The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) submitted before the Supreme Court a report containing details of 150 mega corruption cases against prominent parliamentarians, politicians, bureaucrats and industrialists. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, former president Asif Ali Zardari, former prime ministers Yousaf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, PML-Q chief Shujaat Hussain, former Balochistan chief minister Nawab Aslam Raisani, QaumiWatan Party chief AftabSherpao, former ambassador to US Hussain Haqqani are some of the prominent people on the list. The document lists 50 cases each of monetary irregularities, misuse of powers and land scandals. Among the monetary irregul...
August 21, 2015 at 6:14 pm | News Desk
Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing a very dangerous game. On July 4, while Americans celebrated Independence Day, a cinematic, tension-filled drama unfolded along America's western skies. In two separate incidents, U.S. fighter jets were scrambled to intercept Russian bombers approaching the country's airspace; first near the California coast, then just outside U.S. airspace over Alaska. [caption id="attachment_6360" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Russia's President Vladimir Putin gestures as he chairs a government meeting at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, June 25, 2014. The Russian parliament on Wednesday revoked the right it had granted Putin in March to order a military intervention in Ukraine, where...
August 21, 2015 at 6:05 pm | News Desk
An unnamed American diplomat told the Sunday Times in Britain that President Barack Obama “believes a peaceful Iran could be a bulwark against ISIS in the Middle East and the key to peace there.” The Iranian people and government strongly oppose ISIS, no doubt about it. They are predominantly Shias while ISIS is the most deranged Sunni Islamist terrorist organization in the world. Its attitude toward the Shia is outright genocidal. It’s easy, then, to see why a powerful Shia bloc might act as a “bulwark.” The problem here is that the Iranian- led Resistance Bloc—which includes the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a smorgasbord of Iraqi Shia militias—is the primary instigator of ISIS. Look: ISIS is jus...
August 21, 2015 at 5:59 pm | News Desk
When the US sneezes, an old saying goes, the world catches a cold. That’s been nowhere more true than in Asia. But as China’s coughing fit grows louder, countries in the region are wondering whether their neighbor’s illness will also prove contagious. Since Wall Street’s crash in 2008, Asia has been pivoting to China. The $16.8 trillion US economy is still 1.8 times bigger and its per capita income dwarfs China’s. But China is Asia’s biggest trading partner and, increasingly, its benefactor. Flush with $3.7tr of currency reserves and its new $100 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, China has used checkbook diplomacy to make friends across the region. Asia’s social media accounts are now pulsating with talk of h...
August 21, 2015 at 5:40 pm | News Desk
Car manufacturers in Pakistan had a blissful 2014-15 as they saw sales jump to 151,134 units from 118,102 in the preceding fiscal year. The launch of new Toyota Corolla brought a big relief to its assembler, pushing up the company’s sales to 51,398 units from 29,087 and also making a positive impact in overall sales figures, Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA) announced on July 10th. Uplift in overall sales came from Punjab government’s taxi scheme that helped sales of Suzuki Bolan rise to 23,582 units from 14,088 and that of Suzuki Ravi to 22,815 from 12,419. Even increase in car prices by the manufacturers did not dampen buyers’ enthusiasm. Moreover, a decline in interest rates to seven per cent from 10pc b...
August 21, 2015 at 5:35 pm | News Desk
Born and raised as privileged individuals, it’s often the case that we end up raising our voice and concern for the rights of Muslims far away in Palestine or Myanmar, forgetting our very own neighbourhoods that have been struggling for their rights for decades. Many of us who do even end up raising our voices, seldom do so beyond social media, doing more harm than good to the Baloch cause — a cause which is more about getting an equal playing field and less about Baloch independence. My experience with Baluchistan has been different, and naturally my problem-identification and solution is also counter-intuitive. Successive governments in Pakistan, both democratic and military, have tried to reach middle ground to resolve the crisis ...
August 21, 2015 at 5:26 pm | News Desk
Looking from abroad at the statements of the Australian government regarding security, one would be forgiven for thinking the country had just suffered a 9/11 scale attack or was currently engaged in a war for its very survival. The country’s hard right Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, has over the past six months employed increasingly shrill and fearful language to address the threat posed by terrorism and the Daesh in particular. The government’s increasing use of such loaded language began last year, in the months after the release of its first Federal Budget. The Government had fought its election campaign around the issues of illegal immigrants and the budget deficit, with the latter in particular being spoke of as a “debt ...
August 21, 2015 at 5:10 pm | News Desk
Aakar Patel Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to be congratulated for his brave move in announcing he will visit Pakistan. I do not only mean brave from the point of view of physical courage. I have been to Pakistan many times and not felt unsafe, and it is clear that Modi will find that he is given security of the highest standard. But even so, Pakistan’s most protected man, former president Pervez Musharraf had his convoy bombed twice and its former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed not that long ago. So Modi is brave in agreeing to go where even cricket teams have refused. The second way in which he has been brave is that he has defied many in our media and also our strategic affairs experts in reachi...
August 18, 2015 at 2:26 pm | News Desk
Miyamoto Musashi, a victorious Japanese swordsman wrote in his famous book ‘The Book of Five Rings’ that in strategy, it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things. But these thoughts are taken into account by those who have vision, farsightedness and pain of their nation. The situation of our country is much different. Here a government comes to serve its vested interests and secure enough to be financially powerful through thieving the national exchequer. None of the institutions are above the National Action Plan under its famous 20 points agenda unanimously taken on December 24, 2014 with the backing of 21st Constitutional Amendment. It was aimed at the executio...
August 18, 2015 at 2:19 pm | News Desk
Rana Banerji Not since Pakistan’s former Interior Minister, late Nasrullah Khan Babar’s, crackdown in mid-1995, has the Mohajir Muttahida Quami Movement – Altaf (MQM- A) been subjected to such a relentless siege by the Pakistan Rangers and the Sindh Police in Karachi. On March 11, 90, Azizabad, or `Nine Zero’, the home of Altaf Hussain in Federal B Area, the sanctified MQM headquarters, was raided by Pakistan Rangers. Several MQM-A party workers were arrested, arms and ammunition allegedly stolen from NATO containers seized, and five criminals wanted in the January 2011 murder of journalist Wali Khan Babbar were apprehended. The current operations in Karachi have been ongoing since August, 2014. The effort of the law...
August 17, 2015 at 6:53 pm | News Desk
Pakistan Rupee Exchange Rate