of nations, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was a Bombay barrister who was a firm believer in British law and Indian nationalism. He had married his second wife outside the […]
It’s not every day that Barack Obama and Ban Ki-moon agree with the head of the Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami or an America-bashing Pakistani politician. But Tuesday’s Taliban attack on 14-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan’s Swat Valley attracted universal condemnation cutting across countries and cultures. Read Here – WSJ Opinion
Until recently, Beijing’s policy in Afghanistan could be characterized as masterful inactivity: It sat on the sidelines of a war that it wanted neither side to win. But the late September visit by security chief Zhou Yongkang, the first by a senior Chinese leader in almost five decades, is the most visible sign that the U.S. 2014 […]
Mohammadi Younus grew up in Ghazni Province, in the east of Afghanistan, and studied medicine in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. He had “a problem with the Taliban… a political problem” during the dark days of their rule, and he landed in jail. He decided to leave the country and crossed into Iran. Read Here […]
BARBARIC and bumbling, leaping over boulders in sockless high top sneakers, their faces hidden behind black cloth, the Taliban of yesteryear seemed a scruffy lot with sinister intentions. When Pakistanis first heard of them, long before Sept 11, 2001 and long before they showed up in Swat or recruited allies in Sialkot, they appeared incapable of orchestrating anything […]
We should welcome the news that the Taliban are reportedly open to the idea of negotiating a general ceasefire and even a peace settlement. The peace process in Afghanistan is at risk from spoilers on all sides and fraught with challenges. But we owe it to the Afghan people, and to all those who have suffered […]
If there is a road to a happy ending in Afghanistan, much of the path may run underground: in the trillion-dollar reservoir of natural resources — oil, gold, iron ore, copper, lithium and other minerals — that has brought hopes of a more self-sufficient country, if only the wealth can be wrested from blood-soaked soil. Read Here – […]
looking beyond borders 