Letter to Editor What exactly comes to your mind when you think of Swat? Yes, apples, green meadows, lakes, natural beauty, peace, serenity and the "the Switzerland of the region.” It was a dreamy place for me too, till 2009. It was the year when for the first time I heard about army operation against the Taliban in Swat valley. I was shocked. News like “105 killed in Swat clashes”, “Inside rebel Pakistan c ...

AFP ISLAMABAD — Pakistan said Wednesday it is to sue a British newspaper that claimed to have uncovered a visa scam that could have allowed potential terrorists into the Olympic Village. The Sun tabloid said it had busted a racket involving a politician in the eastern city of Lahore that could have given access to the London Games as part of the Pakistani contingent in return for one million rupees ($10,000 ...

By Anatol Lieven To judge by discussions I had with figures close to the Afghan Taliban in Dubai last week, on certain key issues the Taliban leadership and the US administration are far closer than most analysts believe. The chief obstacle to a peace settlement is likely to come not from Taliban links to al-Qaeda but rather from the question of how to divide up power within Afghanistan. My colleagues and I ...

Posted By Zaheerul Hassan BEIRUT — With warplanes circling overhead, Syrian attack helicopters pounded rebel-held neighborhoods in Aleppo on Tuesday in an escalation of the battle for the country's commercial capital and largest city, residents and activists said. Following a pair of rebel assaults on the country's two main cities and a bombing that wiped out some of his top security last week advisors, Pre ...

Posted By Zaheerul hassan South African companies that have operations in the UK or the US – or are listed in these territories – that fail to comply with anti-corruption legislation could be on the receiving end of devastating fines or even incarceration of key stakeholders.   This is according to Steven Powell‚ a Forensics Executive at ENS (Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs)‚ who spoke at an Anti-Corruption Compl ...

By Sajjad Shaukat With the full backing of the civil and military leadership in melting further ice between Pak-US ties, the Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lt-Gen Zaheerul Islam will visit America and will meet Director CIA General David Petraeus on August 2. [caption id="attachment_2227" align="alignright" width="316"] Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam , DGI[/caption] Notably, the scheduled ...

PROFESSOR ALI SUKHANVER According to media reports, the new ISI chief, General Zaheer-ul-Islam would be there in Washington on 2nd of this August to hold talks with CIA Director David Petraeus on counter-terror cooperation and intelligence sharing. Since after the ‘uncivilized and unethical’ raid of the US marines in search of Osama Bin Laden in Abbotabad, the relationship between the two countries is conti ...

PROFESSOR ALI SUKHANVER According to media reports, the new ISI chief, General Zaheer-ul-Islam would be there in Washington on 2nd of this August to hold talks with CIA Director David Petraeus on counter-terror cooperation and intelligence sharing. Since after the ‘uncivilized and unethical’ raid of the US marines in search of Osama Bin Laden in Abbotabad, the relationship between the two countries is conti ...