Free Republic

Stung by Donald Trump’s assertion that as president he would get Pakistan to release “in two minutes” the doctor who the U.S. says helped to track down Osama bin Laden, a Pakistani minister said Monday his country was not a U.S. colony and dismissed U.S. aid as “peanuts.” “Contrary to Mr. Trump’s misconception, Pakistan is not a colony of the United States of America,” Interior Minister Chaudry Nisar Khan said in a statement. “Shakil Afridi is a Pakistani citizen, and nobody else has the right to dictate to us about his future,” Khan said. “He should learn to treat sovereign...

The radical Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has pursued an Islamic Caliphate since 1953, held a massive conference in Ramallah on Saturday, calling upon the armies of Jordan and Egypt to intervene directly and “free Palestine." Thousands participated in the event, which was billed as “Tent of Believers: the Caliphate Through the Path of the Prophet, and the Tent of Hypocrites, Heretics, and Imperialists." Black-and-white flags bearing the pledge of allegiance to Allah and Mohammed were waved while participants chanted slogans calling for the “liberation” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. “Officers and soldiers, break down the borders [of Israel],"...

Is this a Obama Administration mistake, asking Congress to pay for their F-16'S? The United States has told Pakistan it will have to finance the purchase of U.S. F-16 fighter jets itself after members of the U.S. Congress objected to the use of government funds to pay for them. The U.S. government said in February it had approved the sale to Pakistan of up to eight F-16 fighter jets built by Lockheed Martin Corp LMT.N, as well as radar and other equipment in a deal valued at $699 million. However, Republican Senator Bob Corker said he would use his power...

The US will no longer subsidise the sale of eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, a senior state department official has told the BBC. The decision means that Pakistan will have to pay more than $700m (£480m) - two-and-a-half times the original cost - if it wishes to buy the aircraft. It comes after Congress refused to approve funding for the deal. Some US lawmakers had accused Pakistan of not doing enough to fight militants. India also objected to the sale. However, Pakistan has argued that the jets are needed for anti-terror operations, and so the US should help with...

“I started scorpion smoking in the mid-'60s,” recalls 74-year-old Sohbat Khan. It was during General Ayub Khan’s era, and Khan was only 20 years old. He would frequent the famous Jalil Kabab house in Peshawar, which is how he met the vendor who sold scorpions worth Re 1 or Rs 2 right next to the eatery. The men got their supply from the Matani area, which is rich in scorpions because of its insufferably hot weather. Khan says he has quit smoking scorpions. His eyes are sunken from years of addiction, and his pale face and hollow cheeks betray a...

Just one day ahead of the anniversary of the worst riot Baltimore had seen in more than 40 years, its residents will head to the polls to determine who will lead the city for the next four years. […] Shortly after the April 27, 2015, unrest, Democratic Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake instituted a mandatory 10 p.m. curfew. Four months later, she announced she wouldn’t seek re-election. The open race attracted a flood of hopefuls declaring their candidacy; before the Feb. 3 deadline passed, 13 Democrats jumped into the primary. The two most politically entrenched candidates emerged as front-runners: Sheila Dixon, who...

On Capitol Hill, Representative Chris Van Hollen is, literally and figuratively, a Democratic fair-haired boy. An American son of diplomats born while his parents served in Pakistan, he has used his fund-raising savvy, policy smarts and easy manner to position himself, party elders assumed, as a potential Democratic speaker of the House. Instead, Mr. Van Hollen, now running for the Senate in his home state of Maryland, is fighting for his survival in an identity politics primary that raises an explosive question: Should a white man, or a black woman, inherit the seat held for 30 years by Barbara A....

Textbooks in Pakistan that are used to teach about 41 million children, negatively portray religious minorities such as Christians and Hindus, referring to them as "nefarious, violent, and tyrannical by nature." (Reuters/Kham)Third-grade level students attend class at the Mashal Model School on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. "Pakistan's public school textbooks contain deeply troubling content that portrays non-Muslim citizens as outsiders, unpatriotic, and inferior; are filled with errors; and present widely-disputed historical 'facts' as settled history," said Robert George in a press release. George is the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). A study done by...

For a record 14th year in a row, the State Department has overruled the advice of an independent statutory watchdog and decided not to blacklist Pakistan for religious freedom abuses. The decision not to designate Pakistan a “country of particular concern” under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) comes despite its government’s continuing rejection of calls to amend or rescind the world’s most notorious blasphemy laws — which carry the death penalty and are frequently used to target Christians and other minorities. It also comes just days after a new U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) report highlighted...

New Delhi: India's Light Combat Aircraft Tejas, which was several years in the making, has now caught the attention of foreign buyers, with Sri Lanka and Egypt evincing interest in the indigenously built fighter jet. Sri Lanka had recently rejected Pakistan's JF-17 aircraft built with Chinese help, while Egypt had last year signed a contract for 24 French-made Rafale fighter jets. The two countries are interested in the current version of the Tejas and not the upgraded one which will be rolled out later. However, state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the manufacturer of Tejas, is focusing on delivering the aircraft...

British Docu Film based on in depth survey on current beliefs of British Muslims. Hosted by Trevor Phillips.

A new study released Tuesday found that Pakistan’s public school textbooks negatively portray the country’s religious minorities, including Hindus, Christians and Ahmadis, as “untrustworthy, religiously inferior, and ideologically scheming.” […] The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) sponsored the study, which was conducted by the Pakistan-based NGO Peace and Education Foundation (PEF). The study found 70 new instances of bias in addition to finding that some problematic content found in a 2011 study conducted by USCIRF had remained and even been expanded upon. “Pakistan’s public school textbooks contain deeply troubling content that portrays non-Muslim citizens as outsiders, unpatriotic, and...

Caption - To establish a caliphate, al-Hanif promises to topple Shiekh Hasina government in Bangladesh. ISIS vows to implement 'sharia' law in India. Islamic State (ISIS) has made new threat to send its fighters from Pakistan and Bangladesh to carry out 'guerrilla attacks' in India. In a recent interview carried by Dabiq magazine, the 'amir' of ISIS fighters in Bangladesh, Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif has vowed to wipe out Hindus and implement 'sharia' law in India and Bangladesh. al-Hanif also revealed the terror group is currently training fighters in Bangladesh and Pakistan to launch attacks on India and is seeking...

At a time when Pakistan finds itself in the news for grisly bombings and a soaring rate in executions, an unexpected angel has swooped in with a message of peace, love and harmony. Two years after "Eye to Eye" baffled the country by giving birth to a huge cult following, the Pakistani singer Taher Shah returned this weekend with a second music video, "Angel," that has gone viral. Topping Twitter's trending list in India and Pakistan (and ranking third across the globe) and racking up millions of plays, this new classic may cement Shah's position as the world's most unlikely...

A hand grenade exploded inside courtroom in Karachi’s Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) after a judge asked a police constable if he knew how grenades worked. The constable, instead of explaining his expertise in weapons and grenade handling to the judge, opted to demonstrate practically by promptly pulling out the pin from the grenade. This resulted in a loud explosion, injuring three including the constable and a court clerk......

W DELHI: India is in talks with the United States to purchase 40 Predator surveillance drones, officials said, a possible first step towards acquiring the armed version of the aircraft and a development likely to annoy Pakistan. India is trying to equip the military with more unmanned technologies to gather intelligence as well as boost its firepower along the vast land borders with Pakistan and China. It also wants a closer eye on the Indian Ocean. New Delhi has already acquired surveillance drones from Israel to monitor the mountains of Kashmir. As defence ties deepen with the United States, which...

A recent blockbuster expose on the Pakistani public school system has some eye-opening news for the non-Muslim world. In the wake of the Easter bombings in Lahore, Pakistan the people of the world complained that the Pakistani government wasn’t doing enough to push back against the Muslim extremists in their country. In response, the government has promised to crack down on militant terrorism that has entrenched itself in certain corners of their country. Here’s the problem with these promises… the “extremism” isn’t just found with the radical terrorists. In Pakistan, radical Muslim “extremism” isn’t actually that extreme. In fact, it’s...

PARIS, April 7 (Reuters) - Pakistan wants to upgrade its ageing fleet of fighter jets in anticipation of a prolonged battle against Islamist militants, although the purchase of fifth-generation planes would only be a last resort, a senior air force official said. U.S. ally Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of 180 million people, is fighting a Taliban insurgency in its northwest, a separatist insurgency along its Iranian border in the west, and has a heavily militarised and disputed border with arch rival India in the east. In 2014, the military launched a crackdown in the northwestern areas of North and South...

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy has awarded a contract to Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. to build AH-1Z Viper helicopter gunships for the Pakistani government. Under the $170 million Naval Air Systems Command contract, Bell will build the nine AH-1Zs and nine auxiliary fuel kits for the helicopters as a purchase under the Foreign Military Sales program. Deliveries are expected to be completed by September 2018, according to the contract announcement. The approval of the sale by the State Department was made a year ago for a maximum of 15 Vipers. The Pakistani Army will be the first international customer for...

Global military spending reached almost $1.7 trillion in 2015, marking a year-on-year increase for the first time since 2011, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks arms expenditure around the world. The United States remained far and away the top spender, which despite a dip from 2014, accounted for more than a third of total global spending. It was followed by China and then, perhaps surprisingly, Saudi Arabia, which supplanted Russia in third place.