The Londoner

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani banks are operating on sound footing, despite the domestic rush for dollars, cash withdrawals and the international financial turmoil. The health of the banking system was illustrated by the fact that bank mergers and acquisitions are going apace, and profits stay good. It’s a sound sector for foreign and domestic investment. This contrasts with the government’s ongoing efforts to internationally mobilise $4 to $5 billion, and the talk of an economic downturn. The banking system escaped serious raging effects of the current turmoil emanating from United States which also infected the European financial institutions and business. Besides the banking system, practices and the bankers themselves being still somewhat conservative and looking more to United Kingdom and Europe, they stayed away from practices that had led to the US sub-prime crisis, derivatives and the related happenings. While the banking system is performing alright, there have been some recent hiccu...

In Indian-administered Kashmir, George Arney reflects on the recent clashes between Muslim demonstrators and police which have left many dead. For the son of a doctor who always blenched at even the mention of blood, I have spent far too much time during my reporting career in hospitals. And a lot of those hospitals have been in Indian Kashmir. At the end of the 1980s, an armed rebellion broke out in Kashmir against Indian rule. Hospitals in the picturesque but dilapidated capital Srinagar were always treating young Kashmiris - shot in demonstrations, maimed by Muslim militants or recovering from being tortured in the interrogation centres located innocuously in grand colonial-era mansions overlooking Srinagar's Dal Lake, which was famed, in more peaceful times, for its Mughal gardens and its quaint houseboats. Hospitals were good places to go to get the stories of young people caught up in the Kashmir tragedy. Summer of violence Nearly 20 years on, the same is still true. The spar...

The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan are areas outside the four provinces bordering Afghanistan, comprising a region of some 27,220 km² (10,507 sq mi). The other area of Pakistan also outside the provinces is Azad Kashmir. Contents The FATA are bordered by: Afghanistan to the west with the border marked by the Durand Line, the North-West Frontier Province and the Punjab to the east, and Balochistan to the south. The total population of the FATA was estimated in 2000 to be about 3,341,070 people, or roughly 2% of Pakistan's population. Only 3.1% of the population resides in established townships.[2] It is the most rural administrative unit in Pakistan. The Tribal Areas comprise seven Agencies, namely Khyber, Kurram, Bajaur, Mohmand, Orakzai, North and South areas of Waziristan and six FRs (Frontier Regions) namely FR Peshawar, FR Kohat, FR Tank, FR Banuu, FR Lakki and FR Dera Ismail Khan. The main towns include Miranshah, Razmak, Bajaur, Darra Bazzar, Ghalanai ...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Islamabad wants to talk to the next U.S. administration about boosting investment in border regions hit by Islamist militant violence, Chinese state media quoted Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari as saying. Pakistan's relations with the United States are strained after U.S. forces in Afghanistan carried out cross-border strikes on al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Pakistan. Washington wants Pakistan to stop the free flow of militants from its near-lawless border states into Afghanistan to join the Taliban insurgency but Islamabad is wary of provoking a backlash. The official China Daily newspaper quoted Zardari as saying Islamabad would encourage investment in the troubled regions and try to win more preferential treatment for their products in U.S. markets. Zardari ended a four-day visit to China on Friday. "We are looking for a dialogue when the new U.S. administration comes into being. And we are going to work firmly for the signing of a FTA (Free Trade...

KARACHI: Canada's High Commissioner Designate to Pakistan, Randolph Mank said Pakistan's law enforcement agencies face severe challenges when operating on border with Afghanistan and a lot more needs to be done. “I am delighted to note there have been some very significant achievements, represented by a number of arrests made and seizure of illicit consignments, " he told deputy Director General, Pakistan Coast Guards Abdul Rashid Thursday after giving five pickups, four printers and four digital cameras. The equipment is supplied by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and funded entirely by Canada as part of its broad based assistance program to Pakistan (Pakistan Border Management Project). It will aid Pakistan Coast Guards in patrolling capability of Makran coast. Under the umbrella of UNODC'S Triangular Initiative covering Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan which enhances existing capacities of law enforcement agencies, charged with managing Western border...

In the New York district of "Little Pakistan", the US presidential race is being closely followed. Pakistan has become a key issue in the presidential campaign with Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, and John McCain, his Republican rival, clashing over the unilateral use of military force to attack inside the country if Osama bin Laden is found to be hiding there. And while Pakistani-Americans are concerned about the Bush administration's "war on terror" and immigration, there is one issue that resonates above all others. "The economy first, the economy second and the economy third," says Malik Akbar, a travel agent in the area whose business has suffered, first from the US economic downturn and then from the global credit crunch. Community concerns Little Pakistan, which runs through the Midwood area of Brooklyn in the east of New York City, looks as though it has seen better days. Many of the community's shops were closed when A...

PEACE talks with the Taliban were back on the agenda last night as a historic secret session of Pakistan's parliament revealed leaders of the country's ruling coalition now favoured dialogue over military action. Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party that is a key component of the coalition dominated by the Pakistan People's Party, emerged as "a spokesman for the Taliban" yesterday as the parliament concluded its second week of debate on how to deal with the jihadi militants sweeping the country. A spokesman for the Pakistan Taliban added to the momentum for negotiations by saying "unconditional talks" could be held if the Government stopped its military operations. Maulvi Omar, speaking from a hideout in the strategic valley of Swat, where intense fighting is going on between the Pakistan army and the militants, said peace talks would start if military action was halted. "We are willing to negotiate with the Government ......