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Splitting the differences

March 12, 2009 17:43Updated May 30, 2010 12:47
BOSTON — The murder of two British soldiers and a policeman in Antrim and Armagh, after more than a decade of peace in Northern Ireland, sent a chill down the spines of Ireland and Great Britain. The Good Friday agreement, signed 11 years ago, was supposed to end “The Troubles,” as those lost years of violence were called.

The slow demise of a proud nation

March 23, 2009 06:57Updated May 30, 2010 12:47
LAHORE — Pakistan's second city, widely considered to be the country's cultural capital, is undergoing gradual but unsettling change. For hundreds if not thousands of years a bastion of social and cultural life for not only the region but the world, the city has become a soft target for those who disagree with the Pakistani government and its policies, or with society at large.

It's the Judiciary, Stupid

March 12, 2009 11:52
Pervez Musharraf fell from power last year, but many here say the old order has survived. Nawaz Sharif, for example, the major opposition leader, said in a public rally last week that President Asif Ali Zardari is "possessed" by the spirit of Musharraf. And so less than six months after he became President, Zardari is faced with a street movement of the kind that Musharraf faced in his eighth year.

Sports: When the outside world intrudes

March 10, 2009 12:08Updated May 30, 2010 12:46
There were two particularly distressing events in international sports last week. The first was the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, which was on its way to the stadium in Lahore, Pakistan to play the host country’s national team. The second was the decision by Sweden to play its Davis Cup match against Israel without any fans in the arena because of security concerns.

Why Obama needs to learn the rules of cricket

March 4, 2009 20:48Updated May 30, 2010 12:46
ISLAMABAD — One afternoon in late January, in a house on the postcard-perfect southern coast of Sri Lanka, I joined a family watching their beloved national cricket team play a game against the Pakistani side. Beach bums taking breaks from riding the Indian Ocean waves dropped in to the open veranda of the house every few minutes to check on the score, and also to taunt me — the only Pakistan fan present — for what was an appalling performance on the field by my team on its home turf.

Beyond "Af-Pak"

March 4, 2009 12:12Updated May 30, 2010 12:46
In the world viewed through America's lens, "Af-Pak," the catch-phrase of the moment in Washington foreign policy circles, makes a good deal of sense. With 17,000 more American troops en route to Afghanistan, and with the Taliban operating largely beyond their reach in the Pakistani tribal lands, the need to deal with both problems in tandem has become conventional wisdom.

Opinion: Bangladesh faces security crisis

Jalal AlamgirMarch 2, 2009 18:24Updated May 30, 2010 12:46
BOSTON — Bangladesh’s newly restored democracy encountered its gravest challenge last week. The country’s paramilitary border guards, called the Bangladesh Rifles, or BDR, staged an armed mutiny on Feb. 25 at their headquarters against their army commanders.

Opinion: Taliban poised to "take" Pakistan

March 3, 2009 08:08Updated May 30, 2010 12:46
A deep fissure in the world’s security shield runs through a bucolic valley in central Pakistan, an area about as big as the state of Delaware. There, in a region known as Swat, Taliban extremists have fought the Pakistani army to a draw. They won agreement to establish a safe-haven in Swat, just 100 miles from Islamabad, the capital. And don’t expect them to stop there.

The Hindus who stayed in Pakistan

March 2, 2009 16:05Updated May 30, 2010 12:45

The fate of the Kalasha

Jodi HiltonMarch 15, 2009 11:40Updated May 30, 2010 12:45
NORTHWEST FRONTIER PROVINCE, Pakistan — High in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, about 25 miles on harrowing dirt roads from the nearest city, Chitral, live the Kalasha people. Though they once numbered in the tens of thousands, the Kalasha have seen their numbers dwindle over the past century. No census has been performed since 1998, but most experts put the current Kalasha population at about 3,000.
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