The internet giant is exploring ways to avoid being complicit in human rights abuses but global solutions are needed here Salil Tripathi guardian.co.uk In his blog yesterday, David Drummond, corporate development and chief legal officer at Google, introduced a tool that names the countries where governments and their agencies have requested Google to remove content or data from its servers. The tool is still in its early stages, and Drummond has clarified that the statistics aren’t definitive and don’t provide an accurate picture: a single request may include multiple sites, or contain information about several users. He also notes that … Continue reading Google’s push for online liberty

VIEW: Of apologies —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad There is a need for close cooperation not just between the different intelligence agencies and the security forces but, most importantly, between the locals and the agencies. For there is no substitute for local knowledge and information gathering The army chief has rendered an apology. The apology was made for the loss of 70 lives of Kuki Khel tribe of Tirah Valley in Khyber Agency. The people of the tribe were understandably upset when 70 innocent lives were lost when the Pakistan Air Force fighter planes, on the directives of the Pakistan Army, hit … Continue reading Blackwater and The Taliban

Dawn Editorial Supporters of Jamaat-i-Islami offer prayers for their fellow supporters, killed in a bomb blast, during a funeral ceremony in Peshawar on April 20, 2010. – File Photo. World Three Kashmiris sentenced to death for India bomb Three Kashmiris sentenced to death for India bomb Monday’s suicide bombing in Peshawar’s Qissa Khwani bazaar was an outrageous suicide attack that left some two dozen people dead and many more injured. The victims were mostly Jamaat-i-Islami supporters attending a rally. It is still not certain whether the target was the JI rally or a police contingent guarding it. Nevertheless, what is … Continue reading Soft on militancy?

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The killing of three senior militants in Iraq is a victory of sorts, but eliminating leaders does not eliminate terrorism Jason Burke guardian.co.uk Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki displays photos of the dead al-Qaida chiefs Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri at a press conference. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images The three recent killings of senior militants in Iraq is, of course, good news. The significance of the coercive or military component of any counterinsurgency or counterterrorism strategy is often underestimated. The enhanced rhythm of the special forces raids and the intelligence-gathering operations that General Stanley McChrystal enforced, when he led the … Continue reading Al-Qaida Iraq and counterinsurgency strategy

dawn.com Pedestrians pass an election bus showing Britain’s Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg (R) and finance spokesman Vince Cable outside the party headquarters in London. Polls show the centrist Lib Dems overtaking ruling Labour, in power for 13 years, in terms of popular support and only a few points behind the main opposition Conservatives. –Reuters Photo Last week, I had written off the Liberal Democrats as rank 250-1 outsiders in UK’s general election scheduled for 6 May. How wrong I was. But I was in good company: hundreds of pundits in Britain and around the world had predicted this was … Continue reading A week in politics can be a lifetime

By Rafia Zakaria The fixation on Bin Laden’s capture has in fact become the cornerstone of US counter-terrorism strategy. –Photo by AP Since the emergence of Osama bin Laden as the terrorist leader-in-chief of the 9/11 attacks, a significant chunk of the US military effort in the subsequent war on terror has been devoted to his capture. Over the past decade, every leader in the US, from presidents to army chiefs to heads of intelligence have vowed to capture him. The fixation on Bin Laden’s capture has in fact become the cornerstone of US counter-terrorism strategy. Whether it is Predator … Continue reading The Osama myth

Army officials along with journalists take a tour in South Waziristan. – APP (File Photo) dawn.com KHAR: I had not expected Pakistan’s tribal areas to be so neat and so prosperous. These are meant to be the badlands, mythologised as no-go areas by Kiplingesque images of xenophobic Pashtuns, jezail musket in hand, defying British troops from rugged clifftops. They are the “ungovernable” lands where al Qaeda took sanctuary after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan; the bastion of Islamist militants said to threaten the entire world. Yet to fly by helicopter for the first time into Bajaur tribal agency is to … Continue reading Breaking the myths of Pakistan’s tribal areas