US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday told Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari that US President Joe Biden’s administration was looking forward to working with the new government in Pakistan and discussed “expanding partnership” between the two countries. The meeting took place in New York on the sidelines of the food security meeting that the US is hosting in […]

A number of exiled Afghan politicians recently gathered in Turkey’s capital Ankara where they formed a council and called on the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to engage in talks with them. The politicians met at the residence of former vice-president Abdul Rashid Dostum and included Abdu Rab-ur-Rasool Sayyaf, Atta Mohammad Noor, Mohammad Mohaqiq, Karim Khalili, Ahmad Wali Masoud, Mohammad […]

Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, and his delegation met with a number of Afghan businessmen in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Tuesday to discuss the possibility of them returning home. According to Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Mullah Baradar told the Afghan businessmen: “Whatever you are interested in investing in the country, the Islamic Emirate is fully committed […]

Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan is currently in the country and has already met with the IEA’s foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi. Bennett who is in Afghanistan on a 10-day visit, is expected to engage with Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) officials, international and national representatives of NGOs and other organizations, […]

Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, India’s ban on wheat exports has reignited worldwide concerns about rising food prices that can exacerbate the problems of food-deficit countries especially neigbouring countries. The Indian high commission in Dhaka has clarified recently concerning India’s ‘ban’ on wheat exports, saying that the directives have no bearing on shipments of wheat previously contracted for […]

Today, Afghans make up the largest refugee group in the world and Pakistan hosts the world’s second largest number of refugees in its territory. An estimated 3.5 million Afghan refugees are present in Pakistan since 1980s, half of which are registered, and it is speculated that about equal number of them are living unregistered. These refugees who hail from Afghanistan […]

It may be said without mincing words and unequivocally that the latest decision of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif not to increase electricity and gas tariffs and prices of petroleum products has pushed Pakistan further away from reconciliation with International Monetary Fund (IMF). He was required to approve the increases, as a preamble to the commencement of negotiations between IMF and […]

Incontrovertibly Pakistan has been the country that bore the extreme brunt of extremism. Due to its significant geostrategic location, it has been the epicentre of the US war against terrorism in Afghanistan making it more vulnerable to violence spilling over from the neighbouring war-raged country. Apart from the Afghanistan factor, Pakistan remained the earmark of terror attacks for hosting Chinese […]

According to Forbes.kz, Kazakhstan’s top-three wealthiest amassed an additional $2.5 billion in one year. The Nazarbayev family was prominently featured in this year’s Forbes list of Kazakhstan’s richest people, but the country’s First President himself did not appear in the ranking, showing the limits of the system’s transparency. Nursultan Nazarbayev, who left the presidency in 2019 after three decades in […]

The new government could either take the decision of cutting fuel subsidies or call for fresh elections and leave that tough decision to an interim government. There is a meme on the internet showing three children playing a videogame but only two have their controller cords plugged into the console. The third child, who appears to be the youngest, is […]