The US-Turkey tussle on September 3, 2018Recent months have witnessed increasing deterioration of the US-Turkey relations. Both sides have traded barbs and accusations and imposed sanctions against each other. Earlier this month, Washington slapped sanctions against Turkey’s justice and interior ministries, prompting Ankara to reciprocate in kind. The Trump administration announced that it would double its tariffs on Turkish steel and […]
The politics of chemical weapons on May 4, 2018On the 18th of April, 2018, international media all over the world circulated harrowing videos of children and young men, seemingly suffering from asphyxiation. The videos showed the aftermath of a suspected chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government in Douma, the last bastion of rebel forces in Eastern Ghouta. More than 70 people, most […]
Coming home to roost? on March 21, 2018Sectarian violence is one of the greatest threats Pakistan faces and poses a challenge to its internal stability. Clashes between the members of two main sects of Islam (Sunnis and Shias) had risen phenomenally during 1980s and 90s, in the backdrop of Afghan Jihad, Iranian revolution and Zia era’s politics of Islamisation and the mobilisation […]
Will Iran protests yield results? on January 12, 2018On the eve of the New Year, a new wave of protests greeted the government of Iran. Thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the incumbent government and raised slogans against a range of issues: economic grievances, political dictatorship and misplaced foreign policy priorities. To quash the popular uprising, Rouhani-led reformist government […]
The death knell of the two-state solution? on December 20, 2017On December 6, 2017, President Donald Trump officially recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, plunging the fraught region into a new crisis. It has also led to speculations and warnings that by reversing its decades-long policy-based on UN Security Council Resolution 242, advocating a political settlement of Israel-Palestine conflict along the pre-June 1967 borders, […]
Israel would consider French invitation for Palestine peace talks: spokesman on January 31, 2016JERUSALEM – Israel would consider a French invitation to peace talks with the Palestinians, but believes France has made a mistake by saying it will recognise a Palestinian state if the talks fail, an Israeli government official said on Saturday. “If and when we get an invitation to a conference, we will examine it and […]
EOBI-Amtex case : SBP refuses to share information with FIA on January 28, 2016KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), which implicated the country’s top stock brokerage house AKD Securities in the EOBI-Amtex case, has suffered another setback as the State Bank of Pakistan has categorically refused to share any classified information with it about the AKD Group, sources said. Desperately seeking evidence against AKD Securities in the case, […]
Another Palestinian uprising on November 20, 2015It has been over a month since another spontaneous uprising erupted in Palestine. Palestinian youth, both men and women, have resorted to what is called in popular media as ‘lone wolf attacks’ against illegal Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. If the stone was the symbol of the first intifada and violent […]