Dr Maleeha Lodhi The writer is a former envoy to the US and the UK, and a former editor of The News There were few surprises at the London conference on Afghanistan, except perhaps Iran’s decision to stay away on the grounds that the meeting’s main purpose was to back the American troop surge. Co-sponsored by Britain, Afghanistan and the UN, the conference aimed to launch a political track to accompany the military strategy announced last month by President Barack Obama. This was the sixth international conference since the military intervention of 2001 and took place against the backdrop of … Continue reading Balancing the surge and the talks

Daniyal Khan The death of 12-year-old Shazia has been widely condemned in the media as an example of the harsh treatment to which domestic servants are so often subjected in Pakistan. As part of the low-income class, household servants cannot do anything about their maltreatment by their employers. As economic historian Robert Heilbroner noted, power follows money in modern society, and thus servants, with their meagre incomes, find themselves at the receiving end in the form of violence by their employers. The fact that this ill-treatment is an abomination is hardly debatable, but there is a phenomenon at play which … Continue reading What we owe to our daughters

The military has confirmed that it is investigating reports that Hakimullah Mehsud has died in Orakzai as a consequence of wounds inflicted during a recent drone strike. Determining the truth behind these rumours is hard given the inaccessibility of the areas hit by conflict. But what can safely be said is that evidence is emerging that the Taliban are more split than before. It is said that even when Hakimullah was alive, there was no longer any single locus of power; that the Afghan Taliban had in some cases stepped in to patch over rifts. The death, or incapacitation, of … Continue reading Dead Mullah – no second coming?

Rahimullah Yusufzai As parties to the conflict in Afghanistan plot their next move following the international conference in London, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have come under focus as the two countries best placed to bring the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table. However, there is a crucial difference in the roles that Afghanistan and the US and its allies want to assign to Islamabad and Riyadh. While Saudi Arabia has been requested to mediate between the government of President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban, Pakistan among other neighbours of Afghanistan was asked to back the Afghan peace process. Islamabad was … Continue reading Courting the adorable shy Mullahs

POSTED BY LUV PURI  In May 1998, surprise nuclear tests by India and Pakistan transformed regional strategic calculations and added a dangerous new dimension to tensions between the two long-time rivals. According to Taylor Branch, writing in The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, Indian officials who spoke with then US President Bill Clinton were fully aware of the potential devastation a clash between the two nations could lead to, calculating that a doomsday nuclear volley would kill 300 to 500 million Indians while annihilating all 120 million Pakistanis (although the Pakistani side insisted its rugged mountain terrain would shield more … Continue reading Getting real about nuclear terrorism

James Meikle The Guardian, Wole Soyinka attacked UK’s ‘openness’ Photograph: Graeme Robertson England is a “cesspit” and breeding ground for fundamentalist Muslims, the Nobel laureate and political activist Wole Soyinka has said in an interview in which he also accused Britain of allowing the existence of “indoctrination schools”. His extraordinary attack on what he views as Britain’s part in fuelling Islamist terrorism was published on the US news and opinion website The Daily Beast. It was coupled with his assertion that the 1989 fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie meant that the assumption of power over life and … Continue reading England is ‘cesspit’ breeding Islamists, says Soyinka

In the midst of political stagnation in Britain, Muslims would do well to recall their faith’s emphasis on grassroots governance and individual liberty. By Nafeez Ahmed Freedom of choice London, England The next 10 years does not seem to bode well for the British electorate. At the European elections this year, only 22% of eligible British voters bothered to cast a ballot. Parliamentary expense scandals have generated widespread disillusionment. The European Commission predicts that in just two years, Britain’s national debt will increase to 88.2 percent of GDP, and that by 2020 could rise to 140 percent. Meanwhile, the politics … Continue reading The politics of Islamic governance