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Jan 16, 2025 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Ejaz Haider
US President-elect Donald Trump will take the oath of office on January 20, 2025, only the second American president after Grover Cleveland (1885-1889; 1893-1897) to win non-consecutive terms. He is already active, holding forth on a number of issues and making leaders around the world nervous.
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Jan 11, 2025 | 
dawn.com | Ejaz Haider |Shahid Mehmood
Pakistan’s targeted strikes on December 4, 2024 on the training camps of the self-styled Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the Birmal area of eastern Paktika province of Afghanistan have brought Afghanistan’s irredentist policy out in the open. The strikes came after a string of terrorist attacks by the TTP on Pakistan’s security forces. The TTP, an internationally designated terrorist group, is hosted by the self-declared Afghan Interim Government on Afghanistan’s soil.
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Dec 8, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Ejaz Haider
In April 1904, famous English geographer, theorist, politician and diplomat, Sir Halford Mackinder writing in The Geographical Journal, presented what became known as the Heartland Theory: whoever rules Eurasia will rule the Heartland, whoever rules the Heartland will rule the World Island, and whoever rules the World Island will rule the world. My point here is to stress the nexus between geography and strategy. In simple terms strategy can only unfold along geographical lines.
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Nov 26, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Ejaz Haider
For Imran Khan’s dedicated workers, what is happening in Islamabad is all about Khan. He has been wronged, ousted through a conspiracy, and incarcerated, all while his workers and leaders have been arrested and jailed, his party bludgeoned, and his electoral victory stolen. The anti-Khan camp believes Khan is a fascist, ruled like a dictator, is a disruptor and should be kept away.
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Nov 19, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Ejaz Haider
My earliest memory of Khaled Ahmed is from 1986 when I landed at The Nation's reporting room. The newspaper had just been launched; I was still at Punjab University pursuing a masters, and a few hours of work after classes got me a sorely needed Rs1,500 per month. The office floor was partitioned with cardboard walls with glass windows. The reporting room was adjacent to the editorial room, which had smaller cabins.
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Nov 16, 2024 | 
dawn.com | Ejaz Haider |Abbas Nasir
PROLOGUEDonald Trump is back, only the second American president after Grover Cleveland (1885-1889; 1893-1897) to win non-consecutive terms, and he is making a lot of people within and outside the United States nervous. Most believe that Trump is bad news all round, someone who “made divisiveness the calling card of his presidency”, as journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser put it in their book The Divider.
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Nov 5, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Ejaz Haider
By the time this appears, voters in the United States will be headed to the polls. At last count, 82 million votes had already been cast, a little more than half of the number polled in 2020. The possibility of a Donald Trump win has caused much consternation, not just in the US but also in the rest of the world, particularly among the US’ Western/NATO allies. Pollsters say the race is tied.
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Nov 3, 2024 | 
dawn.com | Ejaz Haider |Abbas Nasir
“For generations to come, all will be told of the miracle of the immense planes from the United States bringing in the materiel that meant life to our people.”— Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir on the United States airlift during the 1973 War“Things did not go particularly well for Israel over the next couple days, but as Israel started to push back the daily advances, the Nixon administration initiated Operation Nickel Grass, an American airlift to replace all of Israel’s lost munitions.
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Oct 31, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Ejaz Haider
Scholars and policymakers have been vexed over the question of how wars can be prevented. Political scientist James D Fearon went looking for rationalist explanations of war because he realised that “The central puzzle about war, and also the main reason we study it, is that wars are costly but nonetheless wars recur.” This much is obvious: wars and violence have continued and the question of how one can escape violence or prevent wars, whether intra- or interstate remains moot.
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Oct 23, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Ejaz Haider
PREAMBLE On July 24, 2023, Israel’s Knesset passed a controversial bill to strip their highest court of the power to declare government decisions unreasonable. The bill, dubbed the “reasonableness bill”, passed with a 64 to nil vote after all members of the opposition boycotted the vote. The passage of the bill sparked massive public protests.
