INDIA-PAKISTAN: Food Heals Historic Hostility

If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, then the path to peace between India and Pakistan may lie in the commonalities in their cultures and cuisines.

Pakistan Denies “Intimate” Taliban Links

Pakistan has rejected as "frivolous" a leaked NATO report which claims that the country's security services are helping the Taliban, and suggesting that the group believes it is poised to regain power.

PAKISTAN-INDIA: Women Expose Secret Genital Cutting Rite

"It was a dark and dingy room, where an elderly woman asked me to take off my panties, made me sit on a low wooden stool with my legs parted and then did something…I screamed out in pain," recalls Alefia Mustansir, 40, of her childhood experience.

PAKISTAN: New Rehab Plan Brings Hope for War-Disabled

The prolonged United States-led war against terrorism has left a large number of people disabled in Pakistan, compelling the government to institute a rehabilitation plan that will include imparting vocational skills.

PAKISTAN: Violence, Death Stalk Child Domestic Help

"He was a happy child, my younger brother," Mohammad Ramzan, 18, reminisced, his voice steeped in sadness.

U.S. Probe of Border Attack Hardened Pakistani Suspicions

The Pakistani military leadership's response to the U.S. report on its helicopter attack on two Pakistani border posts Nov. 26 assailed the credibility of the investigation by Air Force Brig. Gen. Steven Clark and expressed doubt that the attack could have been "accidental".

PAKISTAN: Taliban Bombs Get Deadlier

In their efforts to kill and injure more people as part of a terror campaign in northern Pakistan, the Taliban militia have resorted to lacing bombs with toxic chemicals that leave survivors with complicated wounds.

PAKISTAN: Forests Fall Victim to the Taliban

The forests of northwestern Pakistan have become the latest victim of the Taliban’s increasingly desperate quest for resources to sustain and fund its military programme.

PAKISTAN: New Price Tags on Stranded NATO Supplies

From a distance, the neatly stacked red, blue and orange containers suggest that business is good at Karachi’s Kemari port.

PAKISTAN: Girls Defuse This Taliban Bomb

Suicide bombing is down, bomb attacks are fewer, but the Taliban are keeping up attacks on girls’ schools. In retaliation, a growing number of girls are going for school education – without school buildings.

PAKISTAN: In Arms Against Saints

The Taliban have destroyed schools, bombed music shops and carried out gruesome executions in Pakistan’s territories bordering Afghanistan. But what they may never be forgiven for is the destruction of ancient shrines where revered Sufi mystics are interred.

RIGHTS: West Turns Blind Eye to Torture in Uzbekistan

Despite its formal adoption of due-process reforms in 2008, the government of Uzbekistan under President Islam Karimov continues to practice torture routinely, and the situation may be worsening, according to a major new report released here and in Berlin Tuesday.

INDIA: Kashmir Clamours for Normalcy

As armed insurgency in India’s northern Jammu and Kashmir ebbs, the elected state government is keen to hasten a return to normalcy by easing draconian security laws and reopening movie theatres and liquor shops, banned by fundamentalist militant groups.

PAKISTAN: Soldiers’ Families Demand Revenge Against U.S.

As Islamabad and Washington wrangle over responsibility for the Nov. 26 cross-border airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani troops, families of the dead soldiers are demanding revenge on the United States.

AFGHANISTAN: The Pressure Is Now on Central Asian Supply Route

The Northern Distribution Network, the key re-supply route for U.S. and NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan, is set to experience a spike in traffic due to the closure of the Pakistani-Afghan border. But it will take several weeks for the United States and NATO to work out the logistics of rerouting cargo.

Rejecting Apology, U.S. May Hasten End of Pakistan as Client

President Barack Obama has sided with U.S. military and Defence Department officials in rejecting a proposal by the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan for a U.S. apology for last weekend's attack on two Pakistani border posts, and approving an investigation into the attack that won't be completed until Dec. 23 at the earliest.

Taliban Slide ‘From Hero to Zero’

Religious and political forces in Northern Pakistan, which hitherto drew strength from their association with the Taliban have begun to distance themselves from the militants, as the latter’s legitimacy plummets in the border regions.

PAKISTAN: DNA Lab Comes to Track Terrorists

A much-needed DNA laboratory is to be set up at the Forensic Science Department of the Khyber Medical College in Peshawar, capital of the violence- battered Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region in Pakistan.

Pak Border Post Attack a Big Loss for U.S. War Policy

The U.S. military and the Barack Obama administration have been thrown into confusion by the attack on two Pakistani military posts near the border with Afghanistan Saturday morning, even as the attacks provoked the Pakistani government and military leadership into much stronger opposition to U.S. policy in the region.

Pakistan Calls NATO Raid ‘Act of Aggression’

The Pakistani military has called the NATO cross-border air attack on a military checkpoint that killed 24 soldiers a deliberate act of aggression.

Washington Frets Over Pakistan Response to Soldiers’ Deaths

As the Pentagon scrambled Monday to satisfy Pakistani demands for a full accounting of Saturday's lethal air attack on two border posts, official Washington expressed hope that Islamabad's retaliation will be limited in both time and scope.