Pakistan’s Dirty War In Balochistan
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
The Pakistani government has branded Baloch separatist organizations as “terrorists.” The Balochs suffer from high rates of poverty, low literacy and other woes — all of which serve to fuel an insurgency. According to the World Bank, eight of Pakistan’s 10 most deprived districts are located in Balochistan. Just 22 percent of Balochs are literate, versus 47 percent for Pakistan as a whole, and only 20 percent of Balochs have access to drinking water, versus 86 percent for the country.
The Dilemma of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy
Why can’t Islamabad get its foreign policy on track?
By Muhammad Akbar Notezai – The Diplomat
Speaking earlier this year at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs on “Continuing Search for Stability: Pakistan and Afghanistan,” noted Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid was quoted as saying by Dawn that Pakistan has made two “grievous mistakes” in its foreign policy. The first came at the end of the Cold War, he said, when Pakistan decided to “move proxy resources to Kashmir,” radicalizing the Kashmiri nationalist movement.”
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Pakistan Ready for Nuclear Non-testing Agreement with India: Aziz
By PTI - The Times of India
Pakistan was ready for a bilateral moratorium with India on nuclear non-testing, the country's top diplomat said on August 12.
"We have declared a unilateral moratorium on further testing. Pakistan is prepared to consider translating its unilateral moratorium into a bilateral arrangement on non-testing with India," the Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said.
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Pakistan Will Never Transfer Nuclear Weapons to Others: Sartaj
Dispatch News Desk
Pakistan has said that it is committed not to transfer nuclear weapons to other states or assist others to acquire nuclear weapons.
“Pakistan’s Policy Guidelines on Strategic Export Controls require requisite safeguards on all relevant material in a recipient state,” the advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz said on Friday while briefing the media about Pakistan’s application for the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in Islamabad.
Pakistan Justice in Terror
By Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management
At least 55 lawyers were among 74 persons killed and over 100 wounded in a suicide bombing at the emergency ward of Quetta’s Civil Hospital on August 8, 2016. Scores of people had gathered at the Hospital to mourn the death of Balochistan Bar Association (BBA) President Bilal Anwar Kasi in a gun attack earlier in the day. Law enforcement officials asserted that the two attacks were connected and confirmed that the blast was carried out by a suicide bomber. Kasi’s body had been brought to the Civil Hospital, and a number of friends, colleagues and relatives, as well as a posse of Press photographers, reporters and television cameramen had also gathered.
Sri Lanka: Multiculturalism May Hinder Reconciliation
Viewpoint by Shenali Waduge - IDN-InDepthNews
Since the fall of the Mahinda Rajapaksa government in January 2015, reconciliation has propelled to the top of the political agenda with Western governments pushing Sri Lanka to be accountable for alleged war crimes committed at the end of the 30-year war with terror group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
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Sri Lanka And Office Of The Missing Person
By Dr Vivek Kumar Srivastava *
Sri Lanka with one of the worst records in human rights violations has come up with a positive step. It has passed the missing person bill with some amendments in unanimous way. The bill was passed with the support of TNA and JVP. The passed bill has certain good features; it will try to search and identify about 65000 missing people who have been missed during the long civil war in the country.
Power and the Nuclear Bomb
Conducting Foreign Policy with the Threat of Mass Murder
By Colin Todhunter - Global Research
In response to a question from another Scottish National Party MP, George Kereven, British PM Theresa May said without hesitation that, if necessary, she would authorise the use of a nuclear weapon that would kill hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children.
Previous PMs have been unwilling to give a direct answer to such a question.
But let’s be clear: a single modern nuclear weapon would most likely end up killing many millions, whether immediately or slowly, and is designed to be much more devastating than those dropped by the US on Japan.
UK Parliament Endorses Terracidal Nuclear Terrorism
By Dr Gideon Polya
The UK Parliament recently overwhelmingly supported renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system, with a psychopathic new UK PM Theresa May declaring her preparedness to kill vast numbers of people with nuclear weapons. Total nuclear disarmament can and should happen. On the eve of the 71st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, decent people around the world must declare a peaceful war on nuclear terrorist supporters and countries by Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) that are most likely to be effective when applied to small nuclear powers like the UK , France, North Korea and Apartheid Israel.
Ireland Waits Uneasily for the Brexit Blow to Fall
By: Eugene Chausovsky – Stratfor
In the wake of the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union, countries across the Continent are nervously reassessing their own positions and outlooks within the bloc. Though London's formal negotiations with Brussels to exit the union have not begun — and will take several years to complete once they do — several European states have wasted no time in voicing their demands for immediate reform. Spain and Italy are pushing for more flexible spending measures, while Poland and Hungary are calling for the repatriation of certain powers from Brussels to national parliaments.
What Does the EU Stand for: Globalization or Universalism?
By William Hawes – Global Research
What is the purpose of the European Union? This question has been on the minds of everyone following the UK vote in favor of Brexit. Yet in the mad scramble to make sense of the United Kingdom’s rejection of the EU, little lucid commentary has been made. European leaders, the fawning media, and UK citizens alike portrayed the vote as either a refusal of EU austerity, or unhappiness with immigrants and open borders.
So which one was it: a rejection of austerity or immigration?
Were UK citizens fed up with austerity measures, and with unreasonable and onerous regulations and taxes paid to the EU bureaucracy? Or were Brexiters caught up in a fever of anti-immigrant nationalism and populist demagoguery, egged on by the odious Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage?
