Pakistan is Drowning

As if this week wasn’t bad enough for Pakistan. In the last three days, floods caused by monsoon rains have reportedly killed at least 430 people in the country, the worst to have hit the region since 1929. According to the Associated Press, “The rising toll from the monsoon rains underscore the poor infrastructure in [...]

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A Tragic Morning

I woke up to really sad news this morning. On Wednesday, an Airblue plane flying from Karachi crashed in Islamabad’s Margalla Hills. According to the NY Times, “Rescue helicopters fought against thick smoke and flames as they tried to find survivors amid the wreckage — about a two-hour drive into the hills above Islamabad — [...]

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Understanding Pakistan’s Tax Issue – Bilquis

Last week, the NY Times released a video report by journalist Adam Ellick and a corresponding article by Sabrina Tavernise on the issue of tax evasion in Pakistan. According to Tavernise, “nationwide, fewer than a million out of 170 million Pakistanis voluntarily filed income tax returns last year. The rate is among the lowest in [...]

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The NY Sufi Festival – Sehar Tariq

On Tuesday, July 20, Ambassador Hussain Haroon and the Pakistani Peace Builders Initiative hosted the 1st Annual NY Sufi Festival, a free three-hour concert held in the city’s Union Square. According to the NY Times, the Pakistani Peace Builders, an organization formed after the failed Times Square bombing by Faisal Shahzad, “seeks to counteract negative [...]

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Hey Rothkopf, Pakistan Doesn’t Want Your Tea Party

Yesterday, Foreign Policy (dot com) released a biting article by David Rothkopf (a scholar at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) entitled, “A Tea Party Made in Heaven: Should Islamabad be the Next Stop for Angle & Co?” In the piece, Rothkopf claims that two of the biggest threats facing America – “the decay of nuclear [...]

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Note about Ground Zero Mosque: Stop Calling It That

Sarah Palin, the former Governor of Alaska and Republican VP candidate, garnered a lot of media attention for her incendiary tweets related to the “Ground Zero” mosque this past weekend. According to Geoffrey Dunn over at the Huffington Post, Palin first tweeted, “Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it [...]

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Pakistan Tops Yet Another List

No, it’s not for another failed state index. That was soooo last month. Apparently Pakistan ranks number one in the world in sex-related searches. Why Google would think to rank something like that is beyond me, but Fox News gleefully took this as an opportunity to create this headline: Pornistan? Ding ding ding! Ladies and [...]

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Rebranding the Haqqani Network

On Wednesday, news agencies reported that General David Petraeus, the new U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, is pushing to designate top leaders from the Haqqani Network as “terrorists.” According to the NY Times, “…Petraeus introduced the idea of blacklisting the group…late last week in discussions with President Obama’s senior advisers on Pakistan and Afghanistan.” The [...]

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Tere Bin…Laden

It’s official. Bollywood’s releasing a new film this weekend. But given that the Indian film industry releases the largest number of movies in the world (about a 1000 a year, according to some sources), this isn’t really news. Except when the film in question is called Tere Bin Laden and it stars Pakistani crossover/pop star [...]

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The Burqa Ban & Ruling by Fear

On Tuesday, the French Parliament began debate on the now-infamous burqa ban, the bill that would prevent women from wearing full-face veils (the niqab or burqa) in public. In a recent address, President Nicolas Sarkozy emphasized his support for the ban, telling French lawmakers, “In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind [...]

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