The Londoner

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday ceremonially broke ground on a $9.59 billion nuclear power complex to be built in Karachi with China’s help, seeking to ease Pakistan’s long-running energy crisis and signaling a new step by China in becoming a top nuclear supplier. The deal, which officials said was still being finalized, is a major new advance in energy cooperation between the two countries, dwarfing previous reactor projects built along with China at Chashma , in Pakistan’s interior. And it establishes a growing counterpoint to a nuclear axis between the United States and India in recent years that Pakistani officials have seen as an irritant and Chinese officials have seen as a geopolitical challenge. “The beginning of the 2,200-megawatt power project is indeed a proud moment in the energy history of Pakistan,” Mr. Sharif said at the ceremony, adding that the construction was to be completed in six years. The Chinese ambassador to Pakistan, Sun Weidong, and officials fr...

Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif travels to Kabul on Saturday to hold "in-depth" consultations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on how to promote bilateral relations and Afghan peace efforts.  This will be Mr. Sharif's first official visit to Afghanistan since his election after May's parliamentary polls.  A foreign ministry statement issued Friday in Islamabad says the Pakistani leader will also hold talks with members of the Afghan High Peace Council tasked with persuading the Taliban to end violence and join a sputtering political reconciliation process.  Read the full story here.  HOME 

By Sikander Hayat Appointing Mullah Fazallulah as the chief of of TTP was a very calculated move by Taliban to convey the message to Pakistan that they are not going to negotiate. It is time that Pakistan has a clear policy with respect to Taliban, Afghanistan & India. It is now very clear that intelligence agencies like RAW , NDS & CIA are all now working together to undermine Pakistan & keep it unstable in the medium to long term. Indian establishment has been successful in keeping Pakistan busy in Waziristan & other parts of FATA and keep their attention away from Kashmir . Also, India is waging a dirty war in Baluchistan against the Pakistani state & its civilians. Indian intelligence is waging a proxy war in Waziristan & Balochistan by funding the terrorist groups like that of Mullah Fazallulah who is known as the butcher of Swat . On one hand, India talks about resolving the Kashmir issue & on the other, they are backstabbing Pakista...

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan , Pakistan opened its borders and at least 5 million Afghans moves to Pakistan . Most of these people still live in Pakistan and social structure of the country has been greatly altered with the arrival of Afghan refugees as Pakistan government decided to practically abolish the border between Pakistan & Afghanistan with free movement of labour, capital & general population. Many Afghans have Pakistani passports and as well as Afghani passports. Currently there are more Pashtuns living in Pakistan, than Afghanistan as they have spread all over Pakistan. Awami National Party (ANP) i s now the third biggest political force in Pakistan’s commercial capital Karachi after Pakistan Peoples Party & MQM. This is due to the fact that Karachi’s politics have turned into an ethnic number game where Pashtuns vote for ANP, Muhajirs vote for MQM & Sindhis vote for PPP. As the moment of America...

By Sikander Hayat Current crisis on the line of control in Kashmir could have been handled well by the Indian establishment but the fact that it did not morph into a full blown crisis augers well for the future prospects of peace but there is an open question of Afghanistan hanging over India & Pakistan relations. If India decides to have a footprint in Afghanistan than Pakistan will fight tooth and nail to keep the eastern & southern Afghanistan in its sphere of influence as it is vital for the security of Pakistan to have these areas in Pashtun hands. USA should have conceded this fact a long time ago and this Afghanistan war could have ended few years earlier rather than going on until now and ending with a potential humiliation for the Western alliance . Pakistan has legitimate interest inAfghanistan and Pakistan has been trying to convey this message since the American invasion nearly 12 years ago. Pakistan & India need to reach a grand bargai...

Steep U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan brings substantial risks The Obama administration appears determined to vacate Afghanistan as fast as possible. If the latest leaks are to be believed, officials are willing to leave as few as 6,000 U.S. troops behind after 2014 , concentrated at the Bagram air base and a few other installations around Kabul . The mind boggles at what this would mean in military terms. Consider one simple fact: Kandahar , the city where the Taliban movement started, is 310 miles southwest of Kabul . Imagine that intelligence analysts have identified a “high-value target” — say, a terrorist facilitator with links to both al-Qaeda and the Taliban — in Kandahar. How would the U.S. military capture or kill him without a secure base in Kandahar ? This scenario is, on some level, fanciful, because the lack of a U.S. presence on the ground around Kandahar would make it very difficult to generate useful intelligence. Ho...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Militants launched a coordinated assault on the main airport in the northwest city of Peshawar late Saturday, killing at least five people and injuring 45 others in an attack likely to renew questions about the government’s ability to combat Pakistan’s five-year insurgency. [Updated 11:57 a.m. Dec. 15: Authorities later raised the death toll to nine -- four civilians and five militants. ] Militants fired a volley of rocket-propelled grenades at Bacha Khan International Airport, damaging a section of the boundary wall, said Information Minister Iftikhar Hussain. The airport is also home to an air base used by the Pakistani air force. No aircraft were damaged in the attack, and after a couple of hours troops had secured the airport and surrounding area, Hussain said. There was no word as of late Saturday night where those who were killed or injured were at the time of the attack, but local authorities said most of the rocket fire hit houses ...

By Sikander Hayat Pakistan is going through a terrible time and it seems that matters are quickly getting out of the hands of people who ought to be in control. There are huge domestic problems as well as a small matter of foreign interference by United States, India& Afghanistan .  By any stretch of the imagination, the biggest threats are emanating from within the country . Huge increase in population with total lack of infrastructure has turned Pakistan into a laboratory of diseases like HIV & Hepatitis of all forms.  Internal & External debt has reached a level which cannot be serviced without outside help. I do not know the definition of a failed state but we cannot be very far off from that disaster . All state institutions are in race to the bottom and prime examples are PIA (Pakistan International Airlines), Pakistan Railways, health & education system to name but a few. PIA is on the verge of a major disaster which could c...

KAJAKI, Afghanistan — Navy corpsman Andrew Sieber leaned over the injured Afghan policeman, who had a gunshot wound to his right shoulder. Sieber, 24, inspected the policeman's bandages and then helped load him onto a vehicle for the short but bumpy ride to a landing zone ringed by mountains. Within moments, the policeman was whisked away by an American helicopter that had squeezed over a steep mountain range and landed in a blast of dust. "He'll be fine," Sieber said, removing his rubber gloves. "We haven't lost anybody yet." He said they get three or four wounded Afghans a week. The war in Afghanistan has changed. The Afghan forces are doing most of the fighting and taking a larger share of the casualties, as U.S. forces withdraw. But Afghanistan's military remains dependent on Americans for medical evacuation helicopters, surveillance and equipment to counter roadside bombs. Afghan commanders worry the withdrawal of American force...

On the southern outskirts of the city Zaranj, where the last derelict shanties meet an endless, vacant country — beige desert and beige sky, whipped together into a single coalescing haze by the accurately named Wind of 120 Days — there is a place called Ganj: a kind of way station for Afghan migrants trying to reach Iran . Every day except Friday, a little before 2 in the afternoon, hundreds of them gather. Squatting along a metal fence, Hazaras, Tajiks, Pashtuns, Uzbeks and Baluchis from all corners of the country watch the local drivers move through a fleet of dilapidated pickups — raising hoods, inspecting dipsticks. A few hope to continue on to Turkey, Greece and ultimately Western Europe. Most harbor humbler dreams: of living illegally in Iran, of becoming bricklayers, construction laborers, factory workers or farmhands. When one of the drivers announces he is ready to go, as many as 20 migrants pile into the back. The leaf springs fle...