ISLAMABAD: An unusual parliamentary debate designed to forge a Pakistani policy on how to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda has exposed deep ambivalence about the militants, even as their reach extends to suicide attacks in the capital. Calls for dialogue with the Taliban, peppered with opposition to fighting what is perceived as an American […]
WASHINGTON: Al Qaeda, which has mutated over the years, is now a loose network without a hierarchy, made up of groups that are global, fluid and unpredictable, former federal minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao told the US Institute of Peace on Friday. He said Al Qaeda's appeal is "inspirational" and it does not operate an […]
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will conclude negotiations on the Economic Stabilisation Programme this week in Abu Dhabi, a senior official in the Finance Ministry told Daily Times on Sunday. The official said negotiations on the micro-economic programme would enable Pakistan to seek lending from the IMF without further negotiations if Pakistan […]
IN the sixty-second year of independence the political dilemma facing the people of Pakistan is the same as it was in the first year ‚ in whom the executive authority of the state vests and who actually exercises it? It became an issue serious enough in the lifetime of Mr Jinnah to have persuaded him […]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan ‚ President Asif Ali Zardari returned from China late Friday without a commitment for cash needed to shore up Pakistan's crumbling economy, leaving him with the politically unpopular prospect of having to ask the International Monetary Fund for help. Pakistan was seeking the aid from China, an important ally, as it faces the […]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suicide bomber on Thursday attacked a police station in northwest Pakistan, killing four security officers — the latest in a series of blasts that are eroding confidence in the country. The attacker struck in the mountain valley of Swat, one of several regions where government forces have been struggling to defeat […]
WASHINGTON ‚ A growing al Qaida -backed insurgency, combined with the Pakistani army's reluctance to launch an all-out crackdown, political infighting and energy and food shortages are plunging America's key ally in the war on terror deeper into turmoil and violence, says a soon-to-be completed U.S. intelligence assessment. A U.S. official who participated in drafting […]
Pakistani intelligence agents re-arrested an American detained in the country's volatile border region and were questioning the man, police said Wednesday. The man ‚ identified by Pakistani police as Juddi Kenan ‚ was carrying a laptop computer when he was arrested Monday at a checkpoint in the northwestern district of Mohmand, near where Pakistani security […]
The threats started about a year ago, telling Haroon Bacha to stop singing or else. "There were letters, there were phone calls, there were text messages," Mr. Bacha said, sitting upright on a floor in Brooklyn, surrounded by smoke from Pakistani cigarettes. "They used to come very frequently back home, just telling me to stop […]
Here's an alarming thought: Pakistan is in even scarier shape than most of the so-called experts are willing to admit. This nuclear-armed state of 168 million is no stranger to political upheaval, of course. But this time, things are different. Today's ongoing crisis — marked by a rash of suicide bombings, the assassination of former […]
A joint session of parliament in Islamabad has heard, in camera, the newly-appointed ISI Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha ‚ who was Director General Military Operations (DGMO) before he got the job ‚ on the terrorist threat facing Pakistan and the army's operations to thwart the terrorists. The briefing has made it clear […]
For the second time in less than a month, China cut interest rates today, supporting efforts to strengthen domestic economic growth. The 0.27 percentage point cut brought the rate for one-year bank loans to 6.93 per cent and followed a reduction of the same size announced in mid-September. China's consumer price inflation has fallenfrom a […]
Pakistan's new spy chief briefed lawmakers Wednesday in an unusual private session focused on the fledgling government's fight against Taliban and al-Qaida militants entrenched in the tribal belt along the Afghan border. The government called the special session of parliament as it sought political unity to stabilize this key U.S. ally in the war on […]
Forty years ago, the United States began to mount raids into Cambodia and to undermine the government of King Sihanouk in order to cut Vietcong supply lines. As a result, America's war with Vietnamese Communism spread into Cambodia, leading to the triumph of the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide. But these horrors occurred after […]
Pakistan ordered the deportation of about 50,000 Afghan refugees in an insurgency-wracked tribal region amid a major military offensive against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. The government said it was expelling all Afghan refugees in the Bajur tribal region, alleging many of them have links to militant groups. Police in the town of Khar in Bajur […]
