Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari has rejected United States' strategy of linking policy on Pakistan and Afghanistan in a bid to end the Taliban insurgency and bring stability to the region.
The US intelligence community assesses that the Taliban leader Mullah Omar is now dead, although the circumstances of his death is not yet clear, the White House has said.
Pakistan on Thursday said it was yet to decide on attending a NATO Summit next month that will focus on Afghanistan though it was developing a "work plan" on resetting ties with the United States on the basis of guidelines approved by its Parliament.
Pakistan will not cooperate with the US in Afghanistan unless and until the latter accepts its central role in the search for a settlement and accommodates its 'legitimate interests'. This is the crux of the matter, says MK Bhadrakumar.
'Pakistan is determined to garner the peace dividends.' 'On the diplomatic front, this will be, principally, in terms of a revival of Pakistan's relations with the US,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Ireland squad will arrive in England and set up their base at the Ageas Bowl, Southampton on July 18, before facing world champions England in three ODIs at the same venue.
It is a difficult problem and will require the Union, state governments and civil society, meaning NGOs, to work together, points out Aakar Patel.
In a veiled reference to Pakistan, India said perpetrators of violence in Afghanistan must not be allowed safe havens in its neighbourhood, as it slammed the United Nations Security Council's sanctions regime for not designating the leader of Taliban as terrorist, calling such an approach a "mystery."
Vikram J Singh, who was the senior defense adviser to Richard Holbrooke, the erstwhile United States special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been appointed to a key Pentagon post -- deputy assistant secretary of defense for south and Southeast Asia.
'The hardliners in Delhi are in for a big disappointment,' predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
India has demanded the United Nations to slap sanctions against the new Taliban leader in Afghanistan, saying it is "sheer folly" that the leader of a proscribed entity is not yet designated as a terrorist individual.
The crash late Friday represents the biggest death toll in a single incident for international forces in Afghanistan since the start of the war in 2001
Pakistan came out buzzing on Sunday as they kept alive their Cricket World Cup hopes with a morale-boosting 49-run win over South Africa.
A group of Indian-Americans gathered at Times Square on Sunday, carrying placards and raising slogans in support of the Narendra Modi government and CAA.
"We have from time to time reminded all stakeholders about the red lines that was drawn by the world community and certainly by the participants should not be touched, should not be erased and should not be violated," External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid told media persons.
We can expect to see more Chinese wolf warrior diplomats on the prowl, in India's neighbourhood, though its mailed fist is not so visible while dealing with India, observes Colonel R Hariharan (retd).
Modi's comments on extreme rhetoric by some regional leaders was an obvious reference to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has been making provocative comments against Modi government and Indian action in the last few days.
Al Qaeda 'had been preparing to spread its ideology to India', says Bruce Hoffman, Director Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University.
"we're talking about Kashmir and the relation to what's going on with Pakistan and India. And if we can help, we certainly will be helping," the President said.
During the meetings, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Special Envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan S K Lambah and the top US officials discussed the progress made in Afghanistan so far and how the two countries can work together to achieve their common objective of defeat al Qaeda and the Taliban, and help in the emergence of a stable and democratic Afghanistan.
'Refusing to implement the CAA-NRC, as some states have done via resolutions in state assemblies, is a violation of the Constitution; an attempt to alter the fundamental structure of our democracy and a recipe for anarchy,' argues Vivek Gumaste.
Noting that Pakistan is a complicated country, which faces huge economic, energy and water shortage, a top Obama administration official has said that the country needs the United States' support.
Elections for the five non-permanent members of the 15-nation Council for the 2021-22 term will be held around June next year.
The player registration deadline closed on Thursday and the list comprises 207 international players including 21 capped Indians.
There is no doubt that all terrorist organisations like the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Tayiba are operating with impunity in Pakistan. They may be loosely confederated, but their agendas are being synchronised and India after Afghanistan is their prime target.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday called on Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Islamabad and discussed connectivity, terror threats to the war-torn country and the peace and reconciliation process there.
Osama bin Laden's former cook, Ibrahim al Qosi, has pleaded guilty at a trial in Guantanamo Bay to conspiracy and providing support for terrorism, representing the first conviction of the Barack Obama administration at the controversial war crimes court. According to the BBC, the 50-year-old man from Sudan has admitted that he had worked as bin Laden's bodyguard in Afghanistan and helped him avoid capture by US forces. Qosi was detained in Afghanistan in 2001.
An 8-member delegation of protesters submitted a memorandum of their demands, including withdrawal of the CAA, to the L-G. The L-G appealed to them to call off their agitation as it has been 'causing inconvenience to schoolchildren, patients and general public'.
South Africa defeated Afghanistan by 59 runs in their Twenty20 World Cup group C match on Wednesday.
Seventeen Indo-Canadians, including NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, won Canada's parliamentary elections on Tuesday with Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau returning to power in the snap polls.
However, Hyderabad had clearly done their homework as Rashid grabbed the top wicket-taker's 'purple cap' on Sunday after his 3-19 set up a comprehensive win over Gujarat Lions.
Al Qaeda has started feeling the heat as a result of the intensification of American efforts against it in the Af-Pak region, a top Obama Administration official has said.
Al Qaeda is trying to seek nuclear secrets from Pakistan and it remains as dangerous as ever, Special United States Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke said on Wednesday. "Al Qaeda is still there in the region, ever dangerous and publicly asking people to attack the US and publicly asking nuclear engineers to give them nuclear secrets from Pakistan," Holbrooke said during a reception hosted by the Congressional Caucus.
Richard Holbrooke, the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, on Tuesday scrupulously eschewed commenting on what the US can do to urge India to ease its tensions with Pakistan to help alleviate the Pakistani military's 'obsession' with India and hence be a catalyst in promoting President Barack Obama's Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.
The Obama administration is apparently committed to alleviating India-Pakistan tensions and consequently influencing the Pakistani army to focus on the internal terrorist threat from the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and not India, in order to advance Washington's AfPak agenda.
"Read my lips," said Richard Holbrooke, special US representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, "I am not working on that problem," when asked by a Pakistani journalist if the Obama administration was 'serious to appoint any adviser to resolve this issue,' since as the latter contended, "We all know that deep down, there is no solution of Afghanistan and the South Asia problem, without resolving the Kashmir issue that is controlled by Indian government."
'We are very grateful that the US takes the trouble to keep us informed and to consult with us as this situation is being managed by them,' Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor tells rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa.
India said perhaps the Permanent Representative of Pakistan is "not aware that Osama bin Laden was hiding in their own country in plain sight, and it is the US forces which got him inside Pakistan. Nor have they heard their Prime Minister refer to Osama bin Laden as a martyr."
Pakistan's security forces and its intelligence agency have facilitated the rise of the Taliban, with whom they have an "ambiguous" relationship, a former top American army official, now headed to become the country's representative to Afghanistan has said.
'The US-India relationship is in a different league altogether,' Obama administration officials tell Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in Washington, DC.
