The Londoner

The Government is coming under increasing pressure to reveal if the UK is providing intelligence to help the US carry out drone strikes in Pakistan. Lawyers for the son of a man killed in such an attack have written to the foreign secretary William Hague wanting to know what the UK's policy is. Pakistan has called the strikes, which the US does not publicly acknowledge, a violation of its sovereignty. The Foreign Office says it will study the letter closely before responding. The law firm Leigh Day & Co is acting on behalf of Noor Khan, whose father was killed earlier this year in a drone strike on a jirga - or council of elders - in north-west Pakistan . Richard Stein, head of human rights at the firm, said he wanted to know whether any information was being passed by agents of the UK Government to US Government forces to assist in the attacks. He said: "This legal action simply looks to ask a number of questions of our government regarding UK involvemen...

Be it a natural catastrophe, man-made brutality, an economic nose-dive or fatal epidemics; Pakistan has been falling prey to the contamination of time, trauma and transition.  Just when we thought we had started rehabilitating after the disastrous floods of 2010, another torrent for  Sindh  (a province in southern Pakistan ) was waiting around the corner. In spite of its magnitude, it did not frighten us as much as the one before this did. One may comprehend that we as a nation have come out of the past devastation so strong that no such calamity can hold us back. As a matter of fact, the rationale is slightly different this time around. Without tagging our attitudes with the expressions like 'heartless' or 'inhumane', one needs to underscore other angles to this dilemma. The fact that hardships do not scare us any longer is itself quite frightening. Now the question arises 'what is keeping us so preoccupied' that we have started refraining from contemplat...

President Asif Ali Zardari , in Dubai for nearly two weeks for medical treatment, may return to Pakistan on Sunday night, two sources familiar with the president's travel plans said. "He will fly out tonight (Sunday night)... he will leave in about two to three hours," a worker from Zardari's Pakistan People's Party told Reuters. "He is perfectly fine now and was just waiting for the doctors to give him a go ahead to travel." Another Pakistani source in Dubai said Zardari was expected to leave later on Sunday but gave no specific time for the departure. They said Zardari was flying back to Pakistan but did not say whether he would land in Islamabad or Karachi . Read the full story here. 

About 30,000 Islamists staged a protest on Sunday to condemn the United States and show support for Pakistan's military , which has reasserted itself after a cross-border NATO attack and a controversial memo that has weakened the civilian government. Speakers included Hafiz Saeed, a fiercely anti-American cleric suspected of links to the group blamed for the 2008 militant rampage in the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166 people. Also at the podium was Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, known as the father of the Afghan Taliban , who are fighting U.S.-led NATO forces across the border in  Afghanistan . Pakistan's military was humiliated by the unilateral U.S. special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani town in May, facing unprecedented public criticism. But many Pakistanis rallied behind it after a November 26 cross-border NATO air raid killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, and plunged already troubled ties with Washington to a low point. Read the full story ...

By Sikander Hayat  Pakistan has continued their winning streak and have beaten Bangladesh comprehensively in the first cricket test being played in Bangladesh . Younis played the main role by scoring a double hundred while Hafeez & Asad Shafiq scored hundreds. All Pakistani bowlers bowled well especially Rehman and Ajmal were unplayable for Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a weak opposition but I am liking this new Pakistan which is more consistent and reliable in finishing off the opposition than many other Pakistani sides of recent years . Misbah ul Haq does deserve a lot of credit for this transformation and I would like to thank the English judge in the corruption case regarding spot fixing. 

By Sikander Hayat December is the month when Pakistan lost its eastern half of  East Pakistan  which became Bangladesh in 1971. The cold chilly nights of December send shivers down the spine of Pakistanis forcing them to contemplate about what went wrong. Why our brothers who created Muslim League, who suffered partition of Bengal , who were at the forefront of the movement for the independence of Pakistan felt so angry that they decided to part their ways from the rest of Pakistan. I do not want to blame our brothers from Bengal (East Pakistan) for wanting to secede as they gave us 24 years to correct our wrongs but leaders of West Pakistan, the intelligentsia, the elite and the general public attitude never considered East Pakistan as their integral part. There was a hint of racial, intellectual and martial prejudice and then there was a feeling in Eastern Pakistan that West Pakistan considered them the insignificant other. It has been 37 years but the wounds are s...

By  Robin Lustig   Perhaps I should start with a statement of the blindingly obvious: Russia is not Egypt . Yes, there were thousands of anti-government protesters out on the streets of the capital this week. And yes, the security forces responded with great brutality. And yes again, online social networks played an important role in galvanising the protests and giving a voice to the protesters. But no, an autocrat is not about to be toppled. And no, Vladimir Putin is not Hosni Mubarak . So I suspect any references to a "Russian spring" (in December, for goodness sake?) should be taken with a very large pinch of salt. Let's rewind a few days. Last weekend, Russian voters went to the polls to choose a new parliament. This is not an event that normally excites much interest, because there is rarely any doubt about who is likely to win. But this time was different. It was the first test of public opinion since Vladimir Putin (currently prime minister) and ...