Baloch separatists follow Taliban footsteps

April 17, 2014 Mohammed Abbasi

Baloch separatists have pierced the relative calm created by the banned Pakistani Taliban’s temporary end to hostilities by slaying innocents. The outlawed United Baloch Army (UBA) claimed responsibility for two terror attacks this month, the April 9 bomb blast in Islamabad’s fruit market, which killed at least 25 workers, and an attack the next day at a railway station in Sibi, in which 15 people lost their lives. The timing of the Sibi and Islamabad attacks is important as they were were carried out just as talks between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government and the Pakistani Taliban appeared to be making progress. … Continue reading Baloch separatists follow Taliban footsteps

Chinese Muslims & China-Arab Expo

March 14, 2014 Mohammed Abbasi

Disparate fortunes in China’s Muslim ‘heartland’By Haiyun Ma For three years running, the China-Arab Economic Forum has held its annual gatherings in Yingchuan, the capital city of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in Northwest China – a region with the third-smallest GDP in China. The meetings, held in this “Muslim heartland”, attracted 18 national leaders, including Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, 195 ministerial officials, and 93 diplomats from 76 countries – and resulted in trade contracts worth about US$42 billion. Some 5,000 foreign and Chinese enterprises and 3,000 businesspeople from China and abroad participated in these forums, which were held in … Continue reading Chinese Muslims & China-Arab Expo

Sino-Pak ties a testing ground for new global order

October 17, 2013 Mohammed Abbasi

The lasting and healthy development of the all-weather friendship between China and Pakistan has been receiving constant attention from the Chinese side. Given profound changes in the global world pattern, the two partners have to dwell on how to define future strategic cooperation. The world is undergoing an unprecedented upheaval which has seen a sliding US and the West compared with a surging China and other developing countries. Some have assumed that a historical reversal of traditional strength will happen in just 10 or 15 years. Given such changing environment, China-Pakistan relationship in the next 10 years should bolster South-South … Continue reading Sino-Pak ties a testing ground for new global order