Ayaz Wazir The war in Afghanistan started with President Clinton striking Khost with Cruise missiles in 1998 culminated with President Bush’s invasion of that country in October 2001. The eight years of insurgency that followed speak more of death and destruction than of help to the Afghans or development of their country. The US seems to have learnt its lesson the hard way that war alone cannot solve the problem, after suffering heavy losses both in men and material. That coupled with the colossal expenditure on conducting the war when even the US economy is faltering seem to be the … Continue reading Dialogue with Afghan Taliban

Zafar Hilaly There is no institution better than the army for PowerPoint presentations. The slides and captions say it all. There is hardly any need for the accompanying commentary. Very often all that the presenter does is to read the captions on the screen and because he reads far slower aloud than the audience does silently, sitting through a session can become tiresome. After a while, as the presenter drones on, doggedly reading aloud one caption after another, one wonders whether he believes that his audience comprises functional illiterates. In contrast, Gen Kayani uses what is on the screen to … Continue reading For real strategic depth

Tayyab Siddiqui Once again, the US has brought India and Pakistan to the negotiating table. The “irreversible” peace process was stalled by India, following the December 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh categorically and repeatedly stated that India would be ready for a bilateral dialogue only if “Pakistan brings the terrorists to book, destroys their camps and eliminates their infrastructure.” This stance was repeated in varying tones by other Indian ministers. Pakistan kept urging that terrorism should not be linked with dialogue which must be resumed in mutual interest of both countries. The two summit meetings between … Continue reading Dialogue with India

Farrukh Khan Pitafi Whenever a political group relies too much on the media for any policy decision, it often ignores the inherent flaw in the plan, that of mortal weaknesses and the interests of businesses owning any particular media outlet The research methodology of the Pakistani political elite remains woefully flawed. Consequently every research effort yields queer dividends in the shape of further exacerbated crises. It takes no rocket scientist to study and follow the examples of established democracies where opposition parties form shadow governments and take up the tedious task of oversight and preparing for the day when they … Continue reading Back to the basics ?

Anderson Cooper Small waves, one after the other, lap the shore. Two Sri Lankan villagers walk along the water’s edge, searching for bodies washed up by the tide. They come every morning, leave without answers. Some days they find nothing. Today there is a torn shoe and a piece of broken fence. I am standing in a pile of rubble. Beneath me the ground seems to move, twisting and turning in on itself. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. The ground is not moving at all. There are maggots, thousands of them. Writhing, squirming, they feast on … Continue reading Washed away!

Miranda Husain We must recognise that here, in Pakistan, patriarchy is not always the sole subjugator of women. At times, those very non-governmental organisations that profess to promote the safeguarding of women’s human rights are party to their servitude Pakistani parliamentarians have shown us once again just how quick off the mark they are when it comes to introducing legal frameworks to safeguard women’s human rights. A mere seven years after the Punjab Assembly unanimously passed a resolution to bring acid crimes under the legal purview of attempted murder, we have the Acid Control and Acid Prevention Bill 2010 under … Continue reading Supporting the anti-acid bill, not NGOs or Mullahs

Syed Talat Hussain Issuing notifications contrary to the chief justice’s advice was always going to be a strategic disaster, dwarfing Kargil’s heights of folly. And that was exactly how it unfolded (Till the writing of these lines the government had not withdrawn the contested notifications for the appointment of Justice Saqib Nisar as Acting Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court and Justice Khwaja Sharif as a judge of the Supreme Court. The article assumes that the government would have remedied the situation before the Supreme Court starts its proceedings on the case today.) Three pictures in Tuesday’s newspapers were … Continue reading A worrying contrast

dawn Three suspects in the killing of Hamas militant, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh are shown in this CCTV handout from Dubai police, February 15, 2010. — Reuters World Most Hamas police applicants only want jobs Most Hamas police applicants only want jobs JERUSALEM: The quiet assassination of a Hamas commander gets unexpectedly messy. Exposed and forced to atone before furious allies, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders the spymaster responsible to fall on his sword. That was in 1997, when the Mossad director resigned after his men botched the poisoning of Khaled Meshaal in Jordan. Now premier a second time, Netanyahu faces … Continue reading After Dubai, Israelis question Mossad methods

By Amir Wasim dawn “Both the PPP and the PML-N should resist the temptation to again use the bureaucracy for short-term political ends, which undermined its functioning,” the report suggests.—File photo Front Page ADB finds rental power deals faulty ADB finds rental power deals faulty ISLAMABAD: The eight-year military rule of Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf left behind a “demoralised and inefficient bureaucracy” that was used to ensure regime survival and “if deteriorating civil service is not urgently repaired, public disillusionment and resentment can be used by the military to justify another spell of authoritarian rule” in Pakistan, says a report … Continue reading “Corruption in Pakistan ‘will’ invite another coup”