A senior Taliban minister has boasted about “historic” numbers of suicide attacks the Islamist group has carried out, while complaining that the group has yet to be recognised as Afghanistan’s official government by any other country in the world. Muhammad Hanafi, the Taliban’s minister for the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice, appeared in a video broadcast on national […]

Security forces in Pakistan’s volatile southwest raided a militant hideout Wednesday, triggering an intense firefight that killed 10 insurgents, the military said. The operation took place in Hoshab, a remote district in Baluchistan province, the military said in a statement. It said the militants were involved in multiple recent attacks on security forces. Troops also recovered a cache of weapons […]

On February 7, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a statement adding 33 Chinese entities to the Unverified List (UVL). Being listed does not imply that the said entities pose a specific and clear national security threat or foreign policy concern, but U.S companies must conduct additional due diligence, including the submission of additional […]

Oil & Gas Development Company (OGDC) is Pakistan’s largest oil & gas exploration and production company. It has also been classified Shariah compliant companies listed at Pakistan Stock Exchange. The Company has announced its 2QFY22 profits of Rs35.3 billion (EPS: Rs8.2), up by 87% YoY. Upsurge in profitability was led by maintaining the production levels along with uptick in oil […]

Afghanistan transitions into a new phase after the withdrawal of the US forces, the fear of a destabilized Afghanistan and the looming threat of a humanitarian crisis have heightened the potential challenges for the neighboring states. For Pakistan, stability in Afghanistan mean stability in Pakistan. Therefore, Pakistan have not only pledged direct humanitarian assistance but also sensitizing the world to […]

The Iranian special envoy for Afghanistan expressed Tehran’s readiness for joint investment programs in various fields in the neighboring country, such as the mining industry, energy and agriculture. Hassan Kazemi Qomi held separate meetings with acting minister of foreign affairs of the Taliban, Amir Khan Muttaqi, and Minister of Energy Mulla Abdul Latif Mansur in Kabul. The Iranian envoy and […]

In October 2020, as a petition asking for the Thai king to be declared persona non grata in Germany started to gain traction, the Thai government blocked access to the site, Change.org. That same month, the government also asked Internet providers to curb access to Telegram, an encrypted chat app, to prevent protesters from using it to mobilise. With a […]

Pakistan’s Taliban movement, led by its most vicious and largest group, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and apparently buoyed by the recent triumph of their ethnic Pashtun cousins in Afghanistan, is revitalizing its strategy either for regional autonomy or to overthrow Pakistan’s government and replace it with an Islamic Emirate of Pakistan — a Pashtunistan made up of Pashtuns, an ethnic group […]

Nation states are habitually doomed to defeat their best interests. Conditions of mad instability are fostered. Arms sales take place, regimes get propped up or abandoned, and the people under them endure and suffer, awaiting the next criminal regime change. Nothing is more counter-intuitive than the effort to isolate, cripple and strangulate the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. For all the […]

On January 26, 2022, Provincial Assembly Member Ashok Yadav was injured when cadres of the C.K. Raut-led Janamat Party attacked his vehicle in front of the Janaki temple in Janakpurdham city of Dhanusa District. Yadav’s vehicle was attacked and vandalized by Janamat Party cadres in front of the Janaki temple while he was going to cast his vote in the […]