The flood in Pakistan promises to soon make a dire situation intractably tragic. Aid money promised by international donors is trickling into the ground, and more often than not, isn’t reaching the neediest of the millions of victims of this two-week long catastrophe, People are fighting and looting over food and the cramped conditions in […]
The next wave of casualties stemming for the recent flood in Pakistan will sweep along the public health disaster waiting just beyond this hour, today. The 20 million affected by the massive, surging, nearly country-wide flood are now optioning across a ready-made menu of likely epidemics. At least one individual has been diagnosed a victim […]
Its been 2 weeks since the floods began and only today, after his lukewarm and somewhat unnecessary European tour, President Asif Ali Zardari came to see the devastation in person. T.V. footage wasn’t quite immediate enough, you see. And though he came to visit, and the state run stations ran the footage, curiously the footage […]
I wish that people in Pakistan would wake up and realized that hating Zardari is not going to do any good. What needs to be done is that people from all across Pakistan come together, realistically and honestly look at the problems that the country is facing and trying to find the best answer or […]
The humanitarian needs of the victims of the floods are urgent and immediately obvious. Clean drinking water, food, shelter, clothing, and medicine to help maintain the dignity and capabilities of the tens of millions of people affected by the raging floods in the Khyber-Pahktankhwa Province. Unfortunately dense fog and a running forecast of heavier rain has stymied […]
Its hard to imagine the stake-holder that he had in mind when President Asif Ali Zardari had his chat with a reporter for Le Monde. He is on record to have claimed: “The international community, to which Pakistan belongs, is losing the war against the Taliban. “This is above all because we have lost the […]
The recent floods in Khyber Pakhtankhwa Province, triggered by unusually heavy monsoon rains, has killed at least 1,100 while another estimated 27,000 are still stranded in their homes, already washed away, wiped away from every map but that of one’s mind. The casualties in Peshawar and the surrounding areas will surely mount in the days […]
Zainab Jeewanjee highlights Ambassador Haqqani’s response to the Wikileaks Reports on Charlie Rose. Jeewanjee draws on Hussain Haqqani’s insights to elaborate on his notion that history is to be taken into account, in tandem with ground realities before sensationalizing the Wikileaks story to implicate Pakistan for “not doing enough”.
Pakistani Ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani spoke to Charlie Rose yesterday. It was a very interesting talk and well worth watching. As you watch the piece, please note a few points that could use a bit of explication and clarification between the various counterparts in U.S-Pakistani bilateral relations. First, Ambassador Haqqani, a most collegial and […]
A pen and ink and suminagashi print of the 2007 arrest of the retired general and former Director of Pakistan’s spy agency, Hamid Gul. Lt. Gen Gul is thought to have managed ISI’s coordination with the Afghan Taliban in order to develop strategic depth in Afghanistan to counter any Indian intervention in that country.
Zainab Jeewanjee discusses the intricacies of implicating Pakistan in the Wikileaks report. She elaborates on the history, motivations and interests of Pakistan and finds that negotiating with extremist groups is perhaps an inevitable reality that policy makers must take into account before implicating that the government in Islamabad aids insurgents.
Whatever the provenance of the documentary evidence, whatever the moral argument for the WikiLeaks revelation, Pakistan and its military establishment is now squarely in the U.S. leadership’s cross-wires. The secret is out, and the vast weight of the proof accumulated over 6 years, tens of thousands of pieces of intelligence, is flat out undeniable and […]
In today’s New York Times reportage by Mark Mazzetti, Jane Perlez, Eric Schmitt and Andrew W. Lehren has come crashing down on Pakistan. Though broadly speaking the news is nothing new to anyone with an ear for politics in the region, the reportage offers documentary proof of ISI complicity with the Afghan Taliban. It is […]
Sabrina Tavernise’s new piece for the New York Times is a must read for anyone interested in Pakistan. Here’s the real take away, come what may: “Out of more than 170 million Pakistanis, fewer than 2 percent pay income tax, making Pakistan’s revenue from taxes among the lowest in the world, a notch below Sierra […]
