Showing posts tagged Pakistan

Storify - The embattled Husain Haqqani

David Grant in our DC bureau (and from DC Decoder) created a Storify post to capture the story currently unfolding around the potential resignation of this morning’s Monitor Breakfast guest, Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US.

Kashmir – torn by nuclear rivals India and Pakistan – hopes new trekking business will divert timber smugglers and help revive the economy. View high resolution

Kashmir – torn by nuclear rivals India and Pakistan – hopes new trekking business will divert timber smugglers and help revive the economy.

Good Reads: Pakistan's Musharraf speaks, US talks tough, and Congo's elections loom

Best news analysis on top international news stories around the web.

Good Reads: Protests in Syria, Soviets in Kabul, US-Pakistan breakup

Good morning Tumblr, here is your daily dose of Good Reads, thanks to The Guardian, Al Jazeera and The Washington Post.

Why Kashmir is so quiet - for now


REUTERS/Fayaz Kabli

After security forces killed 117 civilians in Kashmir last summer, B.N. Ramesh took over as a top police officer here and saw a mess that his MBA degree could help him fix.

Last summer, young people led street protests against India’s presence here that prompted deadly police crackdowns, which in turn fueled more protests. This summer, in contrast, the valley has been mostly calm.

Why the calm? Young Kashmiris were not happy with the police. So Mr. Ramesh tried a new tactic: The Central Reserve Police Force in Kashmir (CRPF) began organizing sports teams for young men, hired discontented youth from 70 villages, gave away computers, and set up medical camps to offer free health care.

“People’s problems can be put into mathematical equations,” says Ramesh, who cites business management gurus like IBM’s Louis Gerstner, Jr. and Harvard University’s Michael Porter for informing his counterinsurgency theories. “The more we manage [people’s] frustration, the more … the war cries for so-called independence will calm down.”

(Source: csmonitor.com)

thepoliticalnotebook: Meanwhile in Karachi… Thirty-four people have been killed in continued violence over the past two days. The total killed in July’s outbreak of violence and unrest is over 300. The Sindh provincial government has now deployed rangers to conduct a targeted operation inside Pakistan’s largest city and main financial hub. Since late June, when the Muttahida Qaumi Movement left a coalition with the Pakistan People’s Party to join the opposition, political rivalries exacerbated by elements capitalizing on the upheaval, Karachi has been in the midst of crisis, with an incredible loss of life and a constant state of fear. Above, an attempt to deal with burning vehicles on a street in Karachi. Photo Credit: Mohammad Noman/Express Tribune. Read the news stories at the Express Tribune and the AP View high resolution

thepoliticalnotebook:

Meanwhile in Karachi… Thirty-four people have been killed in continued violence over the past two days. The total killed in July’s outbreak of violence and unrest is over 300. The Sindh provincial government has now deployed rangers to conduct a targeted operation inside Pakistan’s largest city and main financial hub. Since late June, when the Muttahida Qaumi Movement left a coalition with the Pakistan People’s Party to join the opposition, political rivalries exacerbated by elements capitalizing on the upheaval, Karachi has been in the midst of crisis, with an incredible loss of life and a constant state of fear. Above, an attempt to deal with burning vehicles on a street in Karachi. Photo Credit: Mohammad Noman/Express Tribune.

Read the news stories at the Express Tribune and the AP

(Reblogged from thepoliticalnotebook)
“
When the Taliban descended upon this land of craggy mountains and misty waterfalls, they razed girls schools, kidnapped villagers for ransom money, and killed elders, all under the banner of Islam.
At first, few resisted. In this deeply conservative corner of Pakistan, the lure of Islamist rhetoric as well as a handsome purse of $350 a month enticed many, and the Taliban soon controlled most of the Bajaur tribal agency.
But three years ago Shahabuddin Khan, a farmer and the leader of the Salarzai tribe, called his men to arms to counter the Taliban, a group he calls “false Muslims.” That show of strength, together with the militants’ partiality for kidnapping and looting, helped shift public opinion here.
“Earlier people were fooled when they [the Taliban] played the Islam card. They carried out suicide attacks in our funeral prayers. They didn’t leave mosques alone. They can’t be Muslims, and the people now realize this,” he says.
Issam Ahmed reporting from Pashat, Pakistan on a local lashkar (makeshift army of peasants and workers) that drove out the Taliban (false Muslims) from their village. Ahmed remarks that what they lack in equipment, members of the lashkar make up for in determination.

(Source: csmonitor.com)

Pakistan's foreign minister: The face of a new generation of peace with India?

One indication of new peacebuilding between India and Pakistan: Social-media interactions between the two countries are burgeoning. Facebook reports logging more than 200,000 interactions between Indians and Pakistanis each day. That’s up from 70,000 a day in April.

PHOTO: Sameer, a six-week-old, internally-displaced infant, cries while lying on his father’s legs after arriving at higher ground in Sukkur, Pakistan. Sameer and his family took refuge along a highway after leaving their village to escape this year’s monsoon season. (REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro) Monsoon season  has once again come to Pakistan, with many wondering what infrastructure, if any, has  improved since last year’s record flooding. According to an article today from The Nation, a recently released Oxfam report says that reconstruction after the floods is predicated to cost up to $10.9 billion, almost one-quarter of the national budget.  The same article reports that according to the UN, 20 million to 50 million people are likely to be affected by this years’ floods. Oxfam says more than 800,000 families remain without permanent shelter and more than a million people remain in need of food assistance. View high resolution

PHOTO: Sameer, a six-week-old, internally-displaced infant, cries while lying on his father’s legs after arriving at higher ground in Sukkur, Pakistan. Sameer and his family took refuge along a highway after leaving their village to escape this year’s monsoon season. (REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro)

Monsoon season  has once again come to Pakistan, with many wondering what infrastructure, if any, has  improved since last year’s record flooding.

According to an article today from The Nation, a recently released Oxfam report says that reconstruction after the floods is predicated to cost up to $10.9 billion, almost one-quarter of the national budget. 

The same article reports that according to the UN, 20 million to 50 million people are likely to be affected by this years’ floods. Oxfam says more than 800,000 families remain without permanent shelter and more than a million people remain in need of food assistance.

Pakistan school offers orphans refuge to prevent turn to militancy

A Muslim charity provides free schooling to Pakistani orphans, putting itself at the forefront of a national effort to close the education gap and reduce the appeal militancy holds for children.

The Ummah Welfare Trust, a Muslim charity based in England, opened the academy in 2007 and now houses about 700 orphans. Classrooms and dorms line a central, grassy quad, and mosque. The students pray five times a day and are taught the Koran, as well as a curriculum published by Oxford University Press that includes English, computer skills, and hard sciences.

Full story here.