Assassination by drones
The first step in examining the legality of assassinating known or suspected terrorists through the use of unmanned armed vehicles (UAVs) is to decide whether such killings could be classified…
Time to earn that Nobel, Mr President!
Some of the loudest cheers over Barack Obama’s re-election originated in the Middle East. Although the Arabs and Muslims didn’t have much to celebrate during his first term, they still…
Drone politics
Since the US drone strikes began on the tribal belt of Pakistan, it was the first time, on March 17, that a Pakistani army chief issued a written statement condemning…
The Iraq quagmire
Compared with many bombs in Iraq, it was not a big one. I had just arrived in the Al Rashid Hotel in Baghdad on November 28 when there was an…
View from US
With carrot-coloured shaggy hair and droopy eyes; the 24-year-old who massacred 12 fellow Americans and injured another 52 in Aurora, Colorado. Called himself the ‘joker.’ Just as the Muslims in…
Flood management in 2010 and the power system
Two news items have made headlines - the first extremely positive was to the effect that this time around, the country is heading towards a bumper crop and the second,…
America’s capacity for self-harm
The first week of August, according to some commentators, will go down in history as signifying a tipping point in terms of the loss of American hegemony. This conclusion is…
Going around in circles
Given the state of the writ of the state in Pakistan, finding civil servants with happy faces is a rarity these days. But lately I have found plenty of them.
Terms of re-engagement
The first encounter between President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh since the Mumbai terrorist attack last November marked a tentative thaw in Pakistan-India relations but little else…
The only way
The historian Charles Beard once said that a lifetime’s reflection on history has taught him four things. When darkness comes, the stars begin to shine; the bees that rob the…
