The writer,a former ambassador, was Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva and to the Conference on Disarmament. The NSG plenary meeting in Seoul ended on June 24 without even considering India’s bid to join the group despite the Indian leadership’s strenuous efforts to seek membership. Instead, as a result of China’s principled position, supported by 11 other countries, the discussions centred on the issue of criteria for membership of nuclear weapon states not…
Posts published in “Day: July 5, 2016”
Ramazan is supposed to be a month when Muslims cease hostilities but the Islamic State, showing its true nature, vowed to launch more attacks than ever. They have followed through with that bloody promise. In the last week alone, the IS has claimed responsibility for brazen attacks at a café in Dhaka, the airport in Istanbul, security forces in Yemen, at a Christian area in Lebanon and a border crossing in Syria. In addition to…
EVEN by Iraq’s volatile standards, Sunday’s truck bombing targeting a market in Baghdad was massive. Various news sources are quoting different death tolls, from 165 to over 200. The scale of the atrocity can be judged by the fact that Iraqi officials have said it will take a number of days to recover the bodies.The militant Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the slaughter, which occurred in the capital’s Karrada area, packed with families…
Over the last three years, the entity often called the Islamic State (IS) has redefined how the world understands both the concept and practice of terrorism, and our understanding of statehood. It has introduced the concept of the borderless caliphate, is self-sustaining to a degree that no other terrorist organisation ever has been (this may be on the wane, oil revenues declining as territory is lost) and demonstrating a reflexive ability to remake itself, to…
RIYADH: A suicide bomber who blew himself up near the United States consulate in Jeddah early Monday has been identified as a Pakistani citizen, the Saudi interior ministry said on Tuesday. The ministry identified the man as 35-year-old Abdullah Qalzar Khan, who worked as a driver in the kingdom. Khan had arrived in Saudi Arabia 12 years ago and resided in Jeddah with his wife and her parents, the interior ministry said in a tweet.…
The writer is a freelance columnist. Two recent events indicate that evolvement of long awaited bipolarity in the World Order may be at a fairly advanced stage. Both events happened in quick succession: the UK’s exit from the European Union (EU), and Chinese opposition to entry of non-NPT countries to Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).These events have set into motion complicated processes leading to gradual unravelling of prevalent unipolar World Order led by the US.The US…
After a long break, Chinese and Russian have started defending their territorial areas and their warplanes have been aggressively intercepting U.S. military aircraft which are flying near their border areas. A Chinese fighter jet carried out an “unsafe” intercept of a U.S. spy plane on routine patrol on Tuesday in international airspace over the East China Sea, U.S. Pacific Command said. (Reuters) The intercept involved two Chinese J-10 fighter planes and a U.S. Air Force…
In an extraordinary turn of events, the United (no longer) Kingdom faces bigger crises than this feuding young republic. But home is home and first things first. Pakistan’s statecraft, particularly the foreign type, has lost its mojo and nobody knows where it has gone. While the army chief keeps scoring by engaging foreign leaders, the Foreign Office is busy fielding. No wonder then, the polemic about the absence of a foreign minister has assumed mysterious…
FOLLOWING President Obama’s pledge in May 2013 to introduce more transparency and oversight in drone strikes, the White House has finally released figures pertaining to casualties caused by such attacks. Between Jan 20, 2009 and Dec 31, 2015, according to the report, there were 473 drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia which killed between 64 to 116 civilians while fatalities of combatants numbered between 2,372 to 2,581. These figures are certain to be…
Today, the Obama administration is flying armed drones in seven countries: Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Yet, with such vast areas being covered, a White House report states that US drones have killed only 64 to 116 civilians in 473 strikes launched between 2009 and 2015. 2,372 to 2,581 combatants were killed during the said period.This is a strange way of presenting death toll figures.If between 64 and116 civilians and between 2,372-…
Peace in Afghanistan is not only vital for Kabul and Islamabad but also for the international community. This explains the arrival in Islamabad of a US bipartisan Congressional delegation led by Senator John McCain, Chairman Senate Armed Services Committee. The purpose behind the visit is to discuss the recent hiatus in Pak-Afghan relations. That the delegation came on the invitation of Gen Raheel Sharif indicates Pakistan’s keenness to resolve the issue. The general underlined the…