By JESSICA DONATI and EHSANULLAH AMIRI BAREKAB, Afghanistan—A breakdown in Afghanistan’s relationship with Pakistan has driven a flood of Afghans living there to return, severely straining their war-ravaged homeland’s resources just as it is experiencing an escalation of violence. Many of last year’s more than 600,000 returnees had lived in Pakistan for decades as refugees, both documented and undocumented, and have few local connections to assist in their resettlement. The pressure on aid organizations—also dealing…
Posts published in January 2017
Karachi: Clouds of dread are gathering over the Pashtun-dominated settlement near Manghopir – renowned for the Sufi saint Pir Mangho’s shrine, with a huge pond of crocodiles – as pro-Taliban graffiti has appeared in the locality. The wall-chalking, which appeared in the wee hours of December 8, mentions the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) Waziristan chapter. It reads: “Taliban Zindabad! Sab par nazar hai. [Long live the Taliban! We have an eye on everyone.]” Until the end…
The writer is an author and journalist. The gathering in Moscow last week — the third in the series of consultations between Russia, China and Pakistan — underlines growing concern about the spillover effect of the Afghan crisis in the region. The initiative is the latest example of Russian assertion of its diplomatic power amidst growing frustration over the American failure to deliver peace in Afghanistan. An underlying cause of anxiety is the growing threat…
It was always clear that border control along the Durrand line would be a difficult feat. The historically fluid state of affairs along Pakistan’s western borders would naturally resist any attempts to formalise border crossings. Of course, the main reason behind this is common ethnolinguistic populations on both sides of the border. Tribal bonds that cut across borders are not at all easy to circumscribe within geographical bounds of the nation state. Moreover, the transnational…
With just over two weeks left till his inauguration, the US President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has been sending mixed signals around the world on different local as well as foreign policy matters. Only a few weeks after the conversation between President-elect Trump and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, where Trump had termed Pakistan as ‘a great’ country and had vowed to work together, a member of his transition, Shalabh Kumar, has said that the incoming…
WASHINGTON: The United States has noted Afghanistan’s absence from the three-nation Afghan peace talks held in Moscow last week but hoped the meeting would lead to peace. Pakistan, China and Russia held the three-ways talks in Moscow but failed to invite Afghanistan, earning a strong protest from Kabul. At a news briefing in Washington on Tuesday afternoon, State Department spokesman John Kirby said the United States recognised Afghanistan’s right to hold all negotiations with other…
ISLAMABAD: The government is again starting the process for the sale of financially sick Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) whose losses have piled up to Rs167 billion, says a top government official. The Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCOP) will take up the matter of PSM sell-off in its meeting on January 18 as two investors are willing to acquire the largest industrial unit of Pakistan on long-term lease. Privatisation Commission Chairman Mohammad Zubair stated this in…
ISLAMABAD: Only about half of the planned generation of 8,810 megawatts from China-sponsored energy projects will be available by 2018 as inter-ministerial disputes and inclusion of financially unviable projects at the initial stage of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) prevent the two sides from meeting the target. Power projects having a cumulative capacity of about 5,000 megawatts under CPEC would be operational by 2017 and 2018, Planning, Development and Reforms Minister Ahsan Iqbal announced at…
Two months after thousands of army veterans from across China besieged the military headquarters in the heart of Beijing to demand unpaid benefits, about 500 angry veterans converged on the capital again last week. A veteran from Hebei who attended the October protest confirmed the latest protest, which was held outside the state petition office. But he told the South China Morning Post that unlike the one in October, which saw some veterans taken away…
A senior Sichuan official shot two of his supervisors on Wednesday morning in the middle of a high-level meeting before killing himself, Chinese media report. Panzhihua land and resources bureau chief Chen Zhongshu fired at the city’s Communist Party chief, Zhang Yan, and mayor Li Jianqin before fleeing the scene, according to Shanghai-based news outlet Thepaper.cn. Zhang and Li sustained minor wounds and Chen was later found dead in the hotel building where the meeting…
The Communist Party of China’s (CPC) top discipline watchdog said Thursday that in 2016, 415,000 people had been disciplined for violating the Party’s code of conduct and other irregularities. Officials at various levels were punished, including 76 at the provincial and ministerial levels, as well as 256,000 people from rural areas and enterprises, the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said in a statement. In late 2012, the CPC began a far-reaching campaign to…