Spearhead Research Analysis: Playing with Fire

The past month will go down as one of the most politically volatile and grisly periods in Pakistan’s history. Where the nation was still reeling from the superfluity of ‘gates’, scandals and courtroom theatrics, this week brought news of Taliban resurgence; the presence of TTP safe havens across the border; the killing and beheading of seventeen Pakistani soldiers, during a cross border skirmish by Afghan Taliban in north-western district of Upper Dir.

A video released on Wednesday by the Pakistani Taliban revealed that the erstwhile count of seven beheadings was actually higher. A voice recording by Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud  precedes gruesome footage of the heads of seventeen officers lined on a white sheet. Intelligence gathered suggests the militants were the TTP faction expelled from Swat that regrouped in Afghanistan under Maulvi Fazlullah. Pakistan criticized NATO and Afghan forces for lapse in security which allowed the hundred strong militants to raid the Upper Dir check post. Very little sympathy was offered as Pakistan has time and again refused to carry out operations in the Upper Dir region where the Haqqani Network has built safe havens.

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ADB warns Pakistan of a low maintenance budget that will cause $268m to go to waste

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has forewarned the federal government that the $268 million investment for making roads in Balochistan may go to waste, as the sustainability of the scheme is at risk, due to inadequate budget for maintenance.

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Chinese Nationalism and Its Future Prospects

An Interview with Yingjie Guo

By Jonathan Walton

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, nationalism was a major driving force behind Japan’s rise to global prominence and increasingly bellicose foreign and military policies. Today, China’s growing economic, political, and technological might is also accompanied by a nationalist discourse cultivated by media controls and the state’s propaganda system.

Many observers, both in Asia and the West, are consequently concerned about the role that Chinese nationalism could play in shaping the trajectory of China’s rise. NBR asked Yingjie Guo, an Associate Professor of International Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, to comment on the nature of this political and cultural force and its implications for China’s future.

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Ali Riaz s/o Malik Riaz accused of illegal land transfer

RAWALPINDI: The Anti-Corruption Court of Rawalpindi on Thursday issued arrest warrant of Malik Riaz, the main character behind Arsalan Iftikhar case, his son Ali Riaz and and seven other accused.

According to the sources, the court has issued arrest warrants of seven people including Malik Riaz and his son Ali Ahmed Riaz in land corruption case filed in 2005.

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SC declares Gilani ineligible to be PM

The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday declared Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani ineligible to hold office, Express News reported. The court said that he had been ineligible since April 26.

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Spearhead Analysis: Mainstreaming FATA

Pakistan’s troubled western border region – the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) has been the focus of much attention for the last several years. Historically it has been a sort of badlands always just marginally under control with fiercely independent tribesmen living under their own customs and laws. When the former USSR carried out a disastrous intervention in Afghanistan the cold war rivalry made FATA the home base for the US funded jihad against the USSR and their Afghan supporters. Fighters from all over the Muslim world arrived in FATA to join the struggle against the invader under the banner of a seven party alliance headquartered in Pakistan’s FATA. Afghan refugees fleeing the war were welcomed as guests. After the USSR withdrew and the warlords started a civil war the Taliban emerged from the Pashtun south as saviors of the oppressed. Aided and abetted by the Pakistani Pashtuns and the jihadists in FATA as well as Pakistani intelligence agencies they struggled against the Northern Alliance for supremacy. Sensing a favorable environment the Arab leadership of Al Qaeda came as guests of the Taliban ostensibly to support their struggle but actually for a wider world wide struggle. 9/11 brought the US decisively against terrorism with Iraq as a temporary distraction. In this maelstrom FATA based militants came out against the Pakistani state with an agenda that at first was limited to FATA but later, after linkages with radical Islamists within Pakistan, extended their ambition to the whole country. As recently stated by Pakistan’s Army Chief the Pakistan military had no option but to confront them after all peace accords failed.

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Excessive use of smartphones are bad for health

People are risking their health by working on smartphones,tablets and laptops after they have left the office,according to the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.

It says people have become “screen slaves”and are often working while commuting or after they get home.

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Tycoon in a Typhoon

There is that story about a bull frog that wanted to be the biggest and kept puffing himself up till he burst. Now everyone knows, of course, that a bubble if it continues to expand must at some point burst and splatter everybody around it. So it is with an empire, real estate or some other kind, that crashes when it has overextended itself or made so many enemies that it cannot handle them. This is what the real estate tycoon Malik Riaz has discovered when for reasons best known to him he decided to go public with information damaging for a particular individual and a specific institution. Inevitably the focus has shifted to him and his activities and the spectrum is widening by the day---in fact by the minute.

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Blame the name

Ten long years of war have passed in Afghanistan and although it is finally coming to an end, the details of the enemy are still murky. The Taliban are the modern day band of misfits which have occupied the lime light on newspapers, headlines and talk shows. A lack of true understanding about the nature and motives of the Taliban has propagated the formation of stereotypes which have further made it confusing for the common man to understand the war in which thousands of lives and millions of funds have been sacrificed. The nuances in Taliban’s belief and objectives already pose a challenge for policy makers to reach a mutually acceptable deal, in addition to which, the public’s confusion regarding the Taliban becomes another knot to entangle in the yarn of disorder.

The aftermath of the Soviet War in Afghanistan left a power vacuum. Local tribes now battled against each other for control of areas. Security deteriorated and many human right violations were committed against women and children. It was in these conditions that the Taliban movement emerged under Mullah Omer in Kandahar in 1994. It was a simple localized movement that sought to restore order in line with the local culture and Islamic teachings. With the Pakistanis and the Saudis backing the Taliban, the movement picked by momentum and by 1996, Kabul had been captured.

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The Perpetual Conflict between Centre and Periphery: Pakistan’s separatist tendencies in light of pre-partition politics

By ignoring the contours of Muslim political evolution itself in United India, Pakistan’s state narrative has conveniently elevated the status of political leaders to saviors of Islam. The immediate difficulties faced by the Muslim political parties, Muslim League’s leadership and the intricacies involved in formulating the demand for Pakistan are vital in understanding not only the past but also addressing our political problems today. The assumption that Muslims of the subcontinent always were a separate political category (as they were a religious and social category) demanding the right to an independent homeland on one platform has been part of state policy.

Partition of the subcontinent through the realist prism exposes the lack of communal sentiment in the communal politics that took off in the decades leading to partition. Jinnah’s secular mindset stands in contrast to the religious undertones that Pakistan has adopted as a state. Was Jinnah, as historical discourse in Pakistani textbooks suggests, fighting Jihad against the Hindus and the British Raj? And if not then must we pit everything political and apolitical against Islam or have we polluted the religious with the political and the social to a point of no return, to the point that all actions, decisions, and justifications pertaining to the public realm must also conform to specifically constructed Islamic ideals?

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Crab Olympics

It seems lately that Shakespeare’s quote about the world being a stage and all men and women being mere players is playing out literally for our country. The theatrics our top echelons have employed in a choreographed play to the death tournament for power have stopped failing to impress. As the three arms of the State once again descend into the bucket (read Supreme Court) to display their exceptional crab mentality, the question in this round of Crab Olympics is: which crab will get away this time?

Private Contractor turned ‘Warren Buffet’ of Pakistan, Malik Riaz Hussein is a name that makes frequent rounds at all sorts of drawing rooms in Pakistan. A multi billionaire at the age of 59, there are few people in the country to match the level notoriety and reputation Riaz enjoys. A one man empire, Malik Riaz is famous for having a finger and toe in every pie that matters: all political parties according to PM Gillani enjoy the beneficence of Riaz; celebrated journalist Talat Hussain brings attention to the fact that a lot of notable journalists and analysts are good friends with Riaz, confidantes and perhaps even on his payroll; rumor has it that General Ashfaq Kayani’s brothers were a stone’s throw away from being implicated in a case similar to the one Arsalan Ifitkhar finds himself in and the whistle blowing incident might be the military’s preemptive strike on the Chief Justice; rumor mill also suggests the defendants in the Balochistan Missing Persons case, i.e. the ISI to be the ones airing Arsalan Iftikhar’s dirty laundry.

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Remember the perils of Dialectical Materialism?

Revolution is in the air – Globally. At least the first wave of revolutionary fervour has struck the world. Commencing from unlikely Tunisia, spreading through dormant Egypt, toppling the Libyan strongman, the North African – Arabian Peninsula rejoiced in the Arab Spring. Yet the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ and western world change seekers are even more dramatic. Striking at the heart of capitalism, the affluent Western World is reeling under the unprecedented onslaught. The Global Anti Elite Revolution is spreading at a time when the western world’s socio economic system is in disrepute. 

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Spearhead Analysis: Ally or Adversary?

The top US defense official has said that the US is at war in Pakistan – an obvious reference to the continuing Drone attacks and covert operations by the US in FATA. He has also said that the US is losing patience with Pakistan because of the sanctuaries given in FATA to groups like the Haqqani Network that attack NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan. Earlier he was in India shoring up and strengthening the US-India strategic alliance by holding out the prospect of an Indian role in the US power shift to the Asia-Pacific region and a greater Indian presence in Afghanistan – a prospect that will find favor with the pro-India government of Afghanistan. The Indians will play hardball just as they did to get the US-India Civilian Nuclear Technology Agreement in spite of its implications for nuclear proliferation and trade. This time the Indians are likely to hold out for major defense related technology having signalled their capacity and willingness for Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) and Multiple Independently Targetted Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs) as well as a shift to maritime strategy with interest in the Asia-Pacific region.

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The four year run in the long run

The political scenario in Pakistan is like a chameleon which rapidly changes color. We have highly contested credibility of politicians, a frail economy fueled by a dwindling supply of energy, international powers unhappy with the commitment Pakistanis show to their relationship and a public that is on the brink of losing their minds. Events in Pakistan transpire at the speed of lightening. With the fourth year of the PPP government approaching its end, the Prime Minister has been recognized as the longest serving official in his post. Is this Gilani’s only accomplishment or has he and his regime fulfilled the promises it gave at the beginning of its term?

Perhaps politics in Pakistan have has been cursed with controversy or Prime Minister Gilani likes to honor the memory of his predecessors by continuing if not adding more controversies to the political landscape. Gilani enlists the restoration of judges as one of their first achievements since their coming into power. A fully independent judiciary honored one of the three elements of democracy. However, the public would recall the long march initiated by Sharif after a rift developed with PPP over this very restoration. Judges were miraculously reinstated shortly after the long march began. A failure right at the beginning of their term would have been shameful for the PPP.

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The summers of London and the summers of Lyari

The ominous morning of July 7, 2005 in the UK, when four Muslim boys boarded three trains and blew themselves up ignited the worst nightmare of a lifetime. Peace in the UK had been shattered. The war on terror, just as the sceptics had predicted and idealists, including myself, had denied, had actually come to Britain’s door.

In the midst of the ensuing situation, something else happened: the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian. His only crime was that he looked Asian or maybe a stereotyped Muslim with thick curly black hair and dark eyes. On July 22, 2005, he casually strolled inside his local train station, swiped his travel card and boarded a train. Seconds later, metropolitan officers wrestled him to the ground and shot seven bullets from point-blank range, killing him on the spot.

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