One first impression left by President Obama’s much-anticipated speech re-casting US counter-terrorism policy is that of the contrast between Bush’s swagger and Obama’s anguish over the difficult trade-offs that perpetual war poses to a free society. It could scarcely be starker. ...

WASHINGTONThe Pentagon has asked Congress for nearly $80 billion to cover the cost of the war in Afghanistan in 2014, a spokesman said Monday.The request issued Friday for $79.4 billion in fiscal year 2014 is slightly lower than the war funding of $87.2 billion for the current fiscal year, Pentagon ...

BRUSSELS - The latest tit-for-tat EU-China trade disputes could signal worse to come but both sides have a lot to lose if things get out of hand and harm the much-needed economic growth they seek, analysts said.In May alone, the two have locked horns over solar panels, steel tubes and telecoms ...

ISLAMABAD - Senior army officer and war veteran Brigadier (Retd) Atta Muhammad has died, a press release issue here on Saturday stated. As a young army officer, Atta participated in 1965 and 1971 wars with impressive bravery, courage and loyalty to his country, the press release added. The officer ...

WASHINGTON -President Barack Obama on Friday trimmed his funding request for the war in Afghanistan and other overseas operations by 10 per cent, reflecting his plans to wind down the US presence in that country.The president asked for $79.4 billion to fund so-called overseas contingency operations ...

Glenn Greenwald Last October, senior Obama officials anonymously unveiled to the Washington Post their newly minted "disposition matrix", a complex computer system that will be used to determine how a terrorist suspect will be "disposed of": indefinite detention, prosecution in a real court, ...

PESHAWAR - US drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal belt are illegal, Peshawar High Court declared on Thursday and directed the Foreign Ministry to move a resolution in the UN against such attacks.The PHC issued the verdict against the strikes by CIA-operated aircraft in response to four ...

A war crimes court sentenced a top Bangladeshi Islamist to death on Thursday for masterminding the slaughter of at least 120 farmers in 1971 war.In a ruling likely to further fuel tensions between the secular government and religious hardliners, a special tribunal found Mohammad Kamaruzzaman guilty ...

About the hottest issue of Pakistan’s foreign policy today – the country’s involvement in the war on terror and how to get out of it – has been the subject of two separate interviews to foreign news agencies. PML-N President Mian Nawaz Sharif and PTI leader Imran Khan appear ...

  Michael Shank and Matt Southworth A handful of Democratic and Republican senators are considering a rewrite of 60 of the most consequential words to ever pass through Congress. The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed after the attacks of11 September 2001, and provides the ...

KATE Middleton has been at war with her mother-in-law Camilla! The pair apparently had a furious showdown after Camilla riled the beauty even further. Kate - who’s expecting her first child with Prince William - told Camilla, “You’ll never be allowed to see my ...

The speech of General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on the Martyr’s Day rang familiar bells. Each phrase and word was well chosen to articulate a desired message of historical significance. The intent that he was unambiguous was evident when he shifted his fingers over each line; nothing less and ...

DAMASCUSSyrian troops Friday bombarded areas of the Mediterranean city of Banias, a monitoring group said, warning of a new “massacre,” as Washington said for the first time it was looking at arming rebels.The opposition National Coalition earlier denounced a “large-scale ...

DHAKA :Bangladesh’s war crimes court Thursday indicted a Bangladesh-born British Muslim leader and aUScitizen for their alleged role in the murder of top intellectuals during the 1971 war. Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin has held positions in a host of top Islamic organisations in his adopted homeland ...

VALLETTA: The budget for Brad Pitt’s ‘World War Z’ became ‘’insane’’. The zombie movie cost around $200 million to make after requiring an extra 40 minutes of footage be shot in order to give it a coherent ending, and due to the various problems that ...

Islamabad - Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam chief Maulana Fazal Rahman, while responding to the Army Chief’s statement that the war against terrorism is our war, has remarked that it was the war of others and the wrong policies of the past rulers brought this home.“Now we need to quickly get out ...

The soldiers marched supporting the coffins of their comrades wrapped in green and white. With solemn faces, they proceeded unaware of the breeze that blew ferociously in salutation to its valiant heroes, who were lying peacefully after bestowing their lives for the nation.The sweet fragrance ...

The muttered volume of whispered discontent murmuring through the Afghan countryside since the violent arrival of foreign forces of supposed ‘liberation’ turned ‘occupation’ back in 2001, is finally, slowly but surely, turning into a rumbling growl that resonates, ...

BAGHDAD The United Nations warned on Friday that Iraq is at a ‘crossroads’ and appealed for restraint, as a bloody four-day wave of violence, including multiple attacks at mosques, killed 195 people."I call on the conscience of all religious and political leaders not to let anger win ...

BAGHDAD (AFP/Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki warned on Thursday of attempts to return the country to “sectarian civil war,” as a wave of violence killed more than 140 people over three days.At least 10 Iraqi policemen and nine militants were killed in clashes on Thursday ...

KABUL - Nato insisted Thursday that the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan is being won, despite reports by other organisations of a sharp upsurge in insurgent attacks this year.US General Joseph Dunford, head of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said there was ...

More than four years after Barack Obama pledged to close the US internment camp at Guantanamo, over half of its 166 inmates are on hunger strike — 16 are being violently force fed and soldiers last week used rubber bullets against “noncompliant” prisoners. Guantanamo, along with ...

THE HAGUEDarfur rebel leader Saleh Jerbo, charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court, has been killed in the western Sudanese region, his defence team said."The defence of Mr Saleh Mohammed Jerbo Jamus hereby notifies the trial chamber, with great sadness... that Mr Jerbo died in ...

  The tide of war may be receding, as President Barack Obama is fond of saying, butUSmilitary demand for unmanned drones and their remote pilots is growing. Here in theNew Mexicodesert, the US Air Force has ramped up training of drone operators - even as the nation increasingly debates their ...

LAHORE - JAWAD RAWAN -  Considering the provincial capital as the major electoral battleground of PTI, Imran Khan formally launched his party’s election campaign from NA-122 on Saturday. The PTI launched its election drive from the provincial metropolis through ‘Tabdeeli Express ...

Trefor MossCyberspace matters. We know this because governments and militaries around the world are scrambling to control the digital space even as they slash defence spending in other areas, rapidly building up cyber forces with which to defend their own virtual territories and attack those of ...

PHNOM PENH: Cambodia’s strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday said the country risks civil war if the opposition wins polls later this year and tries to prosecute ex-Khmer Rouge members in his government.His comments were issued as a rebuke to opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who has pledged ...

HANOI - Two children were killed and six others seriously injured after a grenade left over from the Vietnam War exploded while they were playing with it, police said Wednesday.The children, all 11-year-old classmates, were walking home from school in southern Dak Nong province on Tuesday when they ...

LAHORE - Two more patients lost their lives at a local hospital on Tuesday, taking the death toll in Lahore to 23. So far 45 children have died because of measles in Punjab. Jannat, 2, a resident of Mufti Road Islampura and Abdullah, 6 months, of Ghaziabad breathed their last at Children’s ...

Lucy Morgan Edwards This week the defence select committee published a report which concluded that civil war in Afghanistan is likely when international forces leave next year. If the predictions of Securing the Future of Afghanistan are correct, the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence share ...