Turning a new page By Ayesha Siddiqa dawn.com Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Quershi addressing the US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue in Washington. –Photo by APP That Pakistan needs an alternative vision and leadership is beyond doubt. Any forward movement will depend on our national ability to recreate ourselves in our own eyes before we can have an impact on how people think about us or what they are willing to offer. Such were my thoughts as I stood in the company of some 300 Pakistani expatriates at the US State Department. We were all there at a reception during the US-Pakistan strategic … Continue reading USPak – Turning a new page

The plot thickens Posted by Shyema Just when it seemed finally we may be getting somewhere, Nawaz Sharif decided nope, not yet – this saga needs another twist. And what great timing he had! With this plot in mind, just before the constitutional amendment bill was supposed to be signed, the PML-N chief backtracked on the party’s stance on the judge’s appointment issue and renaming of the NWFP. Where President Zardari can easily be criticised and constantly labeled as corrupt, here he would have come out the president under whom accomplishments such as an NFC award and Gilgit-Baltistan autonomy took … Continue reading Selfish and incompetent leaders will keep themselves busy in non issues.

Washington dialogue Dawn Editorial US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shares a laugh with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi after their meeting at the State Department in Washington, March 24, 2010. — Reuters Front Page Pakistan now a strategic priority: Clinton Years of mutual mistrust cannot be overcome overnight. The ever-wavering relationship between Islamabad and Washington has been so riddled with inconsistency that official proclamations of being on the same page don’t always fly. But there are now signs that the trust deficit may be narrowing. It was becoming apparent even in the build-up to the recently concluded ‘strategic dialogue’ … Continue reading USPak – Washington dialogue

Show me the money! By Irfan Husain dawn.com From the American perspective, it must be galling to see so much anti-American sentiment in a country in which they have sunk so much money over the years. –Photo by AP If you think about it, much of the money that has built small pockets of affluence across Pakistan has its origins overseas. Ranging from heroin to exported workers, and from cash skimmed off arms deals to diverted aid, many fortunes in Pakistan rest on illegal foundations. This is why the Pakistani ruling elites are forever on the prowl for new cash … Continue reading Pakistani ruling elites are forever on the prowl for new cash cows abroad!

One jab in Punjab —Salman Tarik Kureshi It is clear that there is such a thing as the Punjabi Taliban. One can no longer refer to the Taliban as a uniquely Pakhtun phenomenon. Punjabi militants are running training facilities and have established cells across the province to conduct their murderous operations This city by the sea, with its ethnically complex population and relatively cosmopolitan attitudes, presents an excellent vantage point for regarding the rest of the country. Nestled here, between the Baloch foothills and the empty mouths of the severely depleted Indus, up which the bitter seawater tides now wash … Continue reading Punjabi Taliban Mullahs

By Syed Fazl-e-Haider KARACHI – In 2008, after several years of negotiations, nuclear-armed India and the United States signed a civilian nuclear deal that in essence allowed India access to civilian nuclear technology and fuel from other countries even though it is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Pakistan, which like its neighbor India has a nuclear arsenal and is not a signatory to the NPT, has long been rankled by India’s deal, wanting one of its own with the US. This topic featured high on the agenda of a top-level Pakistani delegation that held talks inWashington this … Continue reading US dangles Pakistan a carrot

By Syed Saleem Shahzad KARACHI – After an often stormy relationship with the United States over the past 63 years since its independence, Pakistan is in the process of forging an all-embracing strategic relationship with Washington. A delegation led by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi is in Washington for meetings at the State Department with a team led by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to discuss matters ranging from the situation in Afghanistan to a civil nuclear deal to commerce and agriculture. The American military command also specially invited a military contingent, including army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani … Continue reading War and peace: A Taliban view

By Abeer Mohammed BAGHDAD – The movement led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is poised to make a dramatic return to the forefront of Iraq’s Shi’ite politics, combining its success in recent elections with the anticipated elevation of its leader’s religious status. The Sadrists are the main faction in the Iraqi National Alliance, which is projected to have won 68 seats in the new parliament. The bloc was the main challenger for the Shi’ite vote against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has been regarded with suspicion by the Sadrists since the Iraqi military led a crackdown on their militia in … Continue reading Muqtada’s star on the rise again

By Stephen Wong SHANGHAI – The story of Chinese speed skater Zhou Yang is that of Cinderella turning into a princess. After winning two gold medals at the Vancouver Winter Olympics last month, 18-year-old Zhou, from a poor street-vendor family in northeast China, received things she might have never dreamed of. She was awarded 3 million yuan (US$439,397), a 94-square-meter apartment in her home town, a car and a scholarship worth as much as 9,000 yuan per year from a university that also promised to award her an additional lump sum of 50,000 yuan. Before Zhou won the medals, she … Continue reading Star skates between mom and motherland

The Beijing Consensus by Stefan Halper Reviewed by Paul Wiseman The Beijing Consensus isn’t the book Stefan Halper set out to write. He intended to argue that China’s rising consumer class was challenging the Communist Party and nudging the country toward democracy, an argument that might have reassured Western readers. Alas, he writes, “The original argument didn’t survive the first draft.” What the Cambridge University political scientist ended up writing isn’t reassuring at all. The harder Halper looked at China, the more he became convinced that its ruling party would endure. And more: that China was emerging as a threat to … Continue reading Bad bet against China’s leaders