Taliban gun men on Friday May 28, targeted two mosques of minority Ahmadis in Lahore and killed seventy people. At least 90 people were injured. The last major attack on Pakistan’s cultural capital took place in March when a double suicide bombing killed dozens. This was for the first time Ahmadis were attacked. Hitherto, militants were targeting Shia Muslims.
Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim and follow all Islamic rituals. But they were declared non-Muslims in Pakistan in 1974 and in 1984 they were legally barred from proselytising or identifying themselves as Muslims.
“Punjabi …

By Glenn Kessler in Washington Post, May 20
Diplomacy sometimes consists of winks and nods, not outright trades. That might explain why the Obama administration has been quiet about a recent Chinese commercial transaction that nuclear specialists say marks a blatant disregard of international guidelines.
In the midst of intense negotiations on new sanctions for Iran, which China was reluctant to embrace, Beijing confirmed that one of its state companies had signed an agreement to supply Pakistan with two new nuclear reactors.
The lucrative deal, if consummated, appears to be a clear violation …

Forty terror camps are active in Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas, according to a Russian diplomat.
The assessment is based on satellite imagery and intelligence reports, Ambassador Alexander M. Kadakin said.
‘The camps don’t sport their organisations’ names any longer but the camps remain very much’, Kadakin, who is in Delhi on his second stint as Russian envoy since Oct 2009, told an English daily. He was posted here earlier from 1999 for five years.
Significantly, the US is mounting pressure on Islamabad to act against these very terror dens in the wake of botched …

Uighur leader killed in Pakistan: Rehman Malik
BEIJING: Pakistan and China have “broken the back” of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which China accuses of orchestrating attacks in its restive Xinjiang region, Pakistan’s Interior Minister said in Beijing on Friday.
An alleged leader of the group, about which little is known, has been killed, Rehman Malik said at the end of a visit to discuss security cooperation between the two countries.
China has granted long-standing ally Pakistan a $180 million loan to purchase police equipment, including armoured personnel carriers and bullet-proof jackets, …

(The author is a senior analyst with the Alliance for American Manufacturing. She was appointed in 2006 by House Speaker Dennis Hastert to serve on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission)
The Washington Times, Apr 29, 2010
Toxic drywall driving owners from their homes, poisoned pet food killing Fluffy and Spot and defective tires causing injury and death – all sent to America by the People’s Republic of China.
Following on the heels of that safety record, now China could seek to supply us with sensitive components …

By Ansar Abbasi in The News, Apr 26
ISLAMABAD: After the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), now apprehensions are also being expressed by the PML-N about some alleged conspiracy being hatched by certain elements belonging to the Army and intelligence agencies.
Though it is whispered and not publicly said in so many words, in their off-the-record discussions with media persons, some PML-N leaders express their fears that the third force is preparing the ground to do something extra-constitutional.
Ahsan Iqbal is on the record as having said on Saturday that a third force wants …

ISLAMABAD: The UN report on the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto revealed that it was the ex-MI chief Maj-Gen Nadeem Ijaz, who ordered the then Rawalpindi City CPO Saud Aziz, to hose down the scene of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination at Liaquat Bagh.
Maj-Gen Nadeem, currently serving as Log Area Commander in Gujranwala after his transfer from the MI some time back, is a relative of Pervez Musharraf. He, however, was a known crony of the former dictator and his ‘key adviser’ on all national issues.
Defence analysts have raised a …

By Patrick Cockburn in The Independent, Apr 16
The Pakistani army has fought successfully to control mountainous frontier areas once ruled by the Pakistani Taliban, but it remains reluctant to attack the cross-border safe havens of the Afghan Taliban despite American pressure.
Pakistani soldiers in Bajaur district on the Afghan frontier are eager to demonstrate what they have already achieved, showing off captured tunnels dug into the hillside by the local Taliban to protect their fighters against air and artillery attack. On display are some rockets and shells and a broken sign …

The Dawn, April 7
SYDNEY: Australia has blocked a shipment of scientific equipment to Pakistan over fears it could be used to help build weapons of mass destruction, a spokesman for Defence Minister John Faulkner said on Tuesday.
The government used the 1995 Weapons of Mass Destruction (Prevention of Proliferation) Act to stop an Australian company exporting instruments and accessories to a Pakistani firm, he said.
“The minister forms the view, based on advice from the Department of Defence supported by other agencies, that there are unacceptable risks associated with the provision of …

The Daily Times, Mar 19
ATTABAD: The water is rising day by day in this remote part of northern Pakistan, and with it, so is the fear among thousands who stand to lose their crops, their homes and maybe
even their lives.
A massive landslide early this year formed a natural dam in the Hunza River, creating a lake that is consuming upstream villages, as it expands. If the dam breaks, a flash flood could threaten downstream villages too. The landslide also has blocked the Karakoram Highway, a vital trade link to China, …