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
After the bloodied partition of United India, two new countries emerged on the surface of the earth, namely Pakistan and India. As with various laws and systems, India and Pakistan inherited the same prison system from the British as a colonial legacy. The system of prisons was designed to detain freedom fighters, and those who voiced their views against British Imperialism in United India. While the history of Western society’s use of punishment dates back to tortures and public executions at the scaffold till the 17th. century, it was characterized by legally approved discrimination, violence, revenge, and penitence during Medieval and Ancient times. Prison, as a place of punishment after conviction, is an 18th century in...
August 17, 2015 at 6:49 pm | News Desk
Hillary Clinton’s campaign may not develop the sizzle the would-be first Madam President and her team has long planned for. But the race has already created its first, truly searing image in the skin of the American nation. To the Democratic Party establishment’s great relief, this is not the result of any of Hillary Clinton’s missteps, of which there have been some. Rather, the problem emerged from the inside of the tent of the Republican Party. It is commonly called the “Donald Trump problem.” The worst part for the Republicans is that Trump has the same effect as a Trojan horse. (Beware of the “Greeks” bearing gifts, Republicans of the United States!) Trump’s emergence in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire gives the D...
August 17, 2015 at 6:30 pm | News Desk
Fanny Ragot Recently, a new strategic dialogue was held between Pakistan and Afghanistan and the Taliban leadership in the hill city of Murree, Pakistan. These negotiations were coordinated by China, illustrating Beijing’s recent commitment to support Kabul in pacifying its country. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, elected in mid-2014, has been reaffirming his willingness to set the wheels of negotiations in motion. It implies engaging in negotiations with Pakistan to resolve the problem of Pakistan’s support for the Taliban, across the Durand Line. While the dialogue is still new, China appears to be brokering these discussions. That Beijing is evidently involving itself in shaping the future of Afghanistan and Pakistan mor...
August 17, 2015 at 6:17 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 neighbour’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 ...
August 17, 2015 at 5:28 pm | News Desk
Hussain Nadim 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 neighborhoods 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 Balochistan 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 res...
August 17, 2015 at 5:14 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 17, 2015 at 4:42 pm | News Desk
Lahore is a major urban and modern metropolitan city in Pakistan. The city which is famous for so many names education city, lifestyle city, fashion city, film city as well as art city with rich heritage. We know that every city has its own personality, mood and demeanor. Lahore in its first glance gives a relaxed, laid back and peaceful look and place to live in and enjoy your life in variety of ways. The thing in which Lahore is famous from all other cities is Lahori food. Lahore was a peaceful and progressive city and folks from other cities wish to live in. But presently Lahore has been changed with the passage of time. Know nothing is according to the set rules all the citizens are acting like Tom, Dick and Harry. Everybod...
August 15, 2015 at 12:45 pm | News Desk
In 1940, Stalin sent his strongest political operative, Andrey Vyshinsky, to bring the Baltic States to heel under the boot of the Soviet state. Vyshinsky arrived in Latvia on June 18th, installed as Stalin’s special envoy. The president of Latvia, Karlis Ulmanis, was forced to appoint a “people’s government”. Within days, the president and key members of his administration were arrested and deported to the Soviet Union. A hastily scrambled election took place on July 14-15, with a single list of Soviet-picked candidates on the ballot. The results gave 97.8 percent of the vote to the previously unknown and unheralded candidates. Vyshinsky preened for the press corps and expressed hope the newly elected “people’s...
August 15, 2015 at 11:46 am | News Desk
By Fanny Ragot Recently, a new strategic dialogue was held between Pakistan and Afghanistan and the Taliban leadership in the hill city of Murree, Pakistan. These negotiations were coordinated by China, illustrating Beijing’s recent commitment to support Kabul in pacifying its country. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, elected in mid-2014, has been reaffirming his willingness to set the wheels of negotiations in motion. It implies engaging in negotiations with Pakistan to resolve the problem of Pakistan’s support for the Taliban, across the Durand Line. While the dialogue is still new, China appears to be brokering these discussions. That Beijing is evidently involving itself in shaping the future of Afghanistan and Pakistan ...
August 15, 2015 at 10:54 am | News Desk
History shows us that America must lead not just with our might, but with our principles. It shows we are stronger not when we are alone, but when we bring the world together." ~President Barack Obama The historic and monumental Iran Nuclear Talks have finally concluded successfully on July 14, 2015. This is a highly significant factor which lays the foundation in establishing President Obama's legacy. [caption id="attachment_6253" align="aligncenter" width="500"] U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif before a meeting in Geneva January 14, 2015. Zarif said on Wednesday that his meeting with Kerry was important to see if progress could be made in narrowing differences on hi...
August 14, 2015 at 3:18 pm | News Desk
WASHINGTON: The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are launching a new initiative to help developing countries strengthen their tax systems, says an official announcement. Analysis associated with the two institutions suggests that many lower-income countries have the potential to increase their tax ratios by at least 2 to 4 per cent of their GDPs, without compromising fairness or growth. Raising additional revenues will allow developing countries to fill financing gaps and to promote development. Pakistan is top on the list of the countries that need to reform their tax systems. In a recent statement, the IMF mission chief in Pakistan urged the rulers to broaden the country’s tax base. The country’s tax-to-GDP rati...
August 14, 2015 at 3:07 pm | News Desk
THE implosion of the Greek economy, the rise of Syriza and the implicit blaming of Greece’s creditors for the country’s woes present important lessons that should be drawn upon. The danger is that many people, including in Pakistan, are preparing to draw the wrong set of lessons. Greece got itself into a mess by not taxing sufficiently its richest elites, and by overspending on a bloated, overpaid and underworked public sector. Poor choices by politicians for decades, fully supported by a complicit populace that was only too happy to condone the perpetual postponement of serious structural reform, have finally caught up. Despite the massive and heartrending current suffering of ordinary Greeks, the foregoing is the sorry story of the...
August 14, 2015 at 2:59 pm | News Desk
By Amar Guriro KARACHI, Pakistan, July 6 (News Lens Pakistan) -- From its start in the Himalayas, the Indus River flows almost 2,000 miles to the Arabian Sea, ensuring there is fertile land for farmers along the way and sustenance for Pakistan's wildlife. The river is in trouble, though. Its 17 major creeks, which in the past helped push seawater back, have almost dried up, allowing the Arabian Sea to flow upstream, poisoning the Indus River Delta with salt water and fouling farmland. Meanwhile, sea levels are rising, swamping entire villages along the river and threatening a way of life for thousands of families. "There were many villages in our area, which are now completely submerged and the residents had moved somewhere el...
July 6, 2015 at 3:25 pm | News Desk
BEIJING (Reuters) - Nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and India will start the process of joining a security bloc led by China and Russia at a summit in Russia later this week, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Monday, the first time the grouping has expanded since it was set up in 2001. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) groups China, Russia and the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, while India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Mongolia are observers. "As the influence of the SCO's development has expanded, more and more countries in the region have brought up joining the SCO," Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping told a news briefing."...India and Pakistan's admission to the SCO...
July 6, 2015 at 3:17 pm | News Desk
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece lurched into uncharted territory and an uncertain future in Europe's common currency Sunday after voters overwhelmingly rejected demands by international creditors for more austerity measures in exchange for a bailout of its bankrupt economy. Results showed about 61 percent voted "no," compared with 39 percent for "yes," with 100 percent of the vote counted. The referendum — Greece's first in more than four decades — came amid severe restrictions on financial transactions in the country, imposed last week to stem a bank run that accelerated after the vote was called. Thousands of jubilant government supporters celebrated in Syntagma Square in front of Parliament, waving Greek flags and chanting "No, ...
July 6, 2015 at 2:57 pm | News Desk
The makers of one of the most expensive weapons programs in history went on the defensive today, saying a recent report on the F-35 fighter jet’s failures in old-school dogfighting against a decades-old, much cheaper legacy fighter “does not tell the whole story.”The report in question, posted on the national security news website War Is Boring, was based on an internal five-page brief in which an F-35 test pilot wrote a scathing criticism of the next-generation jet’s abilities in a January dogfight with an F-16, one of the planes the F-35 is designed to replace. Essentially, the pilot reportedly wrote, the F-35 was no match for the F-16 in close-up, high maneuvering fighting -- whether the F-35 was trying to get the F-16 in its si...
July 2, 2015 at 3:49 pm | News Desk
NEW YORK (AP) — A young Swedish woman who sued her former Wall Street executive boss over lurid allegations of sexual conquest, betrayal and stalking was awarded $18 million by a federal jury Monday. Hanna Bouveng, 25, accused Benjamin Wey in an $850 million lawsuit of using his power as owner of New York Global Group to coerce her into four sexual encounters before firing her after discovering she had a boyfriend. The jury in federal court in Manhattan awarded her $2 million in compensatory damages plus $16 million in punitive damages on sexual harassment, retaliation and defamation claims. It rejected a claim of assault and battery. Bouveng, who was raised in Vetlanda, Sweden, testified that soon after Wey hired her at New York...
July 2, 2015 at 3:43 pm | News Desk
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Southeast Asian countries will establish a humanitarian fund to help boatloads of Rohingya Muslim and Bangladeshi immigrants who have recently landed in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand, a Malaysian minister said Thursday. Singapore has pledged $200,000 to the fund, Malaysian Home Affairs Minister Zahid Hamidi told a news conference after chairing a special regional meeting on the refugee crisis. Since early May, more than 4,600 boat people from Myanmar and Bangladesh have come ashore in Southeast Asian waters, after human smugglers abandoned their boats amid a regional crackdown. Some are Bangladeshis who left their impoverished homeland in hope of finding jobs abroad. But many are Rohingya...
July 2, 2015 at 3:35 pm | News Desk