31 militants have been killed in fresh clashes between Taliban and Daesh groups in eastern Nangarhar province. Spokesperson for the governor of Nangarhar said the clashes took place in Bati Kot and Achin districts. Atuallah Khogyani added that the gun battle that erupted in Doyam Farm area of Bati Kot District on Wednesday morning left 18 members of Daesh group killed and four others wounded. He said those killed include two commanders of the group…
Posts published in “Day: January 7, 2016”
An Afghan National Army soldier has been caught on camera switching sides and joining the Taliban in Dand-e-Ghori area in Pul-e-Khumri, Baghlan province. In footage received by TOLOnews, the soldier receives a warm welcome from Taliban fighters in the area – where officials believe that the militant group has a huge presence. “Hizbullah son of Mohammad Akbar resident of Laghman [province] who served in the ANA ranks for past 11 months, today [Wednesday] joined Mujahideen…
Bangkok: The first of Vietnam’s new advanced Kilo-class submarines have begun patrolling disputed waters of the South China Sea, as deterrents to China’s 10 times-bigger navy, Vietnamese officials and diplomatic sources say. Vietnam is also expanding use of its strategically important Cam Ranh Bay deep-water harbour, where six of the submarines will be based by 2017. The arrival of the submarines from Russia is a key part of Vietnam’s biggest arms build-up since the height…
Growth rates in China fall precipitously. China’s nonperforming loans soar. Banks stop lending, consumer confidence tanks and the yuan falls sharply. These are among the assumptions laid out in a series of recent worst-case scenarios on what a collapse in China might look like and what the global spillover effects would be. There is a long history of doom-and-gloom predictions focused on the world’s second-largest economy. China tends to attract such unwanted attention in part…
Beijing: Chinese stock trading was suspended on Thursday after “circuit breakers” kicked in following a steep plunge, in the latest spasm of investor panic on the country’s volatile markets. The official Xinhua news agency said trading on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges was frozen for the day after shares tumbled more than 7 per cent. The emergency measures, which took effect on January 1, also kicked in on Monday to halt stock trading. Regulators…
ISLAMABAD: Iran will become a major electricity exporter to Pakistan as it will increase its energy export to the latter to 100 megawatts this month, a newspaper said. “Pakistan currently imports 74MW of electricity from Iran for its coastal Makran division,” Khaleej Times quoted Pakistan’s foreign office as saying. The two countries are also considering two projects, involving import of 1,000MW of power, which could get up to 3,000MW of electricity from its western neighbour,…
The brewing tussle between Iran and Saudi Arabia once again threatens to drag an unwilling Pakistan back into the muck of sectarianism. The conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia is not new, and the world at large, but Pakistan especially, has suffered at the hands of the two rival countries’ religious, ideological and political quest for dominance ever since 1979. Much like in the Cold War, the weapon of choice for both countries has been…
ISLAMABAD: Thanks mainly to the lack of a clear stance on the tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the government came under attack once again in the National Assembly on Wednesday. Instead of putting up a defence, the treasury benches beat a retreat, forcing the opposition to call quorum and embarrassing the government for its failure to keep the house in order. While the house is in session, it is the responsibility of the government…
ISLAMABAD: Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel Bin Ahmed al Jubeir is arriving in Islamabad today (Thursday) to share details with Pakistani authorities regarding the newly-formed alliance of Islamic countries against terrorism and extremism. Jubeir was originally supposed to visit last Sunday but delayed his trip due to the situation arising out of escalation in tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran following the execution of a prominent Shia cleric by the Kingdom. The Saudi minister will…
The writer is a research associate at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. Statecraft is simple, as long as the appearance of success matters more than results. Such a world view appeared to be the price of victory at the United Nations in December. No, I’m not harping on about the Paris global gabfest that reached a (non-binding, non-enforceable and non-verifiable) pact to reduce emissions. I’m referring to the unanimous Security Council resolution…
Sceptical optimism: by Sitara Noor in Daily Times, January 07, 2016
The writer is a former visiting fellow at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, California. For a country to dissuade an adversary from undertaking an action that the former considers undesirable, it has to first communicate to the adversary that the cost of any action might out-weigh the benefits. This communication must be backed by the capability to inflict that cost and the credibility or the political will to undertake that action if need arises.…