The Londoner

During his first visit to Kabul since his election for a third term in May this year, Mr Sharif on Saturday met with Afghanistan’s President Karzai , and assured the leader that “Pakistan would continue to extend all possible facilitation for the Afghan peace process”. He said the release of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar , the former Taliban number two, freed from years of detention last September, would help to jumpstart peace negotiations with the Taliban. Afghanistan considers that Pakistan holds significant influence over the Taliban, who are believed to launch attacks from bases in the country.  Read the full story here.  HOME 

Chief Minister Balochistan Dr. Abdul Malik told Dawn.com on Saturday that it was decided in principle to educate Balochistan 's schoolchildren on the history of veteran Baloch and Pashtun leaders. He said that the names and political struggles of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti , Mir Ghous Bakhsh Bizenjo, Khan Shaheed Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai, Mir Yousaf Aziz Magsi and other leaders would be included in the curriculum. Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a Baloch nationalist leader, was killed in August 2006 in an explosion in a cave where he had taken refuge during a military crackdown ordered by Gen Pervez Musharraf , who was president and army chief at the time. Bugti had led an armed campaign to press for provincial autonomy and a greater share of profits from Balochistan’s natural resources. The death of the Baloch chieftain had sparked angry protests in parts of the country. “We cannot deceive our younger generations,” Dr. Baloch said. “We want our kids to know about their elders wh...

KARACHI :  A conglomerate of two leading Chinese construction companies , China Railway Engineering Corporation and Sinotec , has offered to construct the Gwadar-Khunjrab Rail Link at an estimated cost of Rs250 billion. This cost includes Rs160 billion for infrastructure and Rs90 billion for locomotives on electric traction. This investment is designed on a four-year, soft-loan term basis. The offer was made to Minister for Railways Khwaja Sa’ad Rafique on behalf of the consortium in a detailed presentation carried out by Song Shuan Ping. The loan can be treated as a professional loan, commercial loan or a grant and will be payable in seven years. Pointing out the strategic importance of Gwadar-Khunjrab Rail Link, Ping listed a number of benefits which could be availed once the project was operational. “The main aim of the link is to connect the Central Asian Republics with the Pakistan Railways Network ,” said Ping. “This will immensely improve trade relations between C...

At least three people have died after a police helicopter crashed into a busy pub in Glasgow , the BBC has been told. A source close to the investigation said the final number of fatalities would almost certainly be higher. The crash happened at The Clutha in Stockwell Street at 22:25 on Friday. People are still thought to be trapped. There were three people on board the helicopter - two officers and a civilian pilot. Thirty-two people have been taken to local hospitals. A senior fire officer said they had made contact with some people trapped inside the pub but the building was unsafe and they were taking a "methodical" approach to the rescue. The emergency services could be seen on the pub's roof trying to rescue people from inside. Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond is due to speak at a press conference shortly. There are expected to be updates from the police, fire and ambulance services. It has been reported that about 120 people were in ...

India has drawn inspiration from the wall coming up on the West Bank and the Berlin Wall that symbolised Cold War to plan a 10-metre high embankment along the 198-km stretch of international border that separates Jammu from Pakistan , reported Indian media on Saturday. The security wall is being erected to keep ‘infiltrators’ out, claimed the media. The wall will be higher and wider than both the Berlin Wall and the serpentine barrier that Tel Aviv is creating. It will be 135 feet wide and pass through 118 villages in the districts of Jammu (72), Kathua (17) and Samba (29). Although there is no official estimate yet on the total cost, the Indian home ministry will fund the project, which will be handled by the Indian Border Security Force . The project spells revival of an idea mooted a few years ago after an attack on the police and army by two armed men. Instead of brick and mortar that went into the making of the walls in Berlin and Israel , the proposed embankment will u...

In response to the first half of the question, and bowing to the contemporary wisdom that anything can be reduced to the length of a tweet, I offer up this definition: American liberalism is belief system that combines egalitarian impulses with a conviction that markets often fail and that the government should seek to address these failures. (Actually, that’s about one and a half tweets, but never mind.) Now to how liberalism is faring . If you’ve been reading some of the articles out of Washington in recent weeks, you may have received the impression that it’s an endangered creed, and that the troubled rollout of the Affordable Care Act might just about finish it off. I’m not just referring to the coverage in conservative outlets like the  National Review , the Weekly Standard , and the op-ed page of the  Wall Street Journal , which have been publishing obituaries of liberalism for decades. In mainstream and even liberal publications, some of the best columnists in Wa...

According to a study of a financial think-tank from Switzerland , there are 415 people in Pakistan , who own more than $30 million each as compared to 310 last year, registering an increase of 33.9 percent, which is a record in Asia . Collective income of these people remained around $50 billion, the study revealed. Only seven to eight business groups of the 22 families continue to operate their businesses significantly and the remaining families have either closed their businesses or have shifted abroad. Dr Ishrat Husain , former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), and a renowned economist, said only Dawoods, Adamjees, Sehgals, Shaikhs, Nishats and a few others have survived the economic ups and downs during this period, while Haroons, Batlas, Valikas, Isfahanis, Noons, and Rangoonwalas, have disappeared from the economic scene. The nationalisation process in 70s also affected their economic position, he said, adding that some of the families went abroad and ...