KARACHI: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced closing airspace over the northern areas of the country on Sunday, forcing the Pakistan International Airlines to reschedule its flights to Gilgit, Skardu and Kabul. This is the second time in four days that the CAA has close the airspace over the northern areas without assigning any reason. The last time the airspace was closed on Wednesday. Responding to Dawn queries, PIA spokesperson Danyal Gilani said that times…
Posts published in “Day: September 26, 2016”
When Canada recognised the People’s Republic of China in 1970 under then premier Pierre Trudeau, Mao Zedong reportedly said: “we now have a friend in the backyard of the United States”. The decision by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the son of Pierre Trudeau, to start talks with China on a free-trade deal offers a similar feeling to Chinese officials now that Beijing is being squeezed and isolated by two Washington-led trade initiatives, the Trans-Pacific…
BEIJING — China’s next big target for construction of an artificial island in the South China Sea has long been assumed to be a cluster of rocks poking above sapphire waters near the Philippines. For several years, Chinese Coast Guard vessels and fishing trawlers have hovered around the reef, known as Scarborough Shoal. Giant dredges, suitable for building a military base, were recently rumored to be on their way there. But the election last spring…
Last Christmas there was love in the air. Flying home from Afghanistan, Narendra Modi suddenly decided to stop over in Lahore to pay his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif a surprise visit, the first Indian prime minister to go to the estranged neighbour in nearly 12 years. The occasion for the unprecedented outreach: Sharif’s birthday and his granddaughter’s wedding. Sharif later hosted the wedding wearing a pink turban Modi brought as a gift. The turban has…
0 Comments307 viewsEmail Email Print Print ISIS AfghanistanThe ISIS loyalists fighting in Afghanistan are mainly ex-Pakistani members and are receiving support from the main group leaders based in Syria, the top US commander in Afghanistan General John Nicholson has said. General Nicholson who is also the commander of the NATO-led Resolute Support (RS) mission in Afghanistan has said there are up to 1,300 ISIS loyalists in Afghanistan. He said the loyalists of the terror group…
A contingent of Russian troops have arrived in Pakistan for a joint military exercise to be held from September 24 to October 10. This is the first-ever joint military exercise between the two countries and is seen as another step towards improving the relationship that had deteriorated during the Cold War and has never quite recovered since then. Termed ‘Friendship 2016’, this exercise which will include around 200 military personnel is part of the military…
THE timing may be incidental — or perhaps fortuitous for Pakistan — but the arrival of a 70-man Russian squad, led by the chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, for joint drills with elements of Pakistan’s counterterrorism units has more to it than mere symbolism. That Moscow ignored Indian pique at the very thought of the Russian — read former Soviet — military hobnobbing with its Pakistani counterpart shows Moscow’s wish…