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Russia Tilt Towards Pakistan Scares India
Pakistan and Russia, two Cold War era rivals held their first-ever joint military drill during September 27-October 10, 2016. This new development has scared Pakistan’s regional rival India. Modi’s government is furious that its hysteria over Kashmiri separatists’ attack on India’s occupied Kashmir base which resulted in the death of 17 Hindu soldiers and wounding another 23 soldiers, didn’t convince Russia to cancel the drill. Last month, India did succeed, however, in getting SAARC summit in Islamabad in November 2016 cancelled by convincing Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan to boycott it. On September 29, 2016, Jewish online news website The Diplomat, boasted that SAARC cancellation will sting Pakistan, but wouldn’t stop Pakistan making new terrorist attacks against India. Professor Sergey Lunev at the Oriental Studies Department of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations tried to calm down New Delhi fears in an interview with Pravda newspaper. “The military drill is not an index of friendly relations, but these are the first drills ever held with Pakistan. Before that Russia abstained from military or political contacts with Pakistan, mainly because of very friendly relations with India in military, political, and uncompromising support for India against Pakistan,” he said. Last month, Moscow agreed to sell six battalions of country’s upgraded missile defense system S-400 to Indian Air Force to defend itself from aerial attacks from Pakistan or China. Under the multi-billion dollars deal, India is expected to receive first shipment of S-400 by end of 2017. India already has American AWACs. China received its first S-400 system last year. Pakistan is currently negotiating to buy a new long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) system from China. Soviet Russia had been India’s main source of military imports since the 1950s. But lately, United States began selling arms and providing nuclear technology to India to make it America’s regional...
Pakistan Urges Afghan Refugees Repatriation by 31st March 2017
Pakistan has urged Afghan refugees to ensure their repatriation by 31st March of next year. In a statement, the Ministry of States And Frontier Regions has advised them to adopt the way of voluntary and dignified return to their country in extended time, Radio Pakistanreported on Sunday. The Ministry said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is providing 400 dollars each refugee for their repatriation and they should get advantage of this financing and get Afghan National Identity for their children. This article originally appeared on www.jasarat.org, October 09, 2016. Original link. Disclaimer: Views expressed in the article are not necessarily supported by CRSS.
Afghanistan 15 Years On: Obama’s Sorriest Legacy
Twelve days after 9/11, on September 23, 2001, CIA Islamabad station chief Robert Grenier received a telephone call from his boss, George Tenet. “Listen Bob,” Tenet told him, “we’re meeting tomorrow morning at Camp David to discuss our strategy on Afghanistan. How should we begin?” Over the next three hours, Grenier laid out the U.S. battle plan in an eight-page paper, then sent it on to Washington. President George W. Bush approved Grenier’s memo and gave the task to the CIA, whose mandate was to destroy Al Qaeda, wrench control of Afghanistan from the Taliban and hunt down Osama bin Laden. Tenet handed ops off to CIA veteran Gary Schroen, who then directed his staff to contact the Pentagon to recruit the help of special operations. “Reach out to these guys,” Schroen told an aide. “Let’s talk to the SEALs. Let’s talk to Delta. ... Anybody you know, let’s invite.” But as it turns out, the U.S. military didn’t seem all that interested in Afghanistan. Schroen’s aide came back to report: The special operations people couldn’t decide on who should go. And so it was that America’s war in Afghanistan, dubbed Operation Enduring Freedom (renamed Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in 2014), began as a strategic and tactical muddle on October 7, 2001, when the air campaign began 15 years ago. It remains a muddle to this day. And a muddle—possibly an intractable one—is precisely what the next U.S. president will inherit from Barack Obama, despite the 44th president’s strenuous efforts to pull out of Afghanistan entirely before he left office. In all, the U.S. has spent over $850 billion on the Afghanistan war, suffered nearly 2,400 dead and the Taliban are not only back in the field, they’ve made steady progress in wresting control of the country from the U.S.-backed Afghanistan government. The Pentagon would like to convince us that the glass is half full: Two weeks ago the Defense Department announced that “U.S. backed forces control 70 percent” of the country. Another...
America's War in Afghanistan: 15 Years, Three Stories
Fifteen years ago, in response to 9/11, the United States launched a bombing campaign in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, that led to the end of the radical fundamentalist Taliban regime and initiated one of the world's most expensive rebuilding projects. Since then, Afghanistan has seen significant progress in women's rights, millions of children who might otherwise have been denied educations have been to school, and independent media have flourished. And yet, for all the billions spent, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest and most unstable countries in the world, with corruption rife, the drug trade rampant, and growing insecurity a global concern. As the longest war in U.S. history enters its 16th year, we asked three Afghans from different parts of the country how they think their lives have been affected and what they think the future holds. INFOGRAPHIC: Afghanistan: 15 Years On Roya Mahboob in her office in New York Roya Mahboob Tech entrepreneur Herat, western Afghanistan In 2001, Roya Mahboob was 12 years old and living with her family in neighboring Iran, where they had fled after the Soviet invasion of 1979. As an Afghan refugee, Mahboob was not allowed to enroll in an Iranian school. Without access to the Internet or even a computer, she assuaged her interest in technology by studying books on computer hardware. "When I came back to Afghanistan, I found so many new opportunities," Mahboob, a native of the relatively stable western Afghan city of Herat, tells RFE/RL. "Like me, there were many girls and boys who took advantage and changed their lives, their family's lives, and changed their future." Today, Mahboob is one of few female CEOs in the country. She founded her Afghan Citadel Services, an IT consulting firm, in 2010, and she and her 25 employees (most of them women) provide computer, Internet, and software assistance to schools, hospitals, and businesses around the country. In 2013, Time magazine included her on its list of the 100...
America’s War in Afghanistan: 15 Years, Three Stories
Fifteen years ago, in response to 9/11, the United States launched a bombing campaign in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, that led to the end of the radical fundamentalist Taliban regime and initiated one of the world's most expensive rebuilding projects. Since then, Afghanistan has seen significant progress in women's rights, millions of children who might otherwise have been denied educations have been to school, and independent media have flourished. And yet, for all the billions spent, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest and most unstable countries in the world, with corruption rife, the drug trade rampant, and growing insecurity a global concern. As the longest war in U.S. history enters its 16th year, we asked three Afghans from different parts of the country how they think their lives have been affected and what they think the future holds. INFOGRAPHIC: Afghanistan: 15 Years On Roya Mahboob in her office in New York Roya Mahboob Tech entrepreneur Herat, western Afghanistan In 2001, Roya Mahboob was 12 years old and living with her family in neighboring Iran, where they had fled after the Soviet invasion of 1979. As an Afghan refugee, Mahboob was not allowed to enroll in an Iranian school. Without access to the Internet or even a computer, she assuaged her interest in technology by studying books on computer hardware. "When I came back to Afghanistan, I found so many new opportunities," Mahboob, a native of the relatively stable western Afghan city of Herat, tells RFE/RL. "Like me, there were many girls and boys who took advantage and changed their lives, their family's lives, and changed their future." Today, Mahboob is one of few female CEOs in the country. She founded her Afghan Citadel Services, an IT consulting firm, in 2010, and she and her 25 employees (most of them women) provide computer, Internet, and software assistance to schools, hospitals, and businesses around the country. In 2013, Time magazine included her on its list of the 100...
How India-Pakistan Tensions (And Us-China Rivalry) Are Raising Nuclear Stakes
An escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan is likely to increase Chinese support for Pakistan and add impetus to India’s strategic partnership with the United States, further polarising the subcontinent geopolitically and increasing the nuclear threat in the region. China is now expected to raise its already substantial defence cooperation with “all-weather friend” Pakistan and possibly resume transfers of strategic weapons technology that were officially ceased in the 1990s under US pressure. “The conventional wisdom is that China will intensify support to Islamabad amid rising India-Pakistan tension,” said Michael Kugelman, senior associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Centre, a Washington think tank. “China will want to reiterate its commitment to Pakistan and express its strong support, particularly if Beijing starts to worry that India’s more muscular approach towards Pakistan could entail efforts to undercut or even sabotage the China-funded China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project.” The US$46 billion trade route running from Pakistan’s Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea to China’s Xinjiang (新疆), is a “One Belt, One Road” initiative designed to expand China’s economic and political outreach in Asia as well as provide its landlocked, backward western provinces a sea route for trade. Tensions between India and Pakistan have been rising since last month, when 18 Indian soldiers were killed by a militant strike on an army base in India-administered Kashmir. India blamed the attack on Pakistan-based militants and within days launched a retaliatory “surgical strike” on alleged militant bases on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control, the de facto border between the two countries. Pakistan has denied any complicity in the militant attack on the Indian army base and has also denied India’s “surgical strike” ever took place, but that has hardly helped matters, with fears rising over a fully fledged conflict between the...
Exiled From Pakistan, Destitute Afghans Return To a Country at War
Almost 40 years ago, Allah Noor took his family to a safe haven in Pakistan, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Last week he returned, to a country at war. At the crack of dawn, when his family crossed the border to Afghanistan on a truck heaving with all their possessions, they were greeted by the roar of fighter planes returning from nightly bombing missions. A white surveillance blimp hovered above. Noor’s family is among more than 100,000 Afghans who have been coerced out of Pakistan since July. Pakistan’s government has ordered all Afghan migrants and refugees to leave – about 3 million people. Roughly 250,000 of their number have left so far this year, according to figures from the World Food Programme, in the biggest eviction of Afghans in decades. Whole neighbourhoods are being uprooted, often second- or third-generation refugees with little connection to Afghanistan. Many arrive in their place of origin to find no help from international agencies. Pakistani authorities have raided homes, and returning families have spoken of police harassment and arbitrary arrests. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Ocha, expects 600,000 Afghans to have returned by the end of the year. With another 250,000 people newly displaced by the Afghan conflict, the UN warned last month of a looming humanitarian crisis. Yet the response from international aid agencies has been slow and insufficient. Noor’s family of 18 left after months of intimidation by police, who came to their house near Peshawar almost every day to order them to leave. The family’s truck crossed the Afghan-Pakistan border post at Torkham. Slipping out of the bottleneck of decorated jingle trucks, they passed Jalalabad airport, which since 2001 has been occupied by the US military with its jets anddrones. Noor, 62, is the family’s only adult male. Two sons live in Saudi Arabia and the UK. In the back of the truck sat burqa-clad women, squeezed among a thicket of...
Zakhilwal Says 3,80,000 Afghan Refugees Repatriated
As many as 3,80,000 Afghan refugees have been repatriated from Pakistan since January till October 6 this year, Afghan Ambassador Omer Zakhilwal said Friday (October 7, 2016), the highest figure since 2002 after the ousting of Taliban from Kabul. Afghan Ambassador Omer Zakhilwal told CRSS that the figure of the repartiation includes both registered and unregistered cases. “The UNHCR is giving figure of only registered repatriation,” he added. UNHCR Spokesperson Duniya Aslam Khan said that 218,000 registered refugees were repatriated this year till October 6. According to an estimate, over a million of the Afghan refugees are living without registration in Pakistan. “Proof of Registration” Cards were issued to the refugees in 2009, validating their stay until December 2009 that later kept on extending. Recently the date was extended till March 2017. It is the highest figure of Afghan refugees return since 2002 in Pakistan as more than 1.5 million Afghan refugees were repatriated from Pakistan in 2002. The spokesperson said that the tightening of control over the border especially the Torkham area is a major cause of the increasing number of volunteer repatriation of Afghan refugees as they now cannot move across the border freely. Earlier, the refugees used to travel to Afghanistan for meeting relatives or trade without any check or documentation. Cracking down on illegal refugees who had no Proof of Registration Card also expedited the process of repatriation. The law enforcement agencies have also allegedly started harassing the registered refugees due to security reason, also a factor for large number of the repatriation. “Checking of the refugees was due to the security reason and then finding out unregistered cases in not possible if you don’t check the refugees,” an official told CRSS on the condition of anonymity. Abdul Qadir 33, who along with his 7-member family recently returned to Kabul after 20 years in Islamabad, said that difficulties...
World Bank report: Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016: Taking on Inequality
Two complementary goals to leave no one behind On April 20, 2013, the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank adopted two ambitious goals: end global extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity in every country in a sustainable way. This implies reducing the poverty headcount ratio from 10.7 percent globally in 2013 to 3.0 percent by 2030 and fostering the growth in the income or the consumption expenditure of the poorest 40 percent of the population (the bottom 40) in each country. These two goals are part of a wider international development agenda and are intimately related to United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 10, respectively, which have been adopted by the global community. Each goal has an intrinsic value on its own merits, but the two goals are also highly complementary. Take the example of a low-income Sub-Saharan African country with a high poverty headcount ratio and an upper-middle-income country in Eastern Europe or Latin America with low levels of extreme poverty, but rising concerns about inequality. Ending extreme poverty is especially relevant in the former, while expanding shared prosperity is especially meaningful in the latter. The complementarity of the two goals also derives from the composition of the world’s poor and bottom 40 populations. At a global scale, while 9 in every 10 of the extreme poor were among the national bottom 40 in 2013, only a quarter of the bottom 40 were among the extreme poor (both cases refer to the orange area in figure O.1) This complementarity has three important implications. First, by choosing these two goals, the World Bank focuses squarely on improving the welfare of the least well off across the world, effectively ensuring that everyone is part of a dynamic and inclusive growth process, no matter the circumstances, the country context, or the time period. Second, monitoring the two goals separately is necessary to understand with precision the progress in achieving better living...
Top NATO Aide Wants Kashmir Dispute Resolved
A top Nato official on Thursday said the world cannot remain indifferent to the issue of Kashmir. “The Kashmir dispute has to be addressed as two nuclear powers are party to it,” Chairman of the Nato Military Committee General Petr Pavel was quoted as saying in a meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. “The world cannot remain indifferent and must be concerned,” the visiting Nato general said. “The international community and the United Nations have to be consistent on principles and rules while addressing important issues,” he added. Gen Pavel said Nato wants a broader political framework agreement with Pakistan to expand mutual military cooperation. “By virtue of its size, Pakistan can play an important role in the region. We expect a broader political framework agreement between Pakistan and Nato to unlock further mutual military cooperation,” the Prime Minister’s Office quoted him as saying. He called the scale of Pakistan’s counter-terrorism campaign ‘large and impressive in yielding results’. “Pakistan has shown great progress in the war against terror in the last couple of years. The reconstruction and rebuilding process will be worth following in this regard,” he said. Prime Minister Nawaz said his government has a stated policy on Afghanistan which he expressed from the day one after assuming the responsibilities as premier. “We have conveyed to the leadership of Afghanistan that the enemies of Afghanistan are the enemies of Pakistan and we have stood by our words,” he said. The prime minister said that even yesterday Pakistan announced an assistance of $500 million in addition to an earlier assistance of $500 million for Afghanistan to help them overcome problems and achieve stability. “We genuinely believe that stability in Afghanistan is crucial for achieving stability in our own country and the region,” he added. “I myself and the chief of army staff visited Afghanistan and always assured them of our fullest cooperation to root out the...
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I am also a member of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting. Recently, we held a meeting with the Director General of Radio Pakistan and we told them to initiate such local programs (like Constituency Hour) in regional languages to educate and inform people. Even Indian Radio can be heard in FATA which is being used for propaganda purposes and must be closed. Therefore, we should launch some standard and quality programs like CRSS that will change the taste of the listeners.