report in Dawn, December 29th, 2023ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is committed to a peaceful neighbourhood and would like to have peaceful relations with all countries in the region, including India, the Foreign Office said on Thursday. When asked if the coming year held any prospects of resumption of ties with the eastern neighbour, Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told a weekly press briefing that India needed to take steps to create an environment for dialogue. She,…
Posts tagged as “countires”
Report in The Daily Star, Dec 08, 2023Russian Ambassador to Bangladesh Alexander Mantytskiy yesterday said they are against any “illegal actions” – sanctions or others – taken by America or other western countries against a country. “We are against any illegal actions … We will be against any sanctions or steps here,” he said at an event titled “Talks with Ambassadors”, organised by the Swadhinata Sangbadik Forum at the Jatiya Press Club in Dhaka, reports…
Report in TOLOnews Online, Dec 04, 2023 at 9:18 PMThe religious clerics of various countries have visited Afghanistan over the last two years and met with officials of the Islamic Emirate to discuss various issues, including girls’ education and women’s access to work. The Islamic Emirate came to power on August 15, 2021. In July 2022, a number of religious clerics came from Pakistan and in October 2022, a religious clerics’ delegation from Turkey arrived…
By Naveed Samadi in TOLOnews Online, Nov 23, 2023 at 9:15 PMA meeting under the title of “Afghanistan in the past and future” with the participation of Islamic Emirate opponents and envoys of various countries was held on Thursday in Moscow. The participants included former officials of the Afghan government and some other Afghan elites—who oppose the Islamic Emirate’s government, and envoys from Iran, Russia and some other countries. They discussed the formation of an…
report in EconomyNext, Nov 20, 2023 at 8:56 pmSri Lanka is among countries ready to join the second phase of China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), with a free trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries to be also expedited, according to a discussion between President Ranil Wickremesinghe and a top Chinese official. Wickremesinghe told visiting special envoy of the Chinese President, state councillor Shen Yiqin, that the BRI is expected to make a more…
Report in TOLOnews Online, Nov 20, 2023 at 10:02 PMThe Afghans who were deported by Pakistan, Iran and Turkey called on host countries to stop expelling the refugees. They also voiced concerns over the mistreatment of the host countries’ police towards the Afghan refugees. Nazia, a mother of three children, said that she has recently been deported from Iran. Nazia said that her husband also was arrested by Iranian police. “They took six million [Iranian…
by Dimuthu Attanayake in SCMP, Nov 20, 2023For years, several China-linked projects in Sri Lanka have come under fire for being “white elephants” that have failed to contribute significantly to its economy, but a free-trade agreement between both countries, policy revamp and more involvement by joint ventures could turn the tide, analysts say. Among the underperforming projects are the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA), built with US$191 million financing from the Exim Bank of China;…
By Wajid Ali Syed in The News, November 08, 2023WASHINGTON: The US on Tuesday underscored its continual partnership with Pakistan in various areas of mutual interest between the two countries. “We have partnered with Pakistan for more than 40 years to support law enforcement, rule of law, counter narcotics efforts, and other areas in the security space,” the State Department’s principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said during a press briefing. He acknowledged that large-scale military…
by Touqir Hussain Tin Dawn, November 7th, 2023he writer, a former ambassador, is adjunct professor Georgetown University and Visiting Senior Research Fellow, National University of Singapore.PAKISTAN and Afghanistan have always had a complex relationship that has been mishandled by both sides. Each has expected the other to make up for the failure of its own policies, has sought solutions that were worse than the problem, and has become friendly with the other’s enemies. Pakistan needs…
by Prithvi Man Shrestha in The Kathmandu Post,Nov 7, 2023Nepal continues to remain among the lowest-ranked countries in South Asia in terms of human development even though the country has made rapid progress in the last few decades, a United Nations report says. Nepal’s human development index (HDI) value in 2021 stood at 0.602 which is third worst after the war-torn Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is also facing an economic crisis lately, according to the…
Battling trafficking
Editorial in Dawn, December 16th, 2023THE currency of human bondage, known as human trafficking, is the false promise of a better life through employment and even marriage in wealthy countries. Sadly, victims only realise that they have been trapped in a web of lies when they find themselves confronting forced labour, debt and sex work on foreign soil, which they have reached after treacherous journeys. Equally troubling is the fact that the sinister trade now…