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A MOST respectable gentleman has written to me to clarify certain aspects of Dr Fai’s case, principally that the FBI (read the US government) was certainly not taken by surprise. In his words: “I am also surprised that you couldn’t see the obvious context in which the FBI was ‘shocked to find’ (to quote the famous line from Casablanca) that KAC had connections with ‘the boys’. KAC has been operating under the very nose of all the intelligence...

WITH increasing frequency, there fall into my email inbox messages from young people, students, some studying abroad, others not so lucky back home — but none as unfortunate as the doomed eight youths of Sialkot, desperate to get out and away, who were found dead in the latter half of July in a container bound for Greece. So desperate were those young Pakistanis for half a chance to live a better life than can be lived here that they scraped together...

I AM going to say it again: not in my name, your shenanigans (for there is no better word for what you do), sirs; not in mine or in that of the other luckless Pakistanis who try to live honourable lives and endeavour to feed and clothe and educate their children as best they can. Every week brings forth new and newer allegations which only hurt our country evermore as if it was not wounded enough already. The newest news is the arrest of Ghulam...

To quote one of the great political leaders of Pakistan, Mohammad Asghar Khan: “We have learnt nothing from history.” The reason is painful but simple — ignoring lessons of history benefit the ruling class. Watching every ruthless power struggle among politicians and military generals grabbing power for the sake of power, or twisting laws and coercing institutions by the powerful ruling groups, we are reminded of this reference of our poor memory...

In June 2009, less than six months after being sworn in as America’s president, Barack Obama addressed the citizens of the Islamic world. He chose Cairo’s Al Azhar University, the oldest surviving centre of Islamic learning, as the site for his much anticipated address. This was to be one of the most important and remembered speeches the president gave in the early part of his tenure. In it, he promised a new beginning in America’s relations with...

TO many, it is mind-boggling: why President Asif Ali Zardari and his political team continue to play Russian roulette with their government’s future. At another level, it is not hard to work out. The PPP has had gamblers’ luck in the last three years. It has performed remarkable feats, not the least of which is staying in power despite a deluge of financial scandals and well-documented cases of individual corruption. President Zardari’s political...

Many decades ago, whenever I saw Aminullah Chaudhry, I thought he looked a bit supercilious; now, after reading his book, I think he was not supercilious, simply superior. He was a CSP officer of the 1967 batch, together with my favourite Government College (GC) class-fellow, Tariq Sultan, and another dear GC friend, Ali Kazim. Before he entered the CSP cadre, he held an honours degree in physics from Punjab University and an LLM in corporate...