In December this year, India will assume presidency of the economic grouping, G20, which comprises major developed and developing economies. For one year thereafter, New Delhi will be in the driver’s seat. It is not expected to be an easy ride given the rather difficult economic bends and steep geopolitical humps that will have to be negotiated. In fact, the […]

A war of words between Azerbaijan and Iran has again heated up, with semi-official sources in Azerbaijan openly calling for Iran’s large ethnic Azerbaijani minority to break free. “The time has come: Southern Azerbaijan should secede from Iran,” went an August 26 headline on Caliber.az, a website connected to Azerbaijan’s presidential administration. (“Southern Azerbaijan” is the irredentist term for Iran’s […]

A suicide bombing outside the Russian Embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul on Monday killed two members of the embassy staff and at least one Afghan civilian in a rare attack on a foreign diplomatic mission in Afghanistan.

What’s new? The rise of a local Islamic State franchise and the growing influence of a hard-line and violent protest movement known as “Labaik” that draws support mostly from Pakistan’s Barelvi majority, open a new chapter in the country’s sectarian violence, which until recently was driven largely by Deobandi groups.

Dr. Qalandar Ebad, the Minister of Public Health, has met with a number of Iranian officials and visited various health departments in Iran. In his meetings with Iranian health officials, Ebad called for cooperation in the sector between Kabul and Tehran especially in terms of Iran’s health sector models. He also said the improvement of capacity and the strengthening of […]

Afghan Minister of Commerce and Industry has said that Afghanistan should be included in the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure project. “In talks we had with China, it was mentioned that we should partner with China in the Belt and Road Initiative and China-Pakistan-Economic Corridor and other programs that China has at the international level,” Nooruddin Azizi said in […]

At least one civilian was killed and 10 others were wounded in a blast on Monday morning in PD7, Kabul police confirmed. Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said that at around 11:00 am a suicide bomber attempted to detonate explosives near the Russian embassy on Darulaman Road. “The suicide bomber was identified by security forces before reaching his target, which […]

Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi spoke with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov late Monday after an explosion outside the Russian Embassy in Kabul killed two embassy staff members earlier in the day. In a phone call, Muttaqi assured Lavrov a thorough investigation would be carried out. He also said Kabul and Moscow should not allow such acts to undermine […]

A highly anticipated report from the United Nations chronicles China’s mistreatment of the Uyghur ethnic group, a Muslim minority in the far western region of Xinjiang that according to the United States is suffering genocide. The report includes testimony from 40 people who say they were subjected to arbitrary detention as well as various forms of torture and humiliation, including […]

Pakistan’s historic flooding covering a third of the country is a complex humanitarian disaster illustrating how excessive water can quickly overwhelm land by brute force. Understanding the fluid dynamics of increasedflooding because of quickening climate change is essential to create preventive measures involving water runoff, water tables and tides. The basic data is alarming. The worst flooding occurred along the […]