Patika: The local business community and Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI) have raised concerns over the growing trend of extortion along Paktia highways, which is a key trade corridor to Pakistan. They have called on government to take steps to curb the trend, which they say is harming the economy in the border province. Businessmen have said that the local government in Paktia has so far ignored the problem. According to them, unidentified…
Posts published in “Day: December 20, 2016”
At least 5 militants were killed and 6 others were wounded after the Afghan forces repulsed a coordinated attack on security check posts in eastern Nangarhar province. The provincial police commandment in a statement said the militants launched a coordinated attack on the security posts in Surkh Rod district late on Saturday afternoon. The statement further added that the offensive by the militants was successfully repulsed by the Afghan forces, leaving at least 5 militants…
QUETTA: Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai on Sunday called for giving Pakistani citizenship to Afghan refugees and making a new Afghania province from the Afghan border to Attock and Mianwali. He said said that Pashtoons are neither terrorists nor particularistic. He claimed that the history of Pashtoons dates back to thousands of years, adding that Pashtoons have never looked at someone’s caste, colour or creed with contempt. “Historians around the world…
Pakistan is a hard country to understand. This is not what we are saying rather this is the perception of British author, Orwell Prize-winning journalist, and policy analyst: Peter Paul Anatol Lieven. In his book entitled “Pakistan: A Hard Country,” originally published in 2011, he says, “Trying to understand Pakistan’s internal structures and dynamics is complicated; for if there is one phrase which defines many aspects of Pakistan and is the central theme of this…
The writer is a professor of Psychiatry and consultant Forensic Psychiatrist in the UK Although ISIS/Daesh is in the process of moving from de rigueur to de facto to de jure many factors coagulated to produce the threat that is ISIS/Daesh: the US invasion of Iraq, Gulf Arab sponsorship and financing, as well as Turkish complicity on many levels. To this list could be added the growing power of Iran, the sectarian reign of Iraq’s…
WASHINGTON: Terrorist groups based in the Pak-Afghan border region remain a security challenge to both countries and pose a threat to regional stability and peace, says Pentagon, the US defence department. In a report — ‘Enhancing security and stability in Afghanistan’ — released this week, the Pentagon also emphasised the need for increased military collaboration between Pakistan and Afghanistan for defeating terrorism. “The Afghanistan-Pakistan border region remains a sanctuary for various groups,” claims the report,…
What, after all, made Nawaz reach out to Donald Trump just when he’s in an intense huddle to finalise his team? And that too in such a fashion – sending Tariq Fatemi to meet with future officials (who haven’t even been appointed yet)? Surely he was not too encouraged by that mysterious phone call. Or perhaps he thought if Trump could make time for India’s IT behemoths there’s no reason his team wouldn’t accommodate, even…
KARACHI: Pakistan is likely to issue renminbi (RMB) bonds in Hong Kong aimed at financing the multibillion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. This was said by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Deputy Governor Riaz Riazuddin while addressing a seminar titled ‘Financial integration under and other research agenda’. “Construction and operations of the CPEC can also receive an added impetus from financial cooperation between the two countries’ central banks, regulatory bodies and financial institutions. Such cooperation…
ISLAMABAD: The Planning Ministry is not only providing sensitive information to international NGOs but also empowered them to attend in-camera meetings related to China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Daily Times has learnt. With the advent of CPEC, these NGOs are improving ties with Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal and other high-ups of the ministry. To increase their influence, they are making collaboration with the ministry on different initiatives such as civil services reforms, sustainable development goals and…
ISLAMABAD: Some 1,872 kilometres long gate-free and signal-free railway tracks from Karachi to Peshawar costing $8.2 billion would be constructed under first phase of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, sources told The News. According to official data, the project would be completed in two phases in five years by 2021 on engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) mode. Phase-I will be completed by December, 2017 and Phase-II by the year 2021. The data showed that…
GWADAR – The residents of Gwadar are compelled to drink brackish water being supplied by the Public Health Department through diesel tankers, putting a question mark on the claims about China-Pak Economic Corridor project. Gwadar district, which is described as the crown of fate-changer China-Pak Economic Corridor project, is hit by acute water scarcity and the dwellers are forced to drink noxious water being supplied through diesel tankers. The only source of potable water for…