South Asia

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – The tragic deaths last January, just now being revealed, of two Western hostages in drone strikes on a relatively empty housing complex in northern Pakistan near the Afghanistan border underlines that the Obama administration is killing people from the air without knowing who they are and is killing […]

Central Asia

Pakistan as Hong Kong West: China’s New Silk Road & US Failure

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Chinese President Xi Jinping made a state visit, full of pomp and circumstance, to Pakistan on Monday, but its centerpiece was a $46 billion investment in the country, dwarfing the US Congress’s $7.5 bn. program initiated in 2008. Whereas the US likes to sell useless weapons systems that […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan’s China Card

contributors

By Dilip Hiro | (Tomdispatch.com) – Call it an irony, if you will, but as the Obama administration struggles to slow down or halt its scheduled withdrawal from Afghanistan, newly elected Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is performing a withdrawal operation of his own. He seems to be in the process of trying to sideline the country’s major […]

Afghanistan

Lynching Farkhunda: Birth of Gender Equality and Accountability in Afghanistan?

contributors

By Solaiman M Fazel | (Informed Comment) The brutal murder of a 27 year old Afghan female student, Farkhunda, at the hands of an angry mob in front of the Shah-e Do-Shamshira Mosque near downtown Kabul was not only a heinous crime, but it also reveals the collective irresponsibility and ineffectiveness of the police officers […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan Wakes Up To Daesh/ ISIL Threat

contributors

By Qadir Habib and Michael Scollon | (RFE/RL) – After consistently rejecting the idea, Kabul could no longer ignore what self-declared recruiters and fighters had been telling them for months — the Islamic State (IS) group had indeed arrived in Afghanistan. “Islamic State or those people who call themselves Islamic State are active in some […]

Bangladesh

Women Empowered by Solar Energy in Bangladesh

contributors

World Bank | — “Bangladesh has become the world’s fastest growing market for solar home systems, thanks in part to IDA – the World Bank’s fund for the poorest. Solar energy is not only replacing expensive fuels, it also has become a tool of social change, empowering girls and women.” World Bank from 18 months […]

Barack Obama

Obama, Modi and India’s Solar Future

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) In his visit to India, Barack Obama pressed unsuccessfully for India to set specific carbon limits. Nevertheless, he did get agreement from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the USA and India would pursue vigorously non-carbon energy sources, including nuclear and renewables such as solar. That was a better […]

Energy

Turns out Rightwing Hindu PM more reasonable on Climate Change than US Congress (Obama visits Modi)

contributors

NDTV | — “Six years after we signed a bilateral agreement we are moving towards commercial viability,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, announcing an agreement on the nuclear liability issue after talks with US president Barack Obama.” Further quotes from Bloomberg: Modi: “When we think about the future generations and what kind of a world […]

Education

Pakistan: Fighting Extremism with Schools, Not Guns

contributors

By Zofeen Ebrahim | — KARACHI (IPS) – As a wave of outrage, crossing Pakistan’s national borders, continues a month after the Dec. 16 attack on a school in the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, some citizens are turning away from collective expressions of anger, and beginning the hard work of building grassroots alternatives to terrorism […]