WASHINGTON: Pakistan is on a rapid trajectory to failure as a stable, democratic state and needs a boost of $4 billion in US aid and loans each year to begin turning around, a private foreign affairs group has concluded. “Time is running out,” said the Atlantic Council, which urged more training and deployment of 15,000 […]
Recently, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani lauded the role Sufi Islam could play in keeping the society away from religious extremism. Lest we consider this a personal bias, since he represents the Sufi tradition himself, similar sentiments were expressed by others as well. One such example is the 2007 RAND Corporation paper, Building Moderate […]
The US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mr Richard Holbrooke, has told a meeting in Washington that the “militants involved in 9/11, the Mumbai attacks and unrest in Swat have common roots” and that “the US was troubled and confused about the development in the Swat valley”. Some other reports appearing in the press […]
PESHAWAR: A curfew was imposed in Dera Ismail Khan on Friday and the army called in to quell riots immediately after a suicide bomber killed at least 30 Shias and injured another 157 who were attending a funeral in southern Dera Ismail Khan district, police and locals told Daily Times. Witnesses said police ‘ran off’ […]
ISLAMABAD, Feb 19: Pakistan would make a formal request to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) next month for an additional loan of $4.5 billion, Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin said on Thursday. “I will visit the Washington offices of the IMF in March to make a formal request for more […]
ISLAMABAD: The government on Thursday dismissed as speculative the growing criticism of the accord signed with the Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat Muhammadi for introduction of Nizam-i-Adl in Malakand, warning speculations would not be helpful. ‘Establishing peace, security and stability are matters of highest priority for Pakistan government and it will use all necessary means to achieve these […]
WASHINGTON / ISLAMABAD, Jan 22: Hillary Clinton, on her first day as the secretary of state, telephoned President Asif Ali Zardari and told him that the Obama administration was appointing a special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. "It was a touch-base meeting," said a senior diplomat aware of the conversation. "She felt it's necessary to […]
FORCED face first into the dust and pinned down by three men in black hoods, a young offender faced the merciless force of Taliban justice in Pakistan last week as he was beaten 30 times with a hard rod fashioned from old car tyres. The punishment , for smoking cannabis , was inflicted in front […]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan , Pakistan fired its national security adviser amid tensions with India over the Mumbai attacks, a sign of strain on the weak civilian administration as it responds to growing pressure to track down and punish the alleged masterminds. Mahmood Ali Durrani, a former ambassador to the U.S. and seen by critics as too […]
WASHINGTON — The biggest foreign-policy challenge awaiting President-elect Barack Obama isn't Iraq or Afghanistan but Pakistan, President George W. Bush's national-security adviser said. In an interview previewing a valedictory speech he plans to give on Wednesday, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said Pakistan's increasingly turbulent border region poses threats not just to the U.S. mission […]
QUETTA, Pakistan: The gory practice of forcing alleged criminals to walk on burning coal to prove their innocence is frivolously disowned by many in Balochistan, yet it regularly draws hundreds of tribal spectators. The illegal phenomenon continues unchecked with increasing likelihood of the practice spreading to other parts of the country's least literate province. Charbeli, […]
LAHORE, Pakistan ‚ When Muhammad Saad Iqbal arrived home here in August after more than six years in American custody, including five at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, he had difficulty walking, his left ear was severely infected, and he was dependent on a cocktail of antibiotics and antidepressants. In November, a Pakistani […]
NEW DELHI ‚ Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India accused unspecified official agencies in Pakistan on Tuesday of supporting the gunmen who struck in Mumbai in late November. He was speaking one day after India handed Pakistan what it said was the first comprehensive evidence linking Pakistan to an alleged "conspiracy" hatched on Pakistani soil. […]
ISLAMABAD: The top US diplomat for South Asia will visit Pakistan this week amid simmering tensions between Islamabad and India in the wake of the deadly Mumbai attacks, Pakistan's foreign minister said Sunday. Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a press conference broadcast live from Multan that he would meet US Assistant Secretary of State for South […]
KARACHI: The government of Sindh has banned a controversial novel about Hazrat Aisha, calling it offensive. The novel 'the Jewel of Medina,’ written by Sherry Jones, is said to contain objectionable material which can "create a law and order situation in the country.' The department of interior in an order said all copies of the […]