The Pakistani economy has always been a delicate tightrope walk, riddled with challenges and precariously balanced between progress and peril. Recent events, however, have ignited a fiery debate regarding the nation’s financial trajectory, thrusting two starkly contrasting narratives into the spotlight. On one side stands the legacy of Imran Khan’s ousted government, is remembered by many for bold reforms and […]

On January 30, 2024, three Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed and another 15 sustained injuries in a gunfight with Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres along the Sukma-Bijapur border in Bijapur District. The gunfight erupted when the CRPF personnel were working to establish a Forward Operating Base (FOB) – a remote camp meant to facilitate Security Forces […]

On February 1, 2024, a violent mob desecrated an Ahmadi grave at Sahwala village in the Sheikhupura District of Punjab. Filmmaker and activist Ali Raza on X (formerly Twitter) brought attention to the incident, stating, “There are reports of Maulvis in Sheikhupura excavating an Ahmadi grave and vandalizing the tombstone. These are the same impoverished individuals we assist through charity, […]

In a recent long opinion article for the New York Times, pundit Thomas Friedman announces “a titanic geopolitical struggle between two opposing networks of nations and nonstate actors over whose values and interests will dominate our post-Cold war world.” (NY Times, January 26, 2024, p. A26). This perception is not silly. The essentially unipolar hegemony enjoyed by the United States […]

Earlier this month, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists published its annual assessment of China’s nuclear forces. The authors of the latest assessment state that China has gone through significant expansion and modernization of its nuclear forces as well as enhancing the size of its arsenal. Despite the relative lack of transparency involving China’s nuclear weapons program, which makes it difficult […]

While the U.S., Russia and Europe are trying to quell (or aggravate) crises simultaneously in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Israel/Gaza, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea/Yemen, Uzbekistan and China have quietly elevated their partnership. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev made a state visit to China on Jan. 23-25, visiting Beijing and Shenzen. While there he met with China’s President Xi Jinping […]

Risks are integral to nations’ pursuits of their national interests. However, today, the risks have magnified and diversified amid rising extraneous challenges and their knock-on effects, ranging from environmental degradation and global warming to humanitarian disasters and wars. Added to the mix is the growing misuse of economic leverage by countries like China as part of their foreign policy to […]

Pakistan has its own reasons to spy on Russian-Indian military and diplomatic ties, but it also can’t be discounted that some of the secrets obtained by this agent were also passed along or sold to the US after Pakistan’s pivot back to it in April 2022. The latest spy scandal to rock Russia doesn’t involve Western agents for once but […]

Established In: 1994; Established By: Mohammed Omar; Also Known As: Taleban; Country Of Origin: Afghanistan;

The Iranian government has traced this month’s twin suicide bombings in Kerman city to ethnic-Tajik fighters of the Islamic State Khorasan Province who, experts say, are “fairly small” in number but play “an important part” in the group’s military activities. The Afghanistan-based branch of the Islamic State (IS-K) claimed responsibility for the January 3 blasts that killed at least 95 […]