By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Pakistani Ambassador Sherry Rehman doesn't mince words. She rolls them out like fresh dough, pounds them into heaps and injects them with a "cognitive disconnect" or a "bilateral trajectory."
Pakistani Ambassador Sherry Rehman resigned Tuesday, citing her party's loss in parliamentary elections as she plans to return to her South Asian nation where she faces a police investigation on charges of blasphemy.
Religious freedom is under attack in Pakistan and the situation next door in Afghanistan is not that much better, despite an improvement since the country was ruled by the Taliban, a U.S. government advisory commission said in a report released Tuesday.
The State Department on Tuesday imposed sanctions on a Pakistan-based terrorist group that supports al Qaeda and the Taliban.
The former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, who resigned abruptly last year, is calling for Washington and Islamabad to break the "tyranny of negative narratives" and wage a stronger fight against terrorism and corruption in the strategic but unstable South Asian nation.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is pushing Pakistan to release more Taliban prisoners, including the group's deputy leader, in a move aimed at reviving peace talks with the militants, despite concern within his own administration that the battle-hardened Islamists could rejoin a decadelong insurgency that seeks to topple the government in Kabul.
Pakistan's ambassador to the United States lashed out at the Obama administration's use of drones to kill terrorists inside Pakistan, calling unmanned aerial attacks "counterproductive."
Serving as Pakistan's ambassador to the United States is risky business, as the country's former envoy noted after hearing about the legal threat against the current ambassador.
The head of Pakistan's intelligence agency is due in Washington this week, as U.S.-Pakistani relations remain tense and just days after Pakistan's ambassador here demanded an end to U.S. drone attacks against terrorist targets in her country.
Pakistani Ambassador Sherry Rehman this week demanded that the White House apologize for a NATO assault on Pakistani forces and halt drone attacks on Pakistani territory, if Washington wants to improve relations with a nation many see as a key South Asian ally in the war on terrorism.
The Mexican ambassador this week accused Texas of playing politics by urging college students to avoid Mexico on spring break because of a dramatic rise in violence.
Pakistan is outraged by a resolution sponsored by three House Republicans calling for a vote on independence for the people of Baluchistan, the largest province in the South Asian nation already angry at Washington for its anti-terrorist attacks.
The U.S. and Pakistan need to reset their strategic relationship, which has been "burdened" with too many expectations, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S said Wednesday.
For Pakistanis, arguably the world's most anti-U.S. population, the NATO airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at an Afghan-Pakistani border post at Salala in the Mohmand Tribal Agency was deliberate.
Pakistan appointed a democracy activist who has faced militant death threats as its new ambassador to the United States on Wednesday, moving quickly to replace the old envoy who resigned after upsetting the country's powerful military in a scandal dubbed "memo-gate."
Ms. Rehman, a political appointee, announced her resignation after her Pakistan People's Party lost control of the government in parliamentary elections this month.
"We are on the cusp of a new normal, a less hyperbolic relationship — one founded as much on the sustainable continuum of share democratic values instead of only the sharp edge of strategic compulsions," she said.
