QUETTA: Malnutrition exists in Balochistan in its worst form and special attention is needed to overcome the problem, speakers said at a ceremony held here on Tuesday. Provincial Minister for Planning and Development Dr Hamid Khan Achakzai said at the launching of the ‘Scaling up Nutrition’ movement organised by his department that the malnutrition ratio in Balochistan was alarming. “The findings of a National Nutrition Survey suggest that core mother and child nutrition indicators improved…
Posts published in “Day: April 20, 2016”
QUETTA/KHUZDAR: More than 12 leaders of banned militant organisations and their 138 supporters surrendered to authorities in Khuzdar and Kohlu districts of Balochistan on Monday. They announced abandoning armed struggle and joining mainstream politics. The militants belonging to the banned Baloch Liberation Front (BLF), Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and Lashkar-i-Balochistan laid down their weapons at ceremonies in Khuzdar and Kohlu attended by Kalat Division Commissioner Dr Moham-mad Akbar Harifal, Awaran Deputy Commis-sioner Masood Rind, Washuk…
The writer is an associate research fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research of theS Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. On April 12, the Afghan Taliban announced the launch of their annual spring offensive in Afghanistan: Operation Omari. The spring offensive has been named after the movement’s late founder, Mullah Muhammad Omar. Prior to the spring offensive, a statement on the Taliban’s website mentioned the use of large-scale attacks against…
In an operation against illegal Afghan settlements on the Torkham border, authorities razed 318 houses of Afghan citizens to the ground. These residents have been living in the area for the last 40 years. The operation cleanup was carried out according to the standard procedures; the authorities had served notices to the Afghan citizens to vacate the border area and shift their families back to Afghanistan and on the expiration of the last notice, upon…
Any hope for the Afghan reconciliation process have been shattered after the Taliban announced the launch of a fresh spring offensive against government strongholds backed by suicide and guerrilla attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistan, as part of the quadrilateral coordination group involving Afghanistan, China and the US, was trying to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, but this latest announcement of the Taliban has made the prospects of a peace process uncertain. Islamabad is irked…
A MAJOR bombing in Kabul with scores of casualties is an early warning that this year’s fighting season in Afghanistan may be the bloodiest and most devastating yet. With peace talks already stuttering as the Quadrilateral Coordination Group scrambles to smooth over growing disagreements between the Afghan and Pakistani sides, a full-blown crisis may be brewing. Unhappily, none of the three major state actors, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the US, appear to have a clear sense…
Officials from the Afghan Ministry of Commerce and Industries (MoCI) said Monday that the Chabahar Agreement – also known as the International Transport and Transit Corridor Agreement among governments of Afghanistan, India and Iran – will be signed in Kabul in the next two months. The ministry said that using the Chabahar Port for transit will reduce the charges on Afghan businessmen. “We hope that the ceremony for signing the Chabahar Agreement is held in…
The Afghan Air Force (AAF) planes have destroyed a bomb making factory of the Taliban group in southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the airstrike was carried out in Shahwali Kot district of Kandahar during an operation involving Special Operation Forces of the Afghan Army. A statement by MoD said military equipment and explosives were stored in the factory which were all destroyed in the raid. The Afghan Air Force…
The complex attack by the Taliban on an elite military unit at the heart of the Afghan capital on Tuesday morning was a bloody reminder of how the war there is spiralling to new levels of violence, and spilling into urban areas that were once deemed relatively safe. For years Afghans fled to the capital, and other major cities, to escape the daily brutality of a war fought mostly in their rural home districts. But…
A number of senators, in reaction to Tuesday’s deadly attack in Kabul, said government doesn’t have a clear mechanism for war and peace. They accused government of negligence in the fight against terrorism. The senators said that government never had a clear stance against those involved in insecurity in Afghanistan. “Our armed forces in the lower ranks are rendering sacrifices, but defense and military doctrine does not have a clear plan and strategy. Had they…
The writer, a long-time specialist on Chinese law, is Distinguished Lecturer in Residence (ret.) at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Reports continue to tell of repression of rights lawyers and dissidents — lawyer Pu Zhiqiang was formally disbarred earlier this month — but little is said of other serious illegalities that should provoke concern. Notably, human rights groups have long charged that one of the crudest examples of illegality in Chinese criminal…