Skip to content

December 25, 2009

Obama, Pakistan and Mullah Omar

  Why Islamabad resists going after Quetta shura

 LAHORE: No matter how many troops President Obama orders to Afghanistan, victory will also require a surge across the Pakistan border that the Taliban and al Qaeda-but not American GIs-cross easily. The President knows this, but he hasn’t made Pakistan’s help any easier to obtain by signalling his intention to draw down a mere year after his surge troops arrive in Afghanistan.Read More »Obama, Pakistan and Mullah Omar

Islamabad diary: A cause of national confusion?

  • by

Ayaz Amir

Lampooning presidents, prime ministers and politicians is the very stuff, indeed the soul, of journalism. There is no such thing as positive journalism, a notion put about, mostly in a whining manner, by government information departments. Journalism is at its most responsible when it is explosive and incendiary, shaking people out of accepted modes of thinking. It is at its most irresponsible when it follows the dotted line.
Read More »Islamabad diary: A cause of national confusion?

A city ‘turned around’?

Ahmad Rafay Alam

A few days ago, I found myself in a room full of people who agreed that Karachi “has been turned around” and now “looks like a reasonably functioning city.” This impression had been brought about someone’s recent visit to the same city where gun-battles had claimed 28 lives in July, where news of the death of Rehman Dakait brought out tens of thousands of mourners to offer his namaz-e-janaza, where over half its people live in slums and where water is now critically short in supply. A strange opinion to hold, given the circumstances, I thought, and wondered what criterion must be applied for someone to completely overlook the real issues that face a city.Read More »A city ‘turned around’?