The dispute over the state of Jammu and Kashmir, a legacy bequeathed by the British before their departure from the subcontinent, has bedevilled relations between India and Pakistan since August 1947...
The public humiliation of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, had a far deeper purpose than was apparent at first sight: it was meant not only to deflect attention from the military’s role in nuclear proliferation...
As this issue of Crescent International goes to press, general Pervez Musharraf remains president of Pakistan, despite two attempts on his life within a few days...
There have been two inter-related constants in Pakistan’s foreign policy: appeasement of the US, and warding off predatory India. The latter has been the bane of Pakistani policy-makers since the country came into existence in 1947; the core issue that has soured relations with India is the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir.
That the unanimous approval of the Shari’ah Bill by the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) assembly on June 2 should send the secular elites into a frenzy is a telling sign of the true state of affairs in the "Islamic Republic" of Pakistan.
The telephone conversation between Pakistani prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Indian prime minister, on April 28, is believed to have renewed hopes for restored diplomatic relations between the two nuclear neighbours.
Pakistan has been afflicted by two curses since the beginning of its existence: one a quirk of geography and the other of choice. At its birth Pakistan was saddled with an enemy, India, many times its size; and its ruling elites’ desire to pursue "friendship" with America is the second, warping its policies in the process.
Given president George Bush’s limited grasp of international affairs, it would be unrealistic to expect him to understand why America is hated so much worldwide, but his advisors should be better equipped to deal with the reality of global politics.
While attention is focused on the US-engineered Iraq crisis, the world’s real axis of evil, comprised of the US, Israel and India, is getting more involved in Afghanistan. Although the Americans have in effect occupied Afghanistan, they have failed to subdue the Afghans...
Muslims are so short of success stories these days that they are willing to clutch at any straw to beguile themselves. Take, for instance, the elections in Pakistan on October 10, in which an alliance of six “Islamic” parties surpassed even their own highest expectations.
On October 3, the International Awakening Centre (IAC) recommended the names of the Indian prime minister, AB Vajpayee, the US president, George W Bush, and the British prime minister, Tony Blair, to the Norwegian Nobel Institute for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
General Pervez Musharraf is not the first Pakistani ruler to believe that he has a divine right, not only to rule, but also to rearrange the political system because he alone knows what is best for the country.
The US-imposed Afghan government has begun to unravel. Public works minister Haji Abdul-Qadir, who was also one of three vice presidents, was gunned down in broad daylight in Kabul on July 6.
Pakistani president general Pervez Musharraf has made a grand retreat on Kashmir while pretending to be safeguarding his country’s interests. The unkindest cut is that this has happened under American pressure despite Musharraf’s abandoning a 25-year policy on Afghanistan in order to appease Washington.
Pakistani president general Perwez Musharraf walked a fine line in his televised address to the nation on May 27, defiantly asserting Pakistan’s willingness to defend itself against India for popular consumption while also asserting his commitment to prevent ‘terrorists’...
The war in Afghanistan had spilled over into Pakistan long before the car/bus bomb explosion in Karachi on May 8 that killed 16 people, 11 of them French technicians working on Pakistan’s submarine project.
Pakistan goes to the polls on April 30 (after Crescent press time) in a Zia-ul-Haq style referendum designed to legitimate general Perwez Musharraf’s continuing as ‘president’ for another five years.
General Pervez Musharraf won widespread praise for his speech of January 12, attacking Pakistan’s Islamic institutions, not only from the West but from other established enemies of Islam such as Indian home affairs minister L. K. Advani and Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres.
With Qazi Husain Ahmed, its amir (leader), in detention since October, the Jama’at-e Islami, an Islamic political party in Pakistan, is feeling somewhat adrift, although acting amir Syed Munawwar Hasan is trying gamely to lead.
India has moved quickly to cash in on the anti-terrorism frenzy sweeping the world by branding the struggle in Kashmir as terrorism.
