The yawn-worthy anti-American rhetoric by the opposition doesn’t seem to be fizzling out. Rearing its head up at intermittent moments, it has that same old lackluster flavor of something tacky being repackaged and resold. But who is still following the Pied Piper’s tune? One would have thought that perhaps some advisors would have whispered common…
Cdr (R) Sadeed A Malik – Secretary General/ CEO, KCFR: The Deputy High Commissioner of Bangladesh in Pakistan at Karachi, distinguished guests, Chairman and members of the Board of Governors Karachi Council on Foreign Relations. I am Commodore Retired Sadeed Malik, and it is a great pleasure and an honor to welcome the Bangladesh Deputy…
Suicide Bombings Two soldiers and as many children sustained injuries when a suicide bomber struck a vehicle of the Security Forces (SFs) parked at a checkpost in Dosali area of Razmak subdivision in North Waziristan District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on May 30, reports Dawn. Officials said that the vehicle was parked near a checkpost in the…
While Pakistan desperately needs to progress, religious and ethnic nationalism divides the country and hampers development. The country broke up in 1971 because of ill-conceived nationalism where ethnicity-related prejudices pitched both parts of the country against each other and broke up the unity of Pakistan in the end. One needs to reflect more on the…
Afghanistan’s all-powerful Defence Minister Mullah Yaqub, son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar, recently expressed the Taliban’s willingness to send Afghan army personnel to India for military training, saying they “don’t have any issue with it”. As reported by the Express Tribune, Mullah Yaqub said, “We want good and cordial relations with India and we hope…
The spread of disinformation over the Internet and social media is a major international challenge that affects us all. Intentionally and verifiably false “fake news”, in other words “outright lies”, is designed to manipulate people’s perceptions of reality. Hiding the real events or causes of those events, the purpose is to hide culpability of the…
While the political upheaval in the country is reflective of the will of the people who desire to rid themselves of both corruption and the status quo, our core “National Interest” certainly cannot be embedded in emotional arguments. A majority of Pakistanis suffer from inequality and injustice prevalent in our feudal society, the feudal mentality…
The US-sponsored global war on terror and its worldwide promotion opened another chapter in the history of South Asia, where the pair of nuclear weapon states are good rivals and bad neighbours. Pakistan’s decision to join the US-led global counterterror campaign made Pakistan a frontline state in America’s international counterterror efforts. Pakistan’s alliance with the…
Context While there are different angles to interpret the fast-moving flux in the global political, economic and security situation, the great power rivalry perspective has a clearly dominant and picking pace. There is usually a period of calm when one power dominates or when there is stability in the balance of power equation. The rapid…
Naseer Turabi, a legendary Urdu poet, could not have prophesied it better. He was in tears on hearing the news of the Fall of Dhaka in December 1971, and he penned his emotions instantly by saying: Vo ham-safar thā magar us se ham-navā. ī na thī, Ke dhuup chhāñv kā aalam rahā judā.ī na thī;…
