(The writer, a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, is a former US diplomat who was Ambassador to Pakistan and Bangladesh) After my deviation two weeks ago into the inhospitable subject of Pakistan-Indian relations, a deviation prompted by the spike in violence and inflammatory rhetoric in an already hostile relationship, I want to return to the less thorny, and quite frankly more hopeful subject of Pakistan-US relations. I had written two…
Posts published in October 2016
Xiao Jiang (pseudonym), a second year graduate student at Beijing International Studies University, starts her studies in the library every day at 8 am, and usually finishes at 10 pm. Jiang is one of the 3,620 candidates who have applied for a position offered to students by China’s Foreign Ministry in the 2017 round of civil service recruitment. In the spring of 2017, 44 applicants will be offered this position after several rounds of written…
Two former senior military officers have been expelled from the Communist Party for alleged corruption, according to state-run Xinhua. In a statement released late on Thursday at the end of the Central Committee’s sixth plenum in Beijing, the party said Fan Changmi, former deputy political commissar of the Lanzhou Military Area Command, and Niu Zhizhong, a former deputy commander of the People’s Armed Police, were expelled over “serious discipline violations”, usually a euphemism for graft.…
The Communist Party’s Politburo vowed on Friday to keep existing economic policies in place to ensure stable economic growth for the rest of the year. The meeting, which came after the close of the Central Committee’s sixth plenum, called for “reasonable” fiscal expenditure as part of the proactive fiscal policy and sufficient liquidity in a prudential monetary policy. But it underscored the need to “curb asset bubbles and safeguard against economic and financial risk”, according…
It is still not clear how much more power Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping will gain with his anointment as the “core” of the party leadership, political analysts said on Friday. A statement on Thursday at the close of the Central Committee’s meeting urged the party’s 88 million party members to “closely unite around the Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core”. But it also stressed collective leadership, saying: “No party organisation…
The writer is an Islamabad-based security expert associated with Strategic Vision Institute Many wonder as to why Pakistan considers itself a cornered, strangulated, apologetic, overly critical and cautious state while responding to a belligerent neighbour like India. No doubt, both India and Pakistan are up against myriads of issues ranging from poverty, societal, security, economy and governance etc. But it is only India that has continuously been manipulating all such failings against Pakistan, and somehow…
As is ever the case reports that the Indians are expelling a consular official based in Delhi require considerably more detail before the full facts of the case are known. It is alleged that he was engaged in ‘espionage activities’ and the Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar summoned the Pakistan high commissioner to tell him so, adding that the man had 48 hours to leave the country. He is named as Mehmood Akhtar and he…
ISLAMABAD: Indian conventional and unconventional military build-up is disturbing the balance of power in south Asia. It is also a threat to regional peace, Foreign Office Spokesman Nafess Zakaria said on Friday. He was addressing the weekly media briefing at the Foreign Office. “Pakistan has long maintained that India rapidly expanding military nuclear programme posed a grave threat to peace and stability in the region and beyond. These concerns have been fully validated by publicly…
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday said evidences collected from the Indian spy Kulbhushan Yadav were being compiled and given the shape of a dossier, which will be presented to the UN secretary general at an appropriate time. Speaking at the weekly news briefing here, Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakariya said India’s rapidly expanding nuclear programme posed a grave threat to peace and stability in the region and beyond. “This build-up has been facilitated by the NSG…
NEW DELHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan has alleged that India has been subverting Pakistan to take the heat off a beleaguered Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but this tactic is not borne out by former Indian national security adviser Shivshankar Menon’s description of earlier responses in his book quoted on Friday. Mr Khan has contended, or implied, that there has been evident bonhomie between Mr Sharif and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Seeing his friend…
Rangers foil bid to smuggle Indian arms, liquor : report in The Express Tribune, October 29th, 2016.
LAHORE: Paramilitary soldiers have foiled an attempt to smuggle Indian liquor and weapons into Pakistan from the Indian side at Kailon in the Kasur sector on Friday. “In the wee hours of Friday, the paramilitary force took action and foiled an attempt to smuggle liquor and weapons in the Kasur sector,” said a statement by the Punjab Rangers. “The paramilitary troops noticed suspicious movement of some individuals from the Indian side. Upon being challenged, the…