“Are we going to surrender [to TTP] once again?” — Justice Qazi Mohammad Amin Ahmed, Judge, Supreme Court of Pakistan Islamabad has always alleged that Indian consulates in Afghanistan were being used as covert bases by its spy agency Research and Analysis Wing [RAW] for orchestrating subversive activities inside Pakistan. It also maintained that the Ashraf Ghani government and Afghanistan’s […]

Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA) and International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) are concerned that authorities of Uzbekistan harassed and intimidated Khidirnazar Allakulov (Truth and Progress party / Haqiqat va Taraqqiyot), Mahmud Davronov (Free Motherland party / Ozod Vatan) and Jahongir Otajonov (Erk) and other outspoken opposition activists in the run-up of Presidential elections in October 2021 […]

The rapid fall of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) on August 15, 2021 was predictable to those who are familiar with the vast levels of corruption that plagued the country during the last twenty years. Widespread corruption, cronyism, extortion, and theft permeated all aspects of Afghan society, from the presidential […]

On 23rd October 2021, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress adopted the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) first dedicated law titled “Land Borders Law” which lays down provisions for border protection and integration of border areas. China currently has a 22,000-kilometre land border with 14 countries which is shared with Russia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Myanmar, and Nepal, […]

China and Central Asian countries should actively assist Afghanistan in dealing with humanitarian crisis and bringing about a smooth transition of the situation in Afghanistan, said attendees at a think tank forum held in Beijing on Friday. The think tank forum of China and five Central Asian Countries focused on the new situation of Afghanistan, the security and development of […]

US Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West said on Friday the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) letter to Congress this week “misconstrued the facts” about the country’s economic and humanitarian crises. In a series of tweets, West said: “The Taliban’s (IEA) letter to Congress earlier this week misconstrued the facts re Afghanistan’s economic & humanitarian crisis. Afghanistan was unfortunately already […]

Pakistan freed a hardline Islamist leader on Thursday, a week after removing his name from a terrorism watch list under a deal to end weeks of deadly protests by his followers, the government and his lawyer said. Saad Hussain Rizvi, the chief of a Sunni militant group – Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) – was released from a jail in Lahore city, […]

Abstract: In spite of the evolution in Taliban shadow governance over the past decade and the group’s growing sense of military and political momentum, the first three months of the reinstated Islamic Emirate revealed the group’s struggles with the responsibilities of national sovereignty. The Taliban have busied themselves consolidating control, reacting swiftly and harshly to perceived threats. They have not […]

Jung Chang’s Wild swans: Three daughters of China, 2004 [1991], skewers Mao and Maoism like no other memoir of the surreal hell that China descending into from 1954 until the death of Mao in 1976. Both her parents were model communists, her father one of Mao’s early disciples in Yunan, the golden age for Mao. Both were tormented starting in […]

Satellite images released in early-October revealed recent construction at Ream Naval Base on Cambodia’s Gulf of Thailand coast, part of a China-backed redevelopment plan. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative reported that over August and September, three new buildings had been constructed, while several areas had been cleared of foliage and a road was under development. The activity comes amid concern […]