The Londoner

Ziarat is the capital of Ziarat District, Pakistan. It is a famous holiday resort of Balochistan and nearly every trip from Karachi to Quetta stops at Ziarat. Ziarat, literally [an Islamic] shrine, was the summer residence of the chief commissioner of Baluchistan, and sanatorium for the European troops at Quetta: 8850 ft. above the sea and 33 m. by cart-road from the railway. There is a good water supply, and the hills around are well-wooded and picturesque. Ziarat is also very famous for its juniper trees. The juniper forest in Ziarat is the world's second largest. The junipers are considered to be the real treasure of Ziarat. There are trees in the valley which are more than 7000 years old. In Ziarat a herb called Ephedra sinica is found in abundance from which a chemical called ephedrine is extracted, an important constituent of various medicines, especially cough syrups. When the snow falls in Ziarat's winter the juniper valley is at its most beautiful. In the winter season

When a group of men calling themselves Descendants of the Serbian Fighters From the 1912-20 Balkan Wars congregates for a ritual burning of the U.S. flag, most of the patrons of La Dolce Vita don't even bother to turn around. The morning sun is glorious on the terrace of the split-level bar overlooking the Ibar River, and the young men in black T-shirts are content to smoke their Marlboros and nurse their cokes, eyeing the more prosperous opposite bank of the river. They never cross the bridge, of course, because the Ibar marks the dividing line between Mitrovica's Serb north side, and its ethnic-Albanian south side — enclaves that have, for the past decade, been so separate that they might as well have been different countries. In fact, the reason the "Descendants" are burning Old Glory is ostensibly to protest Washington's support for the "fake state" of Kosovo. But today's flag-burning is entirely for the benefit of a lone Serbian TV camera, and m

PESHAWAR - Tribal elders from FATA region here Friday have demanded of the government either to declare FATA as fifth province or establish there immediately an independent legislative council on the pattern of Northern Areas. They said this while hailing the abolishment of FCR and government's efforts for peace in the FATA region in a press conference here Friday. They said that dialogue for resolving the issue of militancy was better than using the guns. However, they said that illiteracy and poverty are the real issues, which need to be addressed immediately and they also demanded of the government that projects for the uplift of FATA region should be initiated forthwith. The elders who spoke on the occasion were Mohammad Ismail from Aurakzai Agency, Sahibzada Younis Khyber Agency, Yousaf Khan Mohmand Agency, Mohammad Rafiq Kurram Agency and Said Rehman Bajaur Agency. They unanimous supported the steps of the newly elected federal government for peace in the region. They said th

Owais Mughal Balochistan has been blessed by an awe inspiring landscape and scenery. A man made means to explore all this expanse of beauty had been the Railways in this province (see Bolan and Trans-Baluchistan). I have deliberately used past tense in the previous sentence because one such railways in Balochistan is getting uprooted right now; at this very moment; as I am writing these lines. This section of railways, when laid during the British Raj, was called the Zhob Valley Railway (ZVR). It has been out of service since 1986 but these days all the left over track is being uprooted and sold as scrap. This has provided me the motivation to write this post and re-visit the history of this once longest Narrow-Gauge Railways of the subcontinent. The photos above show the Narrow Gauge locos (#57) which was used on ZVR and is now preserved at PR HQ Building in Lahore During First World War, a Railway line was laid from a place called Khanai (30 km north of Quetta) to a place called Hind

Tribal elders today demanded that FATA be made Pakistan’s fifth province or given a special status like the Northern Areas. They seek the integration of their region into Pakistan’s mainstream yet do not want to lose their influence nor their areas’ distinctness. The Awami National Party (ANP), which leads the NWFP-governing coalition, would like FATA integrated into the Frontier Province, soon to be renamed Pakhtunkhwa. This position of the FATA elders, which is also consistant with that of many of the militants, stands in contrast to the Pakhtun nationalist orientation of the ANP. While the ANP seeks to be the ’sole spokesman’ of the Pakhtun, this will not be possible given the natural and strategic differences between the Pakhtun within and on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border

In the midst of all kinds of opinion about the “sincerity” of the PPP government in pursuing the cause of the judges and its “concealed sympathy” with President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has spoken at the National Defence University in Islamabad, and explained the stance of the partisans of democracy in the country vis-à-vis military intervention. He told the class that Pakistan had a few officers in the army who got together with “a class of politicians, bureaucrats, judiciary and affluent members of the civil society” to block the process of establishing democratic institutions in Pakistan. According to Mr Gilani, Pakistan paid a heavy price for this “civil military alliance” which flouted the supremacy of parliament and other democratic institutions. It created polarisation in the country and made it difficult for the political parties to get together on one minimal plank. In fact, he said, the only politics Pakistan knew in the 1990s was the musical chairs

KARACHI, June 06 (APP) : Ports in the country can be handed over to the provinces as a provincial subject under the spirit of maximum provincial autonomy, says Minister for Ports & Shipping Qamar-uz-Zaman Kaira. During his visit to Port Qasim on Friday when his attention was drawn by media to the demand of Baloch nationalist leaders that they would campaign for transfer of the ownership rights of Gwadar Port to Balochistan, the Minister replied that the Government has already decided to minimize items on the Concurrent list to possible level. Gwadar Port owns only 600 acres of land and the rest land is occupied by private housing schemes under the administration of Balochistan Government, he said. “ We have planned to sit with all stakeholder and review what items/subjects can be transferred to the Provinces under the first phase of giving provincial autonomy ,” the Minister said. He said Pakistan People’s Party has always supported provincial autonomy and was seriously working for