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Our cartoonist's viewpoint

 

Talks with the Taliban

Omar Ali

There are moves in Pakistan to “talk to the Taliban”. Leading this demand is Imran Khan’s PTI, whose leaders have stated...

 

Negotiations with Taliban

Foqia Sadiq Khan

The German military theorist Clausewitz said that war is a continuation of policy by other means. For the Taliban, war/terror...

 

Bullet with a name on it

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

As the U.S. drones continue to strike down innocent Pakistani citizens like Wali-ur-Rehman, and freedom fighters like the TTP...

 

Lets talk on Talibanization

Zubair Torwali

Whether or not the PML (N) government should talk to the Taliban has become a topic hotter than the piercing heat amidst the country’s...

 

Anybody can relate to Midnight’s Children: Deepa Mehta

Ras H. Siddiqi EXCLUSIVE

For the connoisseurs of south-Asian literature written in English, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children has to rank near the very top.   Keeping such a background in mind and the length of the novel, when this scribe heard that it was being made into a single movie, the first thought that came to mind was “not possible”. Others who have read the book may or may not agree but this is not just the story of Saleem Sinai and his many friends but an epic directly related to two countries, India and Pakistan and includes the birth of a third, Bangladesh.

 

The black flags of Khurasan

Hakim Hazik justicedeniedpk.com

Extraordinary headWe are in the State Cave complex in Miran Shah from where we will bring you the blow by blow account of the negotiations between the delegates of DarulKufr of the Trans Indus and the Islamic Emirate of the Khurasan. Our viewers will recall that we achieved the unique milestone in our history of a smooth transition of power. The reigns of the government were passed smoothly and peacefully...

 

A non starter

Shafqat Aziz FOCUS

So they want to talk to the Taliban. The fact doesn’t make them uncomfortable that the Taliban have killed thousands of innocent civilians and members of law enforcing agencies, have bombed hundreds of schools, and have been responsible for torturing Pakistani soldiers and for slitting their throats in a gruesome manner.

 

Dancing with the wolves

Arshad Waheed COMMENTARY

The chief minister of KPK province, MrPervez Khattak, in his first policy statement said that he had no problem with the Taliban. He vowed to negotiate with them and ‘give them respect’. The PML-N government in the Centre has also expressed similar viewson possible negotiations with the Taliban. Ironically, PML-N’s and PTI’s own existence and ability to rule the country is based on a constitution the Taliban want to abolish.

 

Obama Admin domestic spying, entrapment and assassination

John Reimann COMMENT

Suppose you were a young person from the Muslim community in the United States and you were just trolling around the internet - maybe on Facebook - interested in what is happening in the Muslim world, and you came across Abdel Tounisi and started chatting with him online. Next thing you know, you might have some guy introduce himself at your local Mosque and start talking about "jihad", and… Pretty soon, you're facing 15 to 25 years from some...

 

Why the Tsunami ebbed?

Lal Khan ANALYSIS

The hype regarding Imran Khan’s Tsunami sweeping May 11 general elections proved a hoax. As the election results started to pour in, the hopes of PTI supporters began to dash. In a period whereby the ideological politics were consigned to the backseat by the forces of finance capital, on one hand, and the betrayal by the opportunist leaders of the PPP, on the other hand, there emerged a yawning vacuum for the rise of a new political formation capable of challenging the statusqou.

 

Of hopes, dreams and fears

Ummar Zia REFLECTIONS

May 11 was not just another day. People who turned up to vote for the first time, there were quite a few, thought our parliamentary system with all its problems, is about to get fixed once and for all.  It wasn't to be.  The generations before ours have had their hopes dashed. The generation before theirs too dreamed a dream. What’s left of all that is aching fears.

 

Join fellow readers in helping to publish an essential Viewpoint

Redaktion

Thank you for being loyal to Viewpoint. Ever since its re-launching on 21st May 2010 as an e-zine, Viewpoint has become an important progressive outlet for Pakistani left and liberal voices. Viewpoint is run by a team of volunteers and the content is largely contributed by volunteers. However, we do need to occasionally engage freelancers, meet the expenses to run our website, advertise on Facebook, Google etc. The expenses are met by the members of Viewpoint’s Redaktion.

 

Tuzk-e-Musharafi: Retired commando, youthful bravado

Arbab Daud

As a young commando, I got a lesson to search for excellence and reach the pinnacle of every field that I indulge into. I was taught that if one worked hard, the support from Mother Nature is always available without a call. Moreover, I learnt that all throughout the life one should be indefatigable and after achieving one height, a higher goal should be envisioned. I imbibed all these teachings. In fact, these teachings translated into my habits and as the saying goes “old habits die hard.”

 


Occupy Gezi
 
The filthy rich election: Tariq Ali

Not long before last month’s elections, dozens of workers (the youngest was 12) were burned to death in factory fires in Karachi and Lahore. Pakistan’s rulers were unmoved: there were token expressions of regret but no talk of tough new laws being passed after the election. There is barely any safety regulation in Pakistan, and if any legislation does impede business a modest bribe usually solves the problem. Factory inspections were discontinued during the Musharraf regime in order, it was claimed, to protect industry from harassment by state inspectors. Ali Enterprises, the factory that burned down in Karachi, somehow passed an inspection by a New York-based body called Social Accountability International.

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Gezi Park resistance in Turkey: TaylanTosun

I think that by now many ZNet readers know quite well the facts about Gezi Park Resistance in Turkey. Thirteen days ago a small group of resisters trying to protect one of the remaining green public spaces in Istanbul was brutally attacked by police. Afterwards the biggest civil disobedience movement Turkey has ever seen exploded, as hundreds of thousands of people took the streets in Istanbul and, to a lesser degree, in many other cities in spite of brutal massive tear gas and water cannon used by police.

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White Women in the Indian Imagination: Alexandra Delaney

“Yeah, Indian guys think white girls are easy”, a British-born Indian remarked nonchalantly to me this week. Normally I’d be shocked by such gross racial stereotyping (of Indians) but in this case I’m inclined to agree. Not because Caucasian women by their very skin colour or cultural preferences are any more promiscuous than their South Asian sisters, but because of their sustained portrayal as loose and morally deficient. The image of the sexually liberated and ‘easy’ white woman runs deep in the Indian imagination, a perception which is drip-fed by the country’s all-pervading mainstream media.

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Edward Snowden: The whistleblower

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

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As Bradley Manning trial begins, press predictably misses the point: Rolling Stone

In the now-defunct Starz series Boss, there's a reporter character named "Sam Miller" played by actor Troy Garity who complains about lazy reporters who just blindly eat whatever storylines are fed to them by people in power. He called those sorts of stories Chumpbait. If the story is too easy, if you're doing a piece on a sensitive topic and factoids are not only reaching you freely, but publishing them is somehow not meeting much opposition from people up on high, then you're probably eating Chumpbait.

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