| Pakistan nuclear facilities at risk: security expert | 23-NOV-09 |
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| A Taliban insurgency and the war in neighbouring Afghanistan have put Pakistan's nuclear arsenal at risk giving rise to a "troubling" situation, an arms control expert who served as former US President George W Bush's national security adviser has said. |
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| Pak has more nuclear weapons than India: report | 18-NOV-09 |
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| Pakistan is estimated to have more nuclear warheads than India and the two Asian neighbours along with China are increasing their arsenals and deploying weapons at more sites, two eminent American atomic experts have claimed. |
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| Holbrooke to visit Berlin, Paris and Moscow; skips India | 13-NOV-09 |
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| Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke is travelling to Europe to consult with leaders in Germany, France and Russia, before traveling to Kabul to attend the inauguration of Hamid Karzai for his second term as the Afghan President. |
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| Saving Afghan democracy | 04-NOV-09 |
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| The re-election of Hamid Karzai as President of Afghanistan augurs well for the future of democracy-building in this troubled nation. Whatever the merits and demerits of the election process, President Karzai still retains the ability to keep his nation united and ensure that it has a fighting chance to win the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Karzai’s critics may have a good case against him on many counts, but he remains the best bet for the future of Afghan democracy. His main rival, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, is also a good and competent man, but he would not have been able to fill the space that would have been vacated by Karzai, if for no other reason than his ethnic identity. As a Pashtun, Karzai represents a larger, and politically more important, segment of the Afghan people. Retaining their commitment to democracy-building is vital, before Afghan democracy can focus on empowering other, minority, groups like Dr Abdullah’s Tajik brethren. |
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| Shanthie Mariet D'Souza: Opium, charity and Kabul's 'war economy' | 30-OCT-09 |
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| Opium, and the economy it spawned, has for long been regarded as the root of Taliban funding. Poppy cultivation in the insurgency ravaged South and East Afghanistan was estimated to have contributed almost 50 per cent to the nation’s GDP. In recent months, analysts have pointed to other branches of funding for the Taliban. Of these, foreign donations in the form of “Islamic charities” have emerged as the largest source. |
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| Pak charge of India funding Taliban totally false: PM | 29-OCT-09 |
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| Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today strongly rejected Pakistan's charge that India was funding Taliban, saying it was "far-fetched and far from truth" and those levelling such allegations "know it jolly well". |
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| Siege within: Pakistanis look to India for solutions | 26-OCT-09 |
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| The coordinated terrorist attacks against military installations as well as civilian bazaar areas across Pakistan over the last week seem to have thrown the country into such a nervous spin that ordinary Pakistanis are beginning to ask if better relations with India can help restore some desperately-needed normalcy to their country. |
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| Ahmed Rashid: Fight for Waziristan's survival | 24-OCT-09 |
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| After nine suicide attacks in just 11 days that killed 160 people, including many from the security forces, the Pakistan Army has finally started its long-awaited offensive in South Waziristan where the Pakistani Taliban are based. The success of the offensive, against the backdrop of a serious civil-military division in Pakistan and unresolved debate in Washington, could be critical for the fate of Pakistan, which is financially broke and politically paralysed. |
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| Situation in Pak very serious: Antony | 19-OCT-09 |
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| Warning that the situation in Pakistan is "very serious", Defence Minister A K Antony today said terrorism is "spreading" in that country and asserted that India is prepared to meet any challenge from Taliban militants. |
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| 60 militants killed in Pak's Waziristan offensive | 19-OCT-09 |
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| Pakistani jets and artillery pounded Taliban bases for the second day today, killing 60 militants in the lawless Waziristan region as ground forces continued their push into the strongholds of the Taliban and captured two key towns from them, despite stiff resistance. |
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| V V: The Terror Axis: Taliban, ISI & opium | 17-OCT-09 |
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| Gretchen Peters’ Seeds of Terror: The Taliban, the ISI and New Opium Wars (Thomas Dunne Books, Hachette India reprint, Rs 495) tells you why Afghanistan and Pakistan’s North West Frontier provinces will always be on the boil that will spread into the Punjab and increase in intensity, as recent events have shown. Aided and abetted by rampant corruption spread by poppy growers to the Taliban and other local powers, to drug lords and their allies in government, the influence of opium money pervades Afghan life. Afghanistan today provides 93 per cent of the world’s heroin, far exceeding the combined production of Colombia, north Myanmar, Thailand and other regions of the world. Peters examines the depth of the opium problem and describes how opium sales have ballooned since 2001 and continue to grow exponentially, earning more than half a billion dollars off the opium trade. Why and what could be the consequences for us is the central question asked in the book. |
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| US working to squeeze terror funding of LeT, al Qaeda, Taliban | 15-OCT-09 |
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| The US has begun to squeeze the funding and flow of money to terrorist organisations in the Af-Pak region including the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Haqqani network and Laskhar-e-Taiba, and keeping a tab on "hawala" transactions, a top Obama Administration official has said. |
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Content Guide
