Podcasts about pakistani taliban

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:   First, we'll look at the deadly crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines flight over Kazakhstan on Wednesday, as evidence mounts that it was likely caused by a Russian air defense system. Then, Pakistan is escalating their fight against the Pakistani Taliban in Afghanistan, unleashing a series of airstrikes that killed at least 46 people late Tuesday night. It's just the latest incident to raise tensions with the Afghan Taliban government, who vowed retaliation. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Pakistani Taliban or TPP has come into posession of many high end weapons and gear that was left behind during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and those weapons are now being used to kill police officers, civilians and military members inside of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This comes on top of the previous report of NATO weapons being used by terror groups inside of Kashmir against Indian government forces.Now, with another war raging in Ukraine and with the weaponry even more advanced being used there, the fear is that the same thing will happen and the weapons earmarked for Ukrainian forces will find their way into the hands of criminals and cartels.(commercial at 9:00)to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:U.S. arms left in Afghanistan surface in Pakistan Taliban insurgency - Nikkei Asia

This is the Catchup on 3 Things by The Indian Express and I'm Flora Swain.Today is the 20th of November and here are the headlines.Maharashtra and Jharkhand Elections UpdateAs of 3 pm, voter turnout in Maharashtra stands at 45.53%, while Jharkhand's Phase 2 polling has recorded 61.47%. Maharashtra's 288 Assembly seats are in play, with the Mahayuti coalition facing off against the Maha Vikas Aghadi. In Jharkhand, Chief Minister Hemant Soren seeks re-election while the BJP hopes to disrupt his plans. Voter engagement is key in these crucial contests, as both states head toward pivotal elections shaping the future of their leadership.Bitcoin Allegations in Maharashtra ElectionsNationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Supriya Sule and Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole have filed complaints with cyber police and the Election Commission over Bitcoin misappropriation allegations. Former IPS officer Ravindranath Patil accused them of using misappropriated Bitcoins to influence the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections. The BJP has released voice notes, claiming a conspiracy, intensifying the controversy on the eve of voting. The investigation into these serious claims is now underway.Delhi Air Quality and Work-from-Home OrdersDelhi's Environment Minister Gopal Rai announced a 50% work-from-home policy for both private and government offices due to severe air pollution. The air quality index (AQI) hit a dangerous 430 on Wednesday, with areas like Mundka reaching 464. While slight improvements were noted, the city remains in a crisis. In response, Gurgaon has also implemented similar measures, urging residents to protect themselves from the ongoing hazardous air conditions.Suicide Bombing in PakistanA suicide bomber attacked a security post in Bannu, northwestern Pakistan, killing 12 security personnel and injuring several others. The bombing, one of the deadliest in recent months, occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The Pakistani military responded to the attack, killing six militants from the Pakistani Taliban, or "khwarij," in the ensuing exchange of fire. This deadly assault marks a significant escalation in violence in the region.US Embassy Closure in KyivThe US Embassy in Kyiv closed on Wednesday, citing concerns of a "potential significant air attack." Embassy employees were instructed to shelter in place as a precautionary measure. The closure follows heightened tensions after Ukraine's missile strike on Russia using US-provided ATACMS. The embassy's warning underscores the ongoing risks in the region, as the US and Ukraine face rising threats amid the ongoing conflict.This was the Catch Up on 3 Things by The Indian Express.

In 2013, 11 people were shot dead in base camp of the Nanga Parbat mountain in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. The gunmen were associated with the Pakistani Taliban and the group were set up to target foreigners. It was the worst attack on tourists in Pakistan in a decade. Polish climber Aleksandra Dzik, aged 30, was on the mountain that night, at camp two, and speaks to Megan Jones.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic' and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy's Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they've had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America's occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.(Photo: Nanga Parbat base camp. Credit: Aleksandra Dzik)

Today's West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy Podcast for our especially special Daily Special, Tarrytown Chowder Tuesdays is now available on the Spreaker Player!Starting off in the Bistro Cafe, Trump blamed the US for the war in Ukraine.Then, on the rest of the menu, Oregon removed over 1,200 voters from the rolls for failing to provide proof of citizenship; an elections board in Ohio will not use the county Sheriff's department for election security after the sheriff's posts about Harris yard signs; and, California becomes the latest state to restrict student smartphone use at school.After the break, we move to the Chef's Table where the Pakistani Taliban denied attacking a convoy of foreign ambassadors; and, reconstruction is set to begin on Copenhagen's 400-year old fire-damaged Old Stock Exchange landmark.All that and more, on West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy with Chef de Cuisine Justice Putnam.Bon Appétit!The Netroots Radio Live Player​Keep Your Resistance Radio Beaming 24/7/365!“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”-- Ernest Hemingway"A Moveable Feast"Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/west-coast-cookbook-speakeasy--2802999/support.

In this episode of Hold Your Fire!, Richard is joined by Crisis Group's South Asia project director Samina Ahmed to talk about the fallout from the February elections in Pakistan, the deteriorating security in Pakistan's border regions and Islamabad's relations with Pakistan's neighbours. They unpack what's behind the enduring popularity of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, and their standoff with the country's political and military establishment. They discuss Khan's efforts to repair his relations with the military, the legal cases levelled against him and the near-term chances of his release from jail. They also talk about the uptick in militant attacks in Pakistan's border regions, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, claimed in part by the Pakistani Taliban, links between that group and the Afghan Taliban, and the strained relations between Islamabad and the authorities in Kabul. Lastly, they touch upon Pakistan's evolving relations with India. For more, check out our Pakistan country page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A grim milestone in Afghanistan this week as the country marks a thousand days since girls were banned from attending secondary school. This as the Taliban continue to tighten their grip on the country, despite promising moderation after taking power in August 2021. It's a reality Malala Yousafzai calls “gender apartheid” - a term she calls on world leaders to recognize as a crime against humanity. Malala of course is a survivor of that violence against girls, shot by the Pakistani Taliban on her way home from school when she was just 15. She has since become the youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize winner, and a fierce advocate for the rights of girls and women around the world. Bianna discusses with Malala her foundation's announcement today of another $1.5 million to keep girls' education alive in Afghanistan.  Also on today's show: Ofir Amir, survivor of October 7th; A.J. Jacobs, author, “The Year of Living Constitutionally”  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michael talks with Asfandyar Mir, a South Asia senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace, about Pakistan. The two discuss the U.S. national security interest in Pakistan, relations between the two countries, the influence of China on Pakistan, and the Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports on air strikes in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

The Pakistani Taliban or TPP has come into posession of many high end weapons and gear that was left behind during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and those weapons are now being used to kill police officers, civilians and military members inside of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This comes on top of the previous report of NATO weapons being used by terror groups inside of Kashmir against Indian government forces.Now, with another war raging in Ukraine and with the weaponry even more advanced being used there, the fear is that the same thing will happen and the weapons earmarked for Ukrainian forces will find their way into the hands of criminals and cartels.(commercial at 9:00)to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:U.S. arms left in Afghanistan surface in Pakistan Taliban insurgency - Nikkei Asia

When one of your best options for securing an energy supply route is with the Pakistani Taliban, you know you've got some problems. So go ahead and add that one to China's ever-growing list of 'shit to figure out.' Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/chinas-energy-problem

Militants with ties to Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for the suicide attack at an army base in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that claimed 23 lives Tuesday. In Episode 1012 of Cut The Clutter, first published on 31 May 2022, Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta delves into the complex relationship between the Afghan Taliban, its allies in Islamabad & offshoots in Pakistan.

This is the web version of Foreign Exchanges, but did you know you can get it delivered right to your inbox? Sign up today:TODAY IN HISTORYDecember 2, 1805: At the Battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon wins what was arguably his greatest victory against a larger joint Russian-Austrian army. The Allies suffered 36,000 dead/wounded/captured compared with only 9000 for the French. The French victory was so complete that not only did it end the War of the Third Coalition, it allowed Napoleon to create the Confederation of the Rhine among the German states that had become French clients. Emperor Francis II was then forced to dissolve the Holy Roman Empire, which had been in existence continuously since 962 and traced its origins back to Charlemagne's coronation as “emperor of the Romans” in 800.December 2, 1942: Enrico Fermi and his team create the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction at “Chicago Pile-1,” a rudimentary reactor built under the campus of the University of Chicago. This was the first milestone achievement for the Manhattan Project in its race to build a nuclear bomb before Nazi Germany.December 3, 1971: The Pakistani military undertakes preemptive airstrikes against several Indian military installations, beginning the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, itself the final phase of the Bangladesh Liberation War. India was preparing to enter the war on Bangladesh's side anyway, so when I say these strikes were “preemptive” I am not using that term in the phony, George W. Bush “hey they might attack us someday, you never know” sense of the term. The war, to put it mildly, was a complete disaster for the Pakistanis, who were forced to surrender a scant 13 days later and had to give up their claims on “East Pakistan” (Bangladesh) while suffering around a third of their military killed, wounded, or captured. In one of Henry Kissinger's more notorious acts, the Nixon administration opted to support Pakistan despite evidence of its armed forces committing major atrocities against Bangladeshi civilians.December 3, 1984: A Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, spews toxic methyl isocyanate gas overnight, resulting in the deaths of between 3800 and 16,000 people and causing injury to at least 558,000 more. Union Carbide maintains that the leak was caused by deliberate sabotage, though Indian courts subsequently found several officials at the plant guilty of negligence. The “Bhopal Disaster” remains one of the worst industrial catastrophes in history and its adverse effects are still being felt by people in that region to the present day.MIDDLE EASTISRAEL-PALESTINEThe Israeli military (IDF) was advancing on the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis on Sunday, with Hamas officials and residents both reporting indications of nearby fighting and the IDF later confirming that it has sent ground forces into southern Gaza. The IDF has been ordering civilians to evacuate the eastern reaches of Khan Younis, and of course it's posted a helpful interactive map on its website that warns civilians of imminent danger provided those civilians have reliable internet access and haven't lost their special IDF secret decoder rings. Residents of Khan Younis will likely move further south to Rafah, though that city is also under heavy IDF bombardment so it's not really safe either. Israeli officials say the IDF struck more than 400 targets over the weekend, and the official Gazan death toll had risen at last check to 15,523. The real death toll may be substantially higher, given the likelihood of bodies that haven't yet been recovered and the closure of most of the hospitals that were handling casualties.Elsewhere:* Aid shipments into Gaza have resumed. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society says that 100 truckloads of aid entered the territory from Egypt on Saturday and I believe the aim was to bring in a similar number of trucks on Sunday though I have not seen any information yet as to whether that was accomplished.* The Biden administration may be “pressing” Israel and Hamas to resume negotiations, as White House spokes-ghoul John Kirby told NBC on Sunday, but there's no indication it's having any success. After the ceasefire collapsed on Friday the Israeli government recalled its Mossad negotiators from Qatar, and for Hamas's part the Islamist group's political wing has sworn off any future prisoner swaps “until the war ends.”* The administration is continuing to send large quantities of ordinance to the IDF, including massive “bunker buster” bombs. So any claim that it's really pushing the Israeli government to negotiate a ceasefire or even demonstrate greater discernment in its bombardments really doesn't hold up terribly well.* Israel Hayom is reporting that “key figures” in the US Congress have been shown the text of a “new initiative” that would condition future US aid to Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, and Yemen (all of which it identified as “Arab states,” which would be news to the Turks) on the willingness of governments in those four states to enable the ethnic cleansing of Gaza by taking in refugees. That same outlet has also reported (in Hebrew, so here's a summary from Ryan Grim) that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked Minister of Strategic Planning Ron Dermer to put together a plan to “thin the population in Gaza to a minimum,” which if nothing else is an incredible euphemism. The Biden administration has rejected any forced and/or permanent relocation of Gazan civilians, a point that Vice President Kamala Harris reiterated during her visit to the COP28 climate summit in Dubai over the weekend. But it perhaps could be sold on the idea of a “voluntary” (in quotes because in reality it would be anything but) evacuation that is characterized as temporary even if there's no real intention to ever let the evacuees return.* The Guardian says its reporting has confirmed the findings of that bombshell +972 Magazine piece from a few days ago, which reported that the IDF has been using an AI system called “Habsora” (“The Gospel”) to identify targets under a process that's been likened to a “mass assassination factory.” The system is producing targets faster than the IDF can attack them, including private homes where the likelihood of civilian casualties is high. Israeli officials are apparently insisting that the AI is programmed to minimize civilian risk, an assertion that cannot be squared with the high number of civilian casualties incurred so far in this conflict.* Israeli settler mobs attacked two West Bank villages in separate incidents on Saturday, killing at least one Palestinian in one of those attacks. The human rights organization Yesh Din says it's catalogued some 225 settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, resulting in at least nine deaths.* On a somewhat related note, one of the people killed in last Thursday's shooting in East Jerusalem turns out to have been an Israeli civilian who shot and killed the two Hamas attackers and then was mistakenly gunned down by Israeli soldiers. Video footage apparently shows the man disarming, kneeling, and opening his shirt to demonstrate to the soldiers that he was not a threat, but one of them killed him anyway. The incident has raised issues regarding the trigger happiness of Israeli security forces and the wisdom of the Israeli government's armed vigilante program, which in addition to risking civilian Palestinian deaths also risks more “friendly fire” shootings like this one.* The Washington Post published a story this weekend about the hasty evacuation of al-Nasr Children's Hospital in northern Gaza last month. Without going into some of the grislier details, the staff was forced to evacuate by the IDF and left behind four premature infants who likely would not have survived relocation. They say Israeli officials told them the infants would be taken out in Red Cross ambulances but apparently they were left to die and, eventually, decompose. Reporters discovered their remains during the ceasefire. Israeli officials insist that they never ordered al-Nasr's evacuation and have questioned the veracity of the story, despite video evidence and a recording of a phone call that the IDF itself released in which an Israeli official appears to acknowledge the need to rescue patients from the facility. The Red Cross says it never agreed to assist the evacuation and that conditions in northern Gaza would have made it impossible for its personnel to get to al-Nasr to retrieve the infants.* I mention the al-Nasr story because it strikes me as especially galling. In general I'm trying not to focus heavily on individual atrocities or allegations of atrocities in compiling these newsletters—there would be no space for anything else otherwise. I hope readers don't mistake that for apathy about any of these stories, going back to and including the atrocities committed/allegedly committed by Gazan militants on October 7 (I know cases of sexual violence have been receiving heavy coverage of late). I feel my role here is to try to provide an overview and for me that means keeping some distance from specific events. I'm sure I don't do that consistently but it is my aim.SYRIAAccording to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that Saturday morning Israeli missile attack in the vicinity of Damascus killed at least two of its personnel who were in Syria on an “advisory” mission. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the strikes killed two Syrians who were affiliated with Hezbollah as well as two foreigners, presumably these IRGC members, while wounding five other people.YEMENHouthi rebels in northern Yemen fired a barrage of missiles and drones at ships in the Red Sea on Sunday. The group damaged three commercial ships and also fired at least three drones at the US naval destroyer USS Carney, which shot the projectiles down. There's no indication of any casualties and two of the vessels reported only minor damage (I'm unsure as to the status of the third). I would not be surprising if the US military were to retaliate against the Houthis in the near future, and there is a genuine risk that this could lead to a full-blown resumption of the Yemen war—though of course that would require Saudi Arabia's involvement.IRAQIraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaʿ al-Sudani reportedly told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a phone conversation on Saturday that Baghdad does not appreciate the US military carrying out attacks on Iraqi soil. The US attacked two Iraqi militia-linked targets on November 22 (during this newsletter's holiday pause), “killing nine pro-Iran fighters” in retaliation for attacks against US personnel according to AFP. Those attacks tapered off during the Gaza ceasefire, but as we know that ceasefire is no longer operative.On Sunday, US forces carried out a drone strike on a militia target in Iraq's Kirkuk province, killing at least five people and wounding five more. There was initially no indication as to responsibility (though one didn't exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes to solve this caper), but the US military later confirmed that it was responsible and characterized the strike as preempting “an imminent threat.”ASIAPAKISTANUnspecified gunmen attacked a bus in northern Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region late Saturday, killing at least nine people and injuring at least 26 others. The bus driver was among those killed, along with the driver of a truck with which the bus collided. There's been no claim of responsibility and the main body of the Pakistani Taliban has taken the rare step of denying any involvement.PHILIPPINESA bombing targeting a Catholic mass killed at least four people and left several others wounded on the campus of Mindanao State University in the southern Philippine city of Marawi on Sunday. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack via Telegram. The previous day, the Philippine military said its forces killed at least 11 jihadist militants in nearby Maguindanao province in an attack targeting “suspected leaders and armed followers of the Dawla Islamiyah [i.e. ‘Islamic State'] and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters” to borrow the AP's verbiage. I don't know whether Sunday's bombing was planned in advance or was intended as a direct retaliation for Saturday's incident.AFRICAGUINEA-BISSAUThe president of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, characterized Thursday night's gun battle between elements of the National Guard and his Presidential Palace Battalion as an “attempted coup” in comments to reporters on Saturday. Embaló had been out of the country attending the COP28 summit when the incident took place and said it had delayed his return to Bissau. National Guard commander Victor Tchongo is now in government custody, but Embaló appeared to suggest that there were other coup plotters behind Tchongo and said he would open an investigation into the incident on Monday. The National Guard is part of the Interior Ministry, which AFP says is “dominated” by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAICG). That party, which won June's parliamentary election and now controls the government, is opposed to Embaló.BURKINA FASOThe military governments of Burkina Faso and Niger announced on Saturday that they are both withdrawing from the G5 Sahel regional counterinsurgency force. That group was formed in 2014 with the aim of pooling resources to battle the various jihadist groups that were threatening Sahelian governments. It began deploying joint forces a couple of years later, but as you might already have concluded it's had minimal impact on the region's jihadist crisis. Mali's ruling junta quit last year, so of the original five member states only Mauritania and Nigeria still remain.ETHIOPIAOfficials in Ethiopia's Oromian regional government have accused the rebel Oromo Liberation Army of killing at least 36 civilians in attacks on three villages that took place on November 24 and 27. The OLA apparently hasn't commented and there's no confirmation of the government claim, but the alleged attacks took place not long after another round of peace talks between the OLA and Ethiopian government broke down, so it's conceivable the group decided to lash out in that moment. The OLA was formed as the military wing of the Oromo Liberation Front in the 1970s but broke away from the group's political leadership when the latter reached a peace accord with the Ethiopian government in 2018. It frequently attacks non-Oromo communities in Oromia, though authorities have only said that the victims of these attacks were Orthodox Christians without reference to ethnicity.EUROPEUKRAINERussian military operations in eastern Ukraine may have hit a couple of speed bumps over the weekend. For one thing, reports that emerged on Friday suggesting that the Russians had seized the town of Maryinka, southwest of the city of Donetsk, appear to have been a bit premature. Ukrainian forces are reportedly still in control of some parts of the town, including a coking plant, though that may change in relatively short order of course. Elsewhere, the Ukrainian military claimed on Saturday that Russian attacks on the city of Avdiivka had completely ceased for a full day. That too could change in a hurry, and indeed may already have changed by the time you read this, but it suggests the Russians were at least regrouping after spending the previous several days in what seemed like intense fighting to try to take the city.The Ukrainian government says it's investigating a claim that Russian soldiers summarily executed two surrendering Ukrainian military personnel. Details are minimal but there's a video of this alleged incident circulating on social media. Needless to say, intentionally killing surrendering soldiers is a war crime.FRANCEA knife-wielding attacker killed one German tourist and wounded two other people near Paris's Eiffel Tower late Saturday. The attacker is a French national who was on a French government “watch list,” had apparently pledged allegiance to Islamic State, and was also “known for having psychiatric disorders” according to Reuters. He cited the conflict in Gaza, among other triggers, to police after his arrest.AMERICASBRAZILBrazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Sunday that he has no intention of bringing Brazil into full membership in the OPEC+ bloc and would stick to “observer” status only, one day after he somewhat incoherently told reporters that he wanted to join the group of major oil producing nations to try to encourage them to stop producing oil. OPEC+ extended a membership offer to Brazil on Thursday, which I gather has raised some eyebrows given Lula's stated commitment to combating climate change. Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, is continuing to pursue new oil exploration, also despite Lula's climate change position, though he says his aim is to invest oil profits in non-fossil fuel energy alternatives (and to encourage OPEC+ nations to do likewise). Oil remains the cause of, and solution to, all of humanity's problems.VENEZUELAVenezuelans, or at least the ones who participated, apparently voted overwhelmingly in Sunday's referendum to support their country's territorial claim on western Guyana's Essequibo region. Election officials said that the vote was 95 percent in favor for all of its five clauses—the most contentious of which was a question about whether or not to declare Essequibo a new Venezuelan state and extend citizenship to its residents—though there's not much insight as to turnout. There's no indication that the Venezuelan government is planning any imminent steps to try to actualize its claim on Essequibo but the referendum has nevertheless caused some consternation in Guyana and internationally.UNITED STATESFinally, HuffPost's Akbar Shahid Ahmed offers some welcome reassurance that the worst Middle East “expert” in Washington is still central to the Biden administration's regional policy:Four men in Washington shape America's policy in the Middle East. Three are obvious: President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The fourth is less well-known, despite his huge sway over the other three ― and despite his determination to keep championing policies that many see as fueling bloodshed in Gaza and beyond.His name is Brett McGurk. He's the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, and he's one of the most powerful people in U.S. national security.McGurk crafts the options that Biden considers on issues from negotiations with Israel to weapon sales for Saudi Arabia. He controls whether global affairs experts within the government ― including more experienced staff at the Pentagon and the State Department ― can have any impact, and he decides which outside voices have access to White House decision-making conversations. His knack for increasing his influence is the envy of other Beltway operators. And he has a clear vision of how he thinks American interests should be advanced, regarding human rights concerns as secondary at best, according to current and former colleagues and close observers.Indeed, even though McGurk has spent nearly 20 years giving bad advice about the Middle East to a succession of US presidents—and even though his fixation on Saudi-Israeli normalization at Palestinian expense may have helped trigger the October 7 attacks—his influence today appears to be greater than it's ever been. I'm sure that makes all of us feel a little better.Thanks for reading! Foreign Exchanges is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.foreignexchanges.news/subscribe

North-western Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan, is home to a secluded tribe: the Kalash people. The pagan tribe are Pakistan's last polytheistic community, who have avoided mass Islamisation. But lately they have become the target of attacks from the Pakistani Taliban, who are now based in Afghanistan. Our correspondents report.

#Pakistan: Pakistani Taliban (TTP) bombs mosques on Mohammed's birthday & What is to be done?  Bill Roggio, FDD. Husain Haqqani, Hudson Institute 1900 PAKISTAN

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Congress averts government shutdown with last-minute scrambleSummary: With just 32 minutes to spare, US lawmakers prevented a government shutdown (of their own making) by passing a stopgap measure that will fund the government for the next 45 days.Context: The legislation that was ultimately passed was bipartisan and generally acceptable to everyone except the far-right Republican House Representatives who were attempting to get their policy priorities signed into law, and failing that, were happy to push the government into a shutdown; instead, House Republicans were able to get House Democrats, and the Democrat-controlled Senate on board with one of their proposals by removing a small amount of funding for Ukraine, which the Dems didn't like, but including everything else the Dems wanted; this is generally being seen as a victory for Democrats, will probably put a target on House Speaker McCarthy's back, as those far-right members of his party have said they would try to oust him if he worked with the Democrats in this matter, and it's likely we'll have to deal with this same issue in another month-and-a-half, so while a shutdown has been averted for now, it's anyone's guess as to how things will play out the next time we have to go through all this.—The Washington PostOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Saltwater in the Mississippi threatens water supply in New OrleansSummary: As water levels in the Mississippi River have fallen due to drought-like conditions throughout the US Midwest, the river has had insufficient heft to push back against the weight of the Gulf of Mexico, which has resulted in a slow, steady creep of salty ocean water up into the mouth of the river.Context: Louisiana officials and the US Army Corps of Engineers are now struggling to figure out how to provide drinking water to the New Orleans area, which relies on the Mississippi River as a freshwater source, if this so-called “wedge” of saltwater reaches the city's water treatment plants, as these plants can't handle high-salinity water and can actually start to corrode and break down if such water reaches its inflows; all of which is necessitating the construction of new infrastructure meant to impede the northward flow of saltwater into the river, but those in charge have said this will only delay the inevitable, and it's likely the only way out, lacking some major new construction or refurbishment of freshwater systems in the region, is significant rainfall somewhere upstream that helps the river push back against this seawater wedge.—The New York TimesDeath toll from Pakistan blast rises to 59 as minister blames IndiaSummary: A large explosion at a mosque in a southern province in Pakistan has killed at least 59 people and sparked fresh accusations by the Pakistani government against the Indian government.Context: The bomber detonated his explosives outside a mosque where people were gathered to celebrate the Prophet Mohammad's birthday, which is part of why the death toll is so high; this attack was followed by a second one in the northern part of the country, which killed at least five people, and no group has thus far come forward to claim responsibility, though there are quite a few extremist groups in the region that do this sort of thing semi-regularly, including the Pakistani Taliban—though they've outright denied being involved with these attacks; the Pakistani government has long accused the Research and Analysis Wing, which is India's intelligence agency, of sponsoring terrorist groups within their borders, though India denies this and there doesn't seem to be any publicly available evidence to support this allegation.—ReutersAs mentioned above, the issue of salt water creeping up the Mississippi River is becoming a real concern for New Orleans, which relies upon the river for its drinking water supply, and that concern could escalate later this month.—Axios5%New royalty fee McDonald's charges its franchisers for new locations.That's up from 4%: a fee structure that has remained stable for almost 30 years.While not a massive increase (and again, the first such increase in a long time) McDonald's corporate has had a tumultuous relationship with its franchisees, of late, so this could lead to some kind of pushback.—CNBCTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

How is Pakistan dealing with the security threat emanating from Afghanistan? Islamabad has reported an increase in cross-border attacks by the Pakistani Taliban. What's behind this surge? And is the Taliban government doing enough to stop it?   Join Host Mohammed Jamjoom Guests: Waqar Khan - Defence analyst.  Obaidullah Baheer - Lecturer in Transitional Justice, American University, Afghanistan. Zeeshan Salahuddin - Director, Centre for Regional and Global Connectivity, Tabad-lab. 

A suspected suicide bomb blast during a procession to commemorate the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad has left more than 50 people dead and many more wounded in Pakistan's Balochistan province. There's been growing instability in Pakistan caused by ISIS and the Pakistani Taliban. And, the Peace Corps started out as way for idealistic young people to do good and change the world. But with countries producing their own college graduates and even poor farmers connected by cellphones, is it still relevant? Also, Europe's rewilding efforts are seeing spectacular successes in Spain, where wild horses run free and vultures are once again circling the remote canyons of one of Europe's least populated areas. Plus, from village to village, a Kurdish musician records old folk songs to preserve a generation. 

Pakistan has seen an upsurge in terrorist attacks since the Taliban retook power in neighbouring Afghanistan in August 2021. A large proportion of these attacks are carried out by the TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, against security forces. Faced with this new threat, the Pakistani police are now taking on the role of a counter-terrorism force. They must not only maintain law and order, but also protect themselves from terrorist attacks. Our correspondents report.

Good afternoon, I'm _____ with today's episode of EZ News. **Tai-Ex opening ** The Tai-Ex opened up 48-points this morning from Friday's close, at 17,341 on turnover of $6.3-billion N-T. The market moved higher on Friday as investors ignored the losses on Wall Street continued to pick up artificial intelligence related stocks to offset (抵消) weakness in large cap stocks such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. Buying also focused on select old economy stocks, in particular in the transportation industry in the wake of a rebound in freight rates by both container cargo and bulk cargo shipping companies. **Czech Republic Launches E-Gate Clearance System for ROC Passport Holders ** The Czech Republic has launched an automatic immigration clearance system or e-gate for R-O-C passport holders. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the reciprocal (互惠的) program to provide electronic immigration processing at both countries' respective airports makes the Czech Republic Taiwan's ninth e-gate partner. However, the ministry says even with the e-gate system at the Vaclav Havel Airport Prague, R-O-C passport holders will still need to have their travel documents stamped by Czech customs officers when entering the country's border. The announcement comes after the recent launch of direct flights by Taoyuan International Airport and Prague. **Pakistan Suicide Bombing Leaves Dead and Injured ** A suicide bombing at a political rally on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan has killed at least 44 people and wounded nearly 200. The Bajur district near the Afghan border was a stronghold (勢力強大的地方，大本營) of the Pakistani Taliban — a close ally of Afghanistan's Taliban government — before the Pakistani army drove the militants out of the area. Supporters of hard-line Pakistani cleric and political party leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman were meeting in Bajur on Sunday in a hall close to a market outside the district capital. Party officials said Rehman was not at the rally, but organizers added tents because so many supporters showed up. The Pakistan Taliban says the bombing was aimed at setting Islamists against each other. **US Heatwave Air Conditioning ** As parts of the US remain in the grips of (深陷于.) a heat wave, linked to global warming, it's the lower-income families that suffer the most in hotter neighborhoods, without air conditioning. AP correspondent Jackie Quinn report. That was the I.C.R.T. news, Check in again tomorrow for our simplified version of the news, uploaded every day in the afternoon. Enjoy the rest of your day, I'm _____.

“The GOP v Trump” “Biden's New Kicks” “Fauci's Convenient House Fire” “The Return of the Taliban”

"The Return of the Taliban"https://www.audacy.com/989word The Charlie James Show Listen on Spotify : https://spoti.fi/3MXOvGP Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-charlie-james-show-podcast/id1547262821 Follow us on Social Media Join our Live Stream Weekdays - 3pm to 7pm Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1063WORD Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-2031096 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1063WORD Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1063word/ "Red Meat, Greenville." 07/21/23 #TalibanUnderWatch #AfghanistanTalibanCrisis #TerrorismAfghanistan #PakistanSupportsTaliban #TalibanReturnToPower #TheTalibanShadows #TTPPakistanMatters #TalibanNewsUpdate #TehreekETalibanInsight #AfghanTalibanConflict

Ullah v. Garland, No. 22-1026 (4th Cir. July 6, 2023)reasonable relocation; for the rest of one's life standard; remand for a grant of asylum; family members left behind; Pro-American imputed political opinion; DHS burden; Pakistani Taliban; Pakistan Chen v. Garland, No. 21-1371 (4th Cir. July 6, 2023)corroboration; reasonableness of obtaining evidence; Wambura; threshold determination; otherwise credible; L-A-C-; one-year asylum deadline; changed circumstances; failure to consider evidence; State Department Reports; House Church; Christian; China Osorio-Morales v. Garland, No. 22-2909 (7th Cir. July 5, 2023)unable or unwilling; family violence; failure to report to police; police investigation; systemic failure to protect; Honduras Uriostegui-Teran v. Garland, No. 22-2472 (8th Cir. July 6, 2023) particularity; social distinction; particular social group; family group; ranchers; Mexico; willful blindness  Circuit HousekeepingNinth (Mendoza Linares v. Garland) and Eleventh Circuits United States v. Lung'aho, No. 22-3168 (8th Cir. July 6, 2023) and Janis v. United States, No. 22-2471 (8th Cir. July 6, 2023)crime of violence; arson; maliciously; malice; more than recklessness; post-Borden; mens rea; murder; malice aforethought; extreme recklessness Madrid-Mancia v. Att'y Gen. U.S., No. 21-2291 (3d Cir. July 3, 2023)deficient NTA in absentia motion to reopen; § 239(a); use of the word or; follow up notice of hearing; statutory interpretation; statute as a whole; failure to update addressSponsors and friends of the podcast!Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli and Pratt P.A.Immigration, serious injury, and business lawyers serving clients in Florida, California, and all over the world for over 40 years.Docketwise"Modern immigration software & case management"Joorney Business Plans"Business-critical documents for every stage of your journey"For 30% off use code: REVJOORNEY30  Capital Good Fund"A social change organization that uses financial services to tackle poverty in America."Want to become a patron?Click here to check out our Patreon Page!CONTACT INFORMATIONEmail: kgregg@kktplaw.comFacebook: @immigrationreviewInstagram: @immigrationreviewTwitter: @immreviewDISCLAIMER:Immigration Review® is a podcast made available for educational purposes only. It does not provide legal advice. Rather, it offers general information and insights from publicly available immigration cases. By accessing and listening to the podcast, you understand that there is no attorney-client relationship between you and the host. The podcast should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed attorney in your state.MUSIC CREDITS:"Loopster," "Bass Vibes," "Chill Wave," and "Funk Game Loop" Kevin MacLeod - Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Support the show

Pakistan's economy is in dire straits, its political and security situation volatile - and it is in a spot as India becomes more important to Washington.  Synopsis: Every fourth Friday of the month, The Straits Times' US bureau chief Nirmal Ghosh presents an Asian perspective of the biggest global talking points with expert guests. Former prime minister of Pakistan Imran Khan's arrest in May triggered riots as his supporters attacked installations and the headquarters of the Pakistan army which had once supported him. This came as the economy, hit last year by a massive flood disaster, is in the doldrums and awaiting a bailout. The Pakistani Taliban has also stepped up its attacks, and on the foreign front, India and the United States are deepening their relationship. Pakistan remains resilient, but not successful. Find out why, as Nirmal Ghosh hosts Mr Husain Haqqani, Pakistan‘s former ambassador to the US and currently diplomat-in-residence at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi, and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington.  Highlights (click/tap above): 2:07 Why we must first understand the political layout and the military's role in Pakistan, a country of 230 million people and a nuclear power 4:30 Imran Khan's cult-like following; military wanted good relations with the US but Imran Khan had anti-American sentiments 9:15 How vulnerable is Pakistan? Why the military is a political reality, so they need to be part of any national reconciliation 15:25 After US has chosen India as its big Asian partner, find out why Pakistan should resolve issues with India Produced by: Nirmal Ghosh (nirmal@sph.com.sg), Ernest Luis, Hadyu Rahim, Paxton Pang and Fa'izah Sani Edited by: Fa'izah Sani Follow Asian Insider with Nirmal Ghosh every fourth Friday of the month: Channel: https://str.sg/JWa7 Apple Podcasts: https://str.sg/JWa8 Google Podcasts: https://str.sg/wQsB  Spotify: https://str.sg/JWaX SPH Awedio app: https://www.awedio.sg/ Website: http://str.sg/stpodcasts Feedback to: podcast@sph.com.sg Follow Nirmal Ghosh on Twitter: https://str.sg/JD7r Read Nirmal Ghosh's stories: https://str.sg/JbxG Register for Asian Insider newsletter: https://str.sg/stnewsletters --- Discover more ST podcast channels: In Your Opinion: https://str.sg/w7Qt Asian Insider: https://str.sg/JWa7 Health Check: https://str.sg/JWaN Green Pulse: https://str.sg/JWaf Your Money & Career: https://str.sg/wB2m ST Sports Talk: https://str.sg/JWRE #PopVultures: https://str.sg/JWad Music Lab: https://str.sg/w9TX Discover ST Podcasts: http://str.sg/stpodcasts Discover BT Podcasts: https://bt.sg/pcPL --- Special edition series: The Unsolved Mysteries of South-east Asia (5 eps): https://str.sg/wuZ2 Invisible Asia (9 eps): https://str.sg/wuZn Stop Scams (10 eps): https://str.sg/wuZB Singapore's War On Covid (5 eps): https://str.sg/wuJa --- Follow our shows then, if you like short, practical podcasts! #STAsianInsiderSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pakistan's economy is in dire straits, its political and security situation volatile - and it is in a spot as India becomes more important to Washington.  Synopsis: Every fourth Friday of the month, The Straits Times' US bureau chief Nirmal Ghosh presents an Asian perspective of the biggest global talking points with expert guests. Former prime minister of Pakistan Imran Khan's arrest in May triggered riots as his supporters attacked installations and the headquarters of the Pakistan army which had once supported him. This came as the economy, hit last year by a massive flood disaster, is in the doldrums and awaiting a bailout. The Pakistani Taliban has also stepped up its attacks, and on the foreign front, India and the United States are deepening their relationship. Pakistan remains resilient, but not successful. Find out why, as Nirmal Ghosh hosts Mr Husain Haqqani, Pakistan‘s former ambassador to the US and currently diplomat-in-residence at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi, and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington.  Highlights (click/tap above): 2:07 Why we must first understand the political layout and the military's role in Pakistan, a country of 230 million people and a nuclear power 4:30 Imran Khan's cult-like following; military wanted good relations with the US but Imran Khan had anti-American sentiments 9:15 How vulnerable is Pakistan? Why the military is a political reality, so they need to be part of any national reconciliation 15:25 After US has chosen India as its big Asian partner, find out why Pakistan should resolve issues with India Produced by: Nirmal Ghosh (nirmal@sph.com.sg), Ernest Luis, Hadyu Rahim, Paxton Pang and Fa'izah Sani Edited by: Fa'izah Sani Follow Asian Insider with Nirmal Ghosh every fourth Friday of the month: Channel: https://str.sg/JWa7 Apple Podcasts: https://str.sg/JWa8 Google Podcasts: https://str.sg/wQsB  Spotify: https://str.sg/JWaX SPH Awedio app: https://www.awedio.sg/ Website: http://str.sg/stpodcasts Feedback to: podcast@sph.com.sg Follow Nirmal Ghosh on Twitter: https://str.sg/JD7r Read Nirmal Ghosh's stories: https://str.sg/JbxG Register for Asian Insider newsletter: https://str.sg/stnewsletters --- Discover more ST podcast channels: In Your Opinion: https://str.sg/w7Qt Asian Insider: https://str.sg/JWa7 Health Check: https://str.sg/JWaN Green Pulse: https://str.sg/JWaf Your Money & Career: https://str.sg/wB2m ST Sports Talk: https://str.sg/JWRE #PopVultures: https://str.sg/JWad Music Lab: https://str.sg/w9TX Discover ST Podcasts: http://str.sg/stpodcasts Discover BT Podcasts: https://bt.sg/pcPL --- Special edition series: The Unsolved Mysteries of South-east Asia (5 eps): https://str.sg/wuZ2 Invisible Asia (9 eps): https://str.sg/wuZn Stop Scams (10 eps): https://str.sg/wuZB Singapore's War On Covid (5 eps): https://str.sg/wuJa --- Follow our shows then, if you like short, practical podcasts! #STAsianInsiderSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we're exploring Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or the Pakistani Taliban - an Islamist terrorist organisation known for its violent activities and ideological alignment with the Afghan Taliban.  In the episode, we discuss TTP's evolution, its recent resurgence, and how it's using propaganda to further its strategic goals. We'll also unpack TTP's online activities and how its official media arm has significantly enhanced its operations since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, playing an important role in the group's resurgenceJoin Anne Craanen as she speaks to Dr Amira Jadoon, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Clemson University, and Dr Antonio Giustozzi, a Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services InstituteYou can read a transcript of this episode here.Tech Against Terrorism's Terrorist Content Analytics Platform (TCAP) has recently added TTP to its Inclusion Policy, alerting its official content to tech platforms. You can find our blog explaining the reasons why here.If you want to find out more about Tech Against Terrorism and our work, visit techagainstterrorism.org or follow us on Twitter, where you can find resources on this topic. 

The Pakistani Taliban or TPP has come into posession of many high end weapons and gear that was left behind during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and those weapons are now being used to kill police officers, civilians and military members inside of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This comes on top of the previous report of NATO weapons being used by terror groups inside of Kashmir against Indian government forces.Now, with another war raging in Ukraine and with the weaponry even more advanced being used there, the fear is that the same thing will happen and the weapons earmarked for Ukrainian forces will find their way into the hands of criminals and cartels.(commercial at 12:10)to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:U.S. arms left in Afghanistan surface in Pakistan Taliban insurgency - Nikkei AsiaThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5003294/advertisement

The Pakistani Taliban or TPP has come into posession of many high end weapons and gear that was left behind during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and those weapons are now being used to kill police officers, civilians and military members inside of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This comes on top of the previous report of NATO weapons being used by terror groups inside of Kashmir against Indian government forces.Now, with another war raging in Ukraine and with the weaponry even more advanced being used there, the fear is that the same thing will happen and the weapons earmarked for Ukrainian forces will find their way into the hands of criminals and cartels.(commercial at 12:10)to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:U.S. arms left in Afghanistan surface in Pakistan Taliban insurgency - Nikkei AsiaThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5080327/advertisement

The Pakistani Taliban or TPP has come into posession of many high end weapons and gear that was left behind during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and those weapons are now being used to kill police officers, civilians and military members inside of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This comes on top of the previous report of NATO weapons being used by terror groups inside of Kashmir against Indian government forces. Now, with another war raging in Ukraine and with the weaponry even more advanced being used there, the fear is that the same thing will happen and the weapons earmarked for Ukrainian forces will find their way into the hands of criminals and cartels. (commercial at 9:00)to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:U.S. arms left in Afghanistan surface in Pakistan Taliban insurgency - Nikkei Asia

The Pakistani Taliban or TPP has come into posession of many high end weapons and gear that was left behind during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and those weapons are now being used to kill police officers, civilians and military members inside of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This comes on top of the previous report of NATO weapons being used by terror groups inside of Kashmir against Indian government forces. Now, with another war raging in Ukraine and with the weaponry even more advanced being used there, the fear is that the same thing will happen and the weapons earmarked for Ukrainian forces will find their way into the hands of criminals and cartels. (commercial at 9:00)to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:U.S. arms left in Afghanistan surface in Pakistan Taliban insurgency - Nikkei Asia

There's grief and anger in Pakistan after dozens of people are killed in an attack at a mosque in Peshawar. The Pakistani Taliban has been blamed, but were there security failures? And can the embattled government win the war against the armed group? Join host Folly Bah Thibault. Guests: Imtiaz Gul - Executive Director of the Center for Research and Security Studies. Javaid Ur Rahman - Parliamentary Correspondent for Pakistan's daily English-language newspaper, The Nation. Mosharraf Zaidi - Founder and Senior Fellow at Tabadlab.

On Monday, a suicide bombing targeted a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing over 30 people and injuring more than 150. The head of a group known as the Pakistani Taliban claimed on social media to have carried out the attack. And, a British Iranian consultant-turned-fixer for bribes has been sentenced to five years in prison in the United States. His work on bribes has tainted an estimated billions of dollars in deals across the Middle East and Africa. Also, Niger has one of the youngest, most vulnerable populations on the planet and many face an uncertain future. In much of the country, civilian abductions are rampant, and the government is at the mercy of bandits. Plus, why can't singer Seu Jorge name his baby Samba, the genre he's known for? 

Following the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-i-Taliban, or TTP) have retaken their positions in areas along the border. With the return of Taliban fighters, the picturesque Swat Valley has once again descended into violence and fear. Targeted killings and kidnappings are now a daily occurrence, as well as terror attacks by the TTP. In the city of Mingora, the population is doing its best to resist the armed group. Those who do not support it are seen as traitors. Our correspondent reports.

Good afternoon, I'm _____ with today's episode of EZ News. **Extended military service to include higher pay, longer boot camp: President ** President Tsai Ing-wen has announced that compulsory military service in Taiwan will be extended from four months to one year, effective Jan. 1, 2024, to strengthen Taiwan's combat readiness against potential Chinese attacks. Tsai also promised to increase the monthly salary of conscripts, from the current starting salary of $6,510 NT to $26,307 NT, to make sure they earn enough to cover their basic daily expenses. The decision is expected to affect conscripts who were born on Jan. 1, 2005 and after. Tsai says conscripts will receive more intense (強烈的) and longer boot camp training to boost their combat preparedness, firing no less than 800 rounds of ammunition during their one-year service period. She says they will also be trained to fire Kestrel anti-armor rockets and FIM-92 Stingers, operate UAVs and engage in close-combat training, which have proven useful in modern day warfare, she said. The president stressed that "No one wants war," but Taiwan has faced increasing military coercion from China in recent years and needs to do its part by boosting self-defense. (NS) **New wage subsidy available to employers of live-in migrant caregivers ** The Ministry of Labor says employers of live-in migrant caregivers are eligible for a subsidy of up to $3,000 NT per month. Officials say the subsidies are aimed at covering the increase in the minimum wage for live-in migrant caregivers from $17-thousand NT to $20-thousand NT, that took effect on Aug. 10-th. The ministry says applicants (申請人) should provide the employment contracts showing that their employees are paid at least $20-thousand NT per month and a copy of the passbook cover of the employer's domestic bank account. Health officials say as of Dec. 15-th, there have been nearly 40-thousand applications, and the first subsidy payments were made on Dec. 5-th. (NS) **Pakistan Bombing Suspects Arrested ** Pakistan's interior minister says authorities have arrested five people suspected of involvement in last week's suicide car bombing that killed a police officer in the capital of Islamabad. The minister says the detainees included the suicide bomber's handler. He said the attacker arrived in the garrison (駐軍) city of Rawalpindi from a former tribal area of Kurram. The official did not disclose the identity of the detainees and no spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, which had claimed responsibility for the attack, was immediately available for comment. **US Trump Tax Returns Published Friday ** Former President Donald Trump's tax returns are expected to be made public on Friday. AP correspondent Norman Hall reports **Mexico President Appeals Against ** Mexico's president is appealing (呼籲) to the country's citizens not to accept holiday handouts and gifts from drug gangs. His comments came after videos posted online showed pickup trucks handing out loads of gifts while bystanders described the drivers as members of the Jalisco drug cartel. Authorities have not confirmed the source of the gifts, but President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador confirmed that some drug gangs were looking to resume such giveaways to gain the support of the local population. Lopez Obrador said that local residents in some communities have tried to protect traffickers, stop drug seizures or oppose the installation of National Guard bases intended to fight drug trafficking. That was the I.C.R.T. news, Check in again tomorrow for our simplified version of the news, uploaded every day in the afternoon. Enjoy the rest of your day, I'm _____.

Facts & Spin for December 20, 2022 top stories: The Jan. 6 Committee votes to refer Trump to the Department of Justice, Putin Heads to Belarus as Russian drones again rock Kyiv, Pakistani Taliban militants seize a counterterrorism center, The UK's Rwanda deportation plan is ruled lawful, Peru's president says she'll replace the prime minister in a Cabinet shakeup, Sweden blocks the extradition of a Turkish journalist, North Korea said it has completed an ‘Important' test of a spy satellite, Elon Musk puts his future as Twitter's CEO to public vote, Epic Games reaches a record US government settlement, The UN agrees to conserve 30% of the Earth's surface, and Argentina wins the World Cup. Sources: https://www.improvethenews.org/   Brief Listener Survey: https://www.improvethenews.org/pod

*) Deadly blast in western Pakistan A bomb blast targeting a police patrol has killed at least three people and wounded more than 20 people in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, according to a police official. The blast targeted a police patrol that wounded 21 people, including 15 police officers, the official said, adding police were on duty to guard a polio vaccination team. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, also known as Pakistani Taliban, has claimed responsibility for the blast. *) Zelenskyy says Russia 'planning something in the south' Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that the situation at the front line remains difficult, with Russian forces attempting to advance in the Donbass region and Kharkiv. In a video address, Zelenskyy said despite extremely large losses, the occupiers are still trying to advance on the Donetsk region, gain a foothold in Luhansk region and move into Kharkiv region, They are planning something in the south, he added. Meanwhile, ​​NATO allies have promised more arms for Kiev and equipment to help restore Ukrainian power and heat knocked out by Russian strikes. *) UNGA to discuss Israel-Palestine conflict The UN General Assembly will hold talks on the Israel-Palestine conflict that it's warned is reaching boiling point. On Tuesday, Israeli forces killed five Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Two brothers in their twenties were killed during an Israeli air raid in Ramallah. The Palestinian Authority called it an 'execution in cold blood'. A third man was shot in the head near the flashpoint city of Hebron, and a fourth was killed by Israeli forces who say he tried to drive over a soldier. *) US militia leader found guilty of Capitol Hill riot In the United States, the founder of the Oath Keepers right-wing militia has been found guilty of plotting to stop Joe Biden taking office. After a two month trial, a jury in Washington has found Stewart Rhodes and another member, Kelly Meggs, guilty of the rare charge of seditious conspiracy for their role in last year's riot at the US Capitol. Three others were acquitted of that charge, but all five have been found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding. And finally… *) US beat Iran in World Cup Christian Pulisic scored as the United States advanced to the knockout round of the FIFA World Cup with a 1-0 win over Iran in a politically charged rematch of their famous meeting a quarter-century ago. Back in the World Cup after missing the 2018 tournament, the US opened with draws against Wales and England and needed a victory to move on to the round of 16. Iran finished third in the group with three points and has failed to advance in all six of its World Cup appearances.

Tomorrow's news today from the legendary Rob Smith! It is July 21st 2022! Today's stories are the Squad gets Arrested, Furries, Digging Deep on the Biden E-Mails, the Pakistani Taliban, the Woke CIA, how the Iran Nuclear Deal fixes Climate Change, Bill Drops Out, a Jewelry Heist, Demonrats, and Stephen King loves a problematic person! Don't forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, COMMENT, ALL THAT GOOD STUFF! WE POST DAILY! If you don't see us, check our other socials. If you got a favorite, we are most likely on it! Our Link Tree has all of our Socials! - https://linktr.ee/RobisRight

On June 3, the Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) announced an indefinite ceasefire on its operations in Pakistan. Negotiated by the body of 50 tribal elders from Pakistan and the Haqqani Network, the ceasefire will allow the Pakistan army and the TTP the time to conclude the peace agreement. The fact that the Army agreed to release a substantial number of TTP prisoners and provided a Presidential Pardon to two key militant commanders shows that the army is serious about negotiating a peace deal with the terrorist group. So, how are the peace talks going on? Whether a negotiated settlement is possible or peace will remain elusive? Priyal Lyncia D'Almeida talks to Shrey Khanna about the ongoing negotiations between the TTP and Pakistan Army.Follow Priyal on Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/lynciapriyalFollow Shrey on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shreywaCheck out Takshashila's courses: https://school.takshashila.org.in/You can listen to this show and other incredible shows on the new and improved IVM Podcast App on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/iosYou can check out our website at https://www.ivmpodcasts.com

Russia's Vladimir Putin warns that his forces will hit new targets if the West delivers long-range missiles to Ukraine. Plus, the Pakistani Taliban's announcement of an indefinite ceasefire with the country's government, the latest headlines from the Nordics and an update from Salone del Mobile by Monocle's Nic Monisse.

ISIS has claimed its first attack in Israel roughly five years, meanwhile in Iraq, funding has begun on a border wall in vulnerable locations along the Iraq-Syria border in response to ISIS fighters using these routes to enter the country and wreak havoc. Meanwhile, on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Afghani Taliban regime attempts to rid themselves of Pakistani Taliban forces, otherwise known as TTP. The TTP has been using the borderlands in Afghanistan to launch attacks in an attempt to overthrow the current Pakistani regime. Alberto Suarez Sutil from CTG's CENTCOM team joins Adam Stevens to break down these events.

This week, a bonus episode: A town-hall-style discussion with Malala Yousafzai on the future of women's and girls' education in Afghanistan and other conflict areas. In the six months since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, many schools and universities have closed their doors to young women, and promises to reopen have gone unfulfilled. Education and equality advocate Malala Yousafzai joined students and Afghan refugees for a global town hall conversation at Qatar's National Library, moderated by Doha Debates correspondent Nelufar Hedayat, on March 28, 2022. The audio from this discussion and audience Q&A examines the refugee experience, men's role in the fight for equality and the future of education. Malala became the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2014. After surviving a 2012 attempt on her life by the Pakistani Taliban, she created Malala Fund, an organization dedicated to fighting for every girl's right to access to free, safe and quality education.

From the very young age of 11, Malala Yousafzai was already fighting for girls' right to education in her rural Pakistan hometown. Inspired greatly by her father, an educator and activist, Malala spoke out against the Taliban demanding her right to attend school after they took control of the Swat Valley region. Her voice gained more awareness and moved the world in October 2012, when a member of the Pakistani Taliban boarded her school bus home and shot her in the head. Miraculously surviving the attack, Malala was globally recognized as a Pakistani activist for female education and became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In 2013, Malala co-founded the Malala Fund with her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai. In this View From The Top, Rustom Birdie, MBA '22, sits down with Malala to discuss the power of her voice, when to use it, her hopes for Afghanistan, and her dream of giving 130 million girls an education. "I am always there when my voice is needed. I have met incredible girls who are fighting for their right to safety and education, and have not given up. I am expected to inspire them, but they inspire me, " she says.

As Pakistani leaders quarrel with the neighboring Afghan Taliban over the demarcation of their shared border, USIP’s Asfandyar Mir says Pakistan’s own Taliban insurgency has “been boosted by the example of the Afghan Taliban … if things continue to escalate over the medium term, things become very difficult for Pakistan.”

*) Mexico trailer accident kills dozens of migrants At least 53 migrants were killed after the truck they were hiding in hit a wall and overturned in southern Mexico. Another 58 people were hurt and rushed to nearby hospitals. According to survivors, a majority of those in the truck were from Guatemala, and were trying to reach the US. *) Biden gives Ukraine reassurances over tension with Russia US President Joe Biden has told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Washington will impose severe economic sanctions against Moscow if Russia attacks Ukraine. Biden assured Zelenskyy that Washington will provide military resources in the form of training and funds, as well as full political support in the face of a potential Russian invasion. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the conflict in eastern Ukraine between Kiev's army and pro-Russian separatists, "looks like genocide". *) Pakistani Taliban refuses to extend ceasefire with government The Tehreek-e-Taliban in Pakistan has declared an end to a month-long ceasefire agreement it had with the government. They accuse Islamabad of breaching terms including a prisoner release agreement and the formation of negotiating committees. It also said security forces had carried out raids while the ceasefire was in force. *) Nicaragua cuts ties with Taiwan Nicaragua has broken diplomatic ties with Taiwan and recognised "only one China.” The statement leaves the island nation with just 14 formal diplomatic allies, but its president says it will not dent determination to defend its freedom. Beijing has welcomed the move, with officials from both countries due to meet in China soon. And finally… *) US actor found guilty in staged racist hate crime case A Chicago jury has found actor Jussie Smollett guilty of staging a fake hate crime. Prosecutors said Smollett, who is Black and gay, lied to police when he told them that he was assaulted by two masked strangers in January 2019. The actor faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison for each count when he is sentenced, although he could be given probation. And that's your daily news brief from TRT World. For more, head to trtworld.com

*) Tensions rise in migrant standoff at Poland-Belarus border Poland has reinforced its border with more riot police as Belarus encourages refugees and migrants to try to enter the EU from its eastern frontier. The European Union has accused Belarus of trying to destabilise the bloc by encouraging migrants to enter illegally to retaliate against EU sanctions. The bloc said it is close to imposing more sanctions on Belarus. Poland reported many migrants attempted to cross overnight as thousands of people remain trapped in freezing conditions at the border. *) UN working to secure release of staff detained in Addis Ababa At least 16 United Nations staff members have been detained in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa. The organisation says it is working with the government to secure their freedom. The latest detentions follow the release of six other staff members, as tensions between the government and the UN have been high since the start of the war between the state and Tigrayan forces last year. *) Afghan FM to meet Pakistani officials in first visit since Taliban takeover Amir Khan Muttaqi, the interim Afghan foreign minister, will visit Pakistan for the first time since the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan. A senior-level delegation led by Muttaqi is travelling to Pakistan on Wednesday, a spokesperson of Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry said. The Afghan Taliban government recently helped facilitate a ceasefire between the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan and the TTP, the Pakistani Taliban. *) Top UAE diplomat visits Syria for the first time in over a decade The foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates has met with Syria's widely shunned regime leader Bashar al Assad in Damascus. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan's visit is the first by a UAE foreign minister since Syria's war began a decade ago. It comes as some Arab states improve relations with the Assad regime. During the meeting, the foreign minister "underlined UAE's keenness on ensuring the security, stability and unity of Syria," according to Emirati state media. And finally… *) 'Squid Game' director predicts second season of megahit series The director of "Squid Game," the dystopian South Korean series on Netflix, expressed confidence that the wildly popular show will return for a second season. Writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk said in an interview that they are in the brainstorming stages for season two, with the basic storyline already in his head. Actor Lee Jung-Jae, Hwang and others involved in the show, one of Netflix's biggest hits ever, attended a special Hollywood screening on Monday to celebrate its success.

Hosts Tom Joscelyn and Bill Roggio discuss Tom's recent testimony before the Senate, why the Islamic State bombed a mosque in Kunduz, and the Pakistani Taliban's ongoing jihad.

Since 2014, at least 300 Afghan interpreters, or their relatives, have been killed. Now, many of these Afghans fear being left behind as the Taliban takes control of Afghanistan. And, in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover, the ripple effects are reverberating across borders. Some Afghans are looking to Central Asia as a potential safe haven. Also, Pakistan welcomes Chinese investments in infrastructure projects, but extremist groups, including the Pakistani Taliban, want China to leave.

China's carbon market records its first cross-border deal. The former head of the Shanghai branch of ICBC is sentenced to life in prison. Honor unveils its first upscale smartphone series. Plus, Islamabad blames Pakistani Taliban for the suicide bombing that killed Chinese workers.

A bus blast near the Dassu dam project in Upper Kohistan kills 13 people, including 9 Chinese engineers, and an ambush by Pakistani Taliban kills 15 soldiers. Shekhar Gupta tells you why Pakistan has faced increased attacks since June, and looks at possible blowback from the Afghanistan crisis and China's involvement in CPEC. Episode 790 of #CutTheClutter

This week we discuss the role Pakistan has played in supporting the Taliban and al-Qaida's efforts in Afghanistan. We talk about why Afghanistan matters to Pakistan and what Pakistan hopes to gain in Afghanistan following the United States' withdrawal in July. We also talk about the very real and very serious terrorism problems Pakistan has within its borders combatting the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), more commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban._________________________________________ Where to Listen:Apple: https://bit.ly/theboardwalkapple Spotify: https://bit.ly/theboardwalkspotify Pandora: https://bit.ly/3xZ8bk9 Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3gbZ6ya Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/37UuZXQ Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3AQNadj  iHeart Radio: https://bit.ly/3y0Vfdw TuneIn: https://bit.ly/2W1VEPN Buzzsprout: https://bit.ly/37PIdoy  Be sure to like, follow, subscribe, rate, review, and share wherever you listen to our podcast. New episodes of The Boardwalk are published every Saturday morning.  Our Social Media Sites:Instagram: @theboardwalkpodcast Facebook: @TheBoardwalkPodcastTwitter: @theboardwalkpod You can also reach us by email at: theboardwalkpodcast@gmail.com  The views expressed by the hosts and guests of this podcast do not represent the views of the United States Government or the United States Department of Defense. 

In this episode, we explore the interplay between religion and geography through a case study of the mountain regions that formed the borderlands between Afghanistan and British India then, from 1947, Pakistan. In recent years, the region entered the headlines through its association with the so-called Pakistani Taliban. But this was only the latest in a series of movements to emerge from a region whose innate social structures and enforced political autonomy fostered a distinct trajectory of religious development.  Beginning with the formation of this ‘tribal borderland’ through the cartographic boundary-marking of the colonial Great Game, we’ll trace the interplay of religion and geography from the mid-nineteenth century to the present-day as British rule was replaced by Pakistan. Along the way, we’ll follow the transformation of this borderland Islam as traditional Sufi leaders lost influence to reformists associated with the Deoband movement of the lowlands, which was in turn forced to adapt to what had become local religious as well as political modes of self-rule. Nile Green talks to Sana Haroon, the author of Frontier of Faith: Islam in the Indo-Afghan Borderland (Columbia University Press, 2007).

In 2019, Wajid Ali Mohmand, a front-line health worker in his 30s, was doing his part in a nationwide campaign in Pakistan to eradicate polio, a disease that can permanently paralyze children if they are not vaccinated.Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where the disease is endemic.Related: France launches citizens' collective to tackle widespread vaccine hesitancySyed Feroz Shah, a health worker in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of northwestern Pakistan, said his cousin, Wajid Ali, was shot fatally by a man who did not want his daughter to receive the polio vaccine.“[The man had,] I think, some fear in his mind about the polio vaccination. That’s why Mr. Wajid tried his best to convince him.”Syed Feroz Shah, health worker, PakistanThe man had, “I think, some fear in his mind about the polio vaccination,” Shah recalled. “That’s why Mr. Wajid tried his best to convince him.”Now, as Pakistan ramps up its COVID-19 vaccination campaign that began last month with a donation of 500,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from China, the country faces the challenge of quelling vaccine fears. And Shah and others worry about the safety of health workers whose lives are on the line every day.At least 100 health workers and their security guards have been killed in Pakistan since 2012.Related: Wary of coronavirus vaccines, some Chinese citizens are ‘opting out’ Observers say that reasons for hostilities toward vaccine workers in the country vary wildly, but that misinformation, hard-line religious views and a 2011 CIA operation targeting Osama bin Laden have played an outsized role.The government has taken some steps to encourage people to get the vaccine.Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, publicly thanked China for the vaccine donation in a televised event in February. The government also launched a campaign underscoring the importance of vaccines; it enlisted the help of sports stars, actors and religious leaders to spread the message.But some wonder if it will be enough.A January Gallup survey showed that out of a thousand people polled in Pakistan, almost half said they would not get vaccinated against COVID-19. The struggle for government supportShah remembers his cousin, Wajid Ali, as someone who believed in negotiation and communication.“Besides my cousin, he was my best friend,” Shah said in an interview from the FATA.Related: Ghana receives first vaccines from COVAXWajid Ali was someone who’d strike up a conversation with a stranger. He got to know everyone, and he was a good listener. That’s why he was so good at his job, Shah said.One spring day in 2019, Wajid Ali came face-to-face with a father who had repeatedly refused to have his daughter vaccinated.Shah said that he made it clear to the father that if he refused again, he would have to report him to health officials.Their conversation took a wrong turn, and the father shot Wajid Ali twice, according to Shah. He died shortly after, leaving behind 10-month-old twins and his wife. His killer remains on the run.“Mr. Wajat Ali sacrificed his life while he was saving the lives of the children of the nation.”Syed Feroz Shah, health worker, Pakistan“Mr. Wajat Ali sacrificed his life while he was saving the lives of the children of the nation,” Shah said.The World Health Organization condemned his killing, but Shah said the family has struggled to get government support for Wajid Ali’s widow and children. He said his widow wants to take a job as a teacher but so far has been unsuccessful.He hopes that the government takes more steps to support the families of the vaccine workers who were killed and to make sure that the ones working in the field are safe.The role of a CIA operationMisinformation has played a big role in vaccine skepticism in Pakistan.The same month that Wajid Ali was killed in Pakistan — April 2019 — angry protesters set fire to a clinic in the city of Peshawar in response to videos from a local schoolteacher falsely claiming that polio vaccines made children sick.Related: Dual citizens in Mexico seek vaccine options in the US as rollout lagsPeople were so outraged that health officials decided to suspend the vaccination drive.Monica Martinez-Bravo, a researcher with the Center for Monetary and Financial Studies in Madrid, conducted a study that found that details around the CIA operation to kill Osama bin Laden had been manipulated to perpetuate anti-vaccine propaganda.“The story [goes] back to 2011, when the CIA got a piece of information suggesting that Osama bin Laden might be hiding in a particular compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan,” she said.During the planning phase of its mission, she said, the CIA wanted to ensure that bin Laden was, in fact, in the compound. (Ultimately, SEAL Team Six was credited for taking out bin Laden.)Martinez said agents enlisted the help of a Pakistani vaccine worker to get DNA samples from the kids living there — “to compare them to the DNA of bin Laden’s sister and then figure out if the children were related to bin Laden, which would have been telling proof that indeed bin Laden was hiding there.”The US already had his sister’s DNA because she died in a hospital in Boston. In 2011, The Guardian published a story about the CIA program revealing the vaccine worker’s involvement. Pakistanis were furious.“You know, they were essentially saying, ‘Do not trust health workers. They might be spies or they might want to harm your children.’”Monica Martinez Bravo, Center for Monetary and Financial StudiesIn her study six years later, Martinez discovered that the Pakistani Taliban used this in its anti-vaccine propaganda: “You know, they were essentially saying, ‘Do not trust health workers. They might be spies or they might want to harm your children.’”Health experts around the world were outraged by the CIA raid, too. Deans of 12 American schools of public health sent a letter to US President Barack Obama in protest.The CIA said it would no longer use health workers as part of its operations.But experts say the damage was done.“People who work in health, or public health especially, work with the trust of the local populations and once that trust is broken, it’s very difficult and it takes time to get this trust back,” said Dr. Rana Jawad Asghar, a leading Pakistani epidemiologist.“I think all the nations should sign a charter under maybe [the] United Nations or [the] World Health Organization to never use health systems or health professionals for any other activity which is not related to health,” Asghar said.

Hosts Bill Roggio and Tom Joscelyn discuss Hezbollah’s influence in Iraq and the State Department’s decision to offer a $10 million reward for information concerning the group’s main man in the country. They also discuss: a new video from the Pakistani Taliban that illustrates how the jihadi syndicate in Afghanistan and Pakistan works, a recent batch of al-Qaeda infographics and an alleged ISIS plot that was foiled by authorities in Germany.

In light of the horrific bombing in Sri Lanka in April, it is vital that Muslims across the world unite against violence being perpetuated in the name of Islam. In fact, a few hours before this article was published on 8 May 2019, at least eight people were killed in a blast, claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, outside a major Sufi Muslim shrine in Lahore, Pakistan. There are episodes in recent history which clearly indicate the malice and hostility of those committing acts of terror and mass violence in the name of Islam. Amjad Sabri, the famous qawwal, was killed in June 2016 by the Pakistani Taliban. For more podcasts from The Quint, check out our [Podcasts](https://www.thequint.com/news/podcast) section.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, John Kiriakou and Walter Smolarek (sitting in for Brian Becker) are joined by Jacqueline Luqman, the co-editor-in-chief of Luqman Nation, and the host of the Facebook livestream “Coffee, Current Events & Politics” Thursdays at 9 p.m., joins the show.On today’s regular Friday segment covering the upcoming midterm elections, John and Walter talk about races in South Carolina, Ohio, and Florida. “The Progress of This Storm” is a new and powerful book by Andreas Malm. In it, he addresses the environmental crisis caused by climate change, its roots in the system of capitalism, and how humanity can step back from the brink. Andreas Malm, who teaches Human Ecology at Lund University in Sweden and is the author of “Fossil Capital,” “Iran on the Brink,” and most recently “The Progress of This Storm,” joins the show. The trade war with China widened today, as President Trump announced new 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese products. He also said that he’s considering tariffs on another $16 billion worth of Chinese goods. The Chinese retaliated almost immediately. Brian and John speak with Jude Woodward, the author of the new book “The US vs China: Asia's new Cold War?”Fallout continues over the release yesterday of the FBI Inspector General’s report with President Trump pouncing on the finding of insubordination on the part of former FBI director James Comey, calling Comey and former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe “scum” and saying that the FBI under Barack Obama was “a den of thieves.” The IG also found that Comey used a private email account for government business. Commentators are saying today that the report will likely only further polarize the country. Dan Kovalik, a human rights and labor lawyer who is the author of “The Plot to attack Iran,” joins the show. The leader of the Pakistani Taliban has reportedly been killed in a U.S. airstrike.Mullah Fazlullah became leader of the group in 2013, and his death would mark another turn as the war drags on in Afghanistan and Northwest Pakistan. Marvin Weinbaum, the Scholar-in-Residence and director of the Middle East Institute’s Center for Pakistan and Afghanistan Studies, joins Brian and John. The House of Representatives is considering what it calls a “compromise” bill that would give visas to Dreamers, those people who were brought to the United States as children with their undocumented parents. The bill, though, is a disaster. It would not allow any path to citizenship for Dreamers and makes it a crime to earn less than 125 percent of the federal poverty level. The bill would eliminate the green card lottery, cut family immigration to the bone, and virtually end asylum request approvals. Angie Kim, the community engagement & advocacy coordinator for NAKASEC (the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium), joins the show.The hosts continue the regular segment of the worst and most misleading headlines. Walter and John speak with Steve Patt, an independent journalist whose critiques of the mainstream media have been a feature of his blog Left I on the News, and Loud & Clear producer Nicole Roussell.

Jacob Shapiro and Kamran Bokhari discuss some recent anomalies in the Middle East and consider the relationship between sectarianism and nationalism in the Muslim world. Sign up for free updates on topics like this! Go here: hubs.ly/H06mXwR0 TRANSCRIPT: Jacob L. Shapiro: Hi everyone and welcome to another Geopolitical Futures podcast. I'm sorry that we missed last week but we're back this week and I am joined once again by Kamran Bokhari, who is one of our senior analysts. Nice to have you back Kamran. Kamran Bokhari: It's good to be back Jacob. JLS: And we're going to pick up a little bit where we left off last week, or not last week, two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, we were talking about the situation between Saudi Arabia and Qatar and we thought we'd just have a more general conversation this week about the Middle East, Islam, maybe some nationalism to throw in there. And but Kamran before we get started, we just noticed a report before we were recording that the al-Nuri mosque in Mosul, Iraq apparently has been destroyed in some kind of explosion. This mosque is important because it's where the ISIS founder and leader al-Baghdadi actually declared the caliphate years ago. You were telling me that it kind of struck you as weird. Why was it weird to you, what's going on do you think with this report? KB: We've seen ISIS and other jihadist groups attack mosques of Muslims that they don't deem to be “true Muslims” or from their point of view deviant Muslims. But this is anomalous in that ISIS would actually blow up a mosque that it has been using and it's been sort of a place from where they declared their caliphate and something that they've used. Now, it could be that there may be things or something that's in that mosque that they didn't want coalition forces to get their hands on, so they decided to go ahead and destroy the facility. But it's still very odd that they would take a risk like that because they are already on the defensive and why would they do something that could potentially cause them great backlash. JLS: Yeah, I think one of the things I was thinking about though was according to the reports Iraqi security forces were approaching the mosque and they blew it up as sort of a way to defend themselves and not let the mosque fall into enemy hands, necessarily. But I think this is an example of how ISIS has a very pragmatic ideology. We think of them as religious fanatics, and they are religious fanatics, but they also deal with things pragmatically, especially the defense of the territories and places that they defend and it's something that just popped into my head. It's also strange that fundamentalist groups like this also always seem to have an aversion to anything resembling idolatry. ISIS was famous for blowing up a lot of these antiquities in Palmyra and other places that they've been or taking the antiquities and selling them on the black market. They don't really care about big beautiful structures or things like that. I think in some ways they think of structures as something that the Saudis are building. You think about the Saudis and all the stuff they are building around the Kaaba in Mecca, that sort of comes to mind. And ISIS has always been more spartan, has always been not attached to I don't know larger images or beautiful mosques, that's not really what it's about. So yeah, don't you think it could just be a symbol of their pragmatism in general? KB: I think you are onto something here that's important. I think that what you said in the beginning is that we tend to look at these groups as very rigid in their interpretation of religious text and whatnot, which is true on one level. But on another level, they display a great deal of, for lack of a better term, pragmatism or they make things up as they go and they change interpretations and they adopt interpretations that normally would not be the case. And I think that given the way that ISIS has evolved and grown, one of the key things in their toolkit has been that you don't stick with necessarily the old formulations or understandings of religious texts. As far as buildings are concerned, I think they look at it from a utilitarian point of view. And then of course, this is war, and I think that in war they tend to be a bit more casual about things and because what is at stake is being able to protect themselves as an institution and so buildings may not necessarily be of importance. And again, we're speculating because just not a whole lot of information as to how ISIS blew this up – was it booby-trapped, were there fighters holed up there and they blew themselves up because they didn't want to get caught or wanted to achieve “martyrdom” and especially given it being Ramadan or the tail end of Ramadan. And so there are just too many unanswered questions. JLS: Well another report I wanted to ask you about Kamran, and I haven't raised this with you before but we'll see what you think about it, is that I hadn't realized this but I read a report today that there are actually a number of polio cases in Deir el-Zour in particular but also in Raqqa and other places that the Islamic State and even in other places that the Islamic State is not controlling in Syria and in Iraq right now. And for some reason that really struck me on sort of a symbolic level. I think there maybe is not a better symbol for Western science than vaccines. And in some ways vaccines have had a little bit of a troubled history in the Muslim world, right? There were all those allegations of CIA agents posing in Pakistan as doctors who were giving polio vaccines and that ruining trust in Pakistan for doctors. And Pakistan remains one of the places where polio still exists and – in part because of that distrust. And I don't think that ISIS meant for polio to sprout back up in Syria. I'm not even saying that it's really their fault. We know that you know in a lot of these war-torn places, things like basic hygiene are some of the first things to go. We're seeing a cholera outbreak in Yemen right now, which is affecting tens if not hundreds of thousands of people. But I just wonder how you react to that. On the one hand, ISIS is really staked some of its legitimacy on behaving like a state and on providing basic services and the Assad regime has done some of that too. But at the same time, I think we're really beginning to see both in Syria and some parts of Iraq and Yemen where these wars have been going on for so long, we're beginning to really see the total breakdown of bureaucracy and some of the basics that we've come to expect of 21st century society. So, I just wonder what you think about all of those things that I just threw at you and whether it was as striking to you as it was striking to me. KB: It is striking, and what's striking to me is that wherever there's a jihadist entity that is taking control of an ungoverned space and set up shop and declared an emirate or a caliphate – I mean the parallel with Pakistan is very apt – that we see these diseases that we thought had been largely eradicated from the rest of the world like polio and cholera, they begin to emerge. And obviously it has a lot to do with the lack of governance, sanitation being very poor quality, hygiene not being maintained. A lot of it just may be because of the lack of resources. And it really speaks to the idea that somehow the caliphate was a place where people should migrate to in terms of the recruits of ISIS, people who were inspired by ISIS. One of the things that ISIS was saying to people all across the world was come join the caliphate, you know, you need to come to the land where the caliphate exists. And so that's really a blow to that idea that life is so harsh and we can only speculate as to the availability of food supply and other basic services that we have taken granted for in pretty much the rest of the world. I mean even in Pakistan, even in Syria, there are places that do not have this kind of situation. In fact, these are really small pockets of territory where you have the outbreak of such diseases. In Pakistan, we did have that whole thing about the CIA and the conspiracy theory amongst the jihadists, amongst the Pakistani Taliban and their supporters that we should not allow our children to be immunized by doctors because somehow this is a CIA plot to undermine fertility or trying to gain intelligence through the dispensation of vaccines. But at the same time, it really speaks about how really primitive society and governance becomes once jihadists take over. It speaks to the lack of facilities and the lack of resources and you know utter lack of sophistication when it comes to statecraft or just dispensing basic services – collecting garbage, dealing with cleanliness, having a place where people can be treated for you know injuries or wounds. After all, one of the major enterprises of groups like ISIS and the Taliban is warfare. You would think that they would invest in hospitals. But it seems like this is the place where they were at the very least cutting corners. JLS: Yeah, that's fair enough. Well that was a curve ball to start off with but I want to take us back to something that some of our readers have written in to ask us to talk about. And there's not a better person to ask this question than you Kamran. Tell us the difference in a short group of words about what is the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, what is the big deal, why are Sunnis and Shiites always fighting each other throughout the Middle East and where does this go from here? KB: So initially when it all started, it started right after the death of the prophet. And at the time, there was nothing called a Sunni or a Shia. These were categories that developed many, many years later – many decades later and became full-fledged sects, rival sects over centuries. But at the time, the question was, who is going to succeed the prophet because the prophet himself is reported to have said that when God sent one prophet to the children of Israel and would take him away then he would be replaced by another prophet but after me there are no more prophets. And then his companions and his followers asked, “Well, prophet who will guide us and who will lead us?” And he said there will be caliphs and there will be many, some of whom you would love and they would love you and some of whom would despise you and you would despise you in return and that was sort of the end of that story. But the unanswered question was, well ok, who succeeds the prophet? So those who became later on Sunnis decided to go with an individual by the name of Abu Bakr who was the closest friend of the prophet and an associate and he was an individual of advanced age. But those who later on became Shia, and much later on, said no, the cousin of the prophet and who also happened to be his son-in-law, Ali, is most deserving of the position because he spent so much time, he's young, he's energetic, he's demonstrated his capability as a top aide and also on the battlefield. And eventually that whole dispute over time led to a divide and there was a very early civil war issue on this as well during the time of the third caliph, I would say in the '50s. Eventually, jurisprudence that differed between the two sects didn't emerge until well after, I would say 300 years after, the prophet migrated from Mecca to Medina and established the first Islamic polity. But really the sect, as in full-fledged sects, they didn't emerge – the Shia and the Sunni – in the theological sense until well into the 16th century when the Safavid Empire in Iran adopted Shia Islam as a state religion and expected people to be or subscribe to what became Shia Islam and then Shia Islam is broken down into subsects just as the Sunni side is fragmented. JLS: How would you describe the relationship in terms of its relationship to nationalism currently right now? So there are a lot of different nation-states in the Middle East: there's Iraq, there's Jordan, there's Saudi Arabia, there's Egypt. There's a certain level of national pride for the different groups that live in these states. But then the sectarian stuff when you overlay it doesn't always line up exactly with it, right? Because in Iraq there's a majority Arab population and on the one hand because of the sectarianism, they feel closer to Iran. But there are also Arabs; they're not Persians so in that sense they feel closer to Arabs and it's just this whole mess of things so what do you think is the relationship between nationalism and sectarianism? KB: So I think what you're asking is sort of the geopolitics of sectarianism because when it becomes geopolitical, when you have major states or empires as we had back in the Medieval times when Shia/Sunni – I mean the Shia/Sunni conflict is not new. It's been raging and it has assumed different forms in different time periods so the geopolitics of sectarianism, when sectarianism becomes geopolitical, it's no longer simply a religious divide. It is, no you pray differently, you believe in different things and you have a different view of collective history and shared memory. It really becomes ethnic categories so it's almost like a form of nationalism where the Shia identity becomes very primary and the Sunni identity also becomes really highly sensitized and that happens because in the here and now, especially after the late '70s and early '80s, it's because of the rise of Islamism on both sides of the sectarian divide. You have Iran becaming the first Islamist regime in the Muslim world but it subscribes to Shia Islamism or it's an Islamism or Shia variant. At the same time, you have Islamism on the Sunni side and because of this heightened religiosity, the sectarian identity has become almost the primary identity for at least those people who are waging war against each other. So Saudi Arabia looks at Iran and says we don't like Iran because they're Persians but more so because they're Shia and they want to subvert Sunni orthodoxy. And conversely when the Iranians look at the Saudis they see an entity that is trying to undermine the Shia religious creed and mind you the Shia being the minority have mostly been on the receiving end throughout the history of Islam. So there is this sense of minority status that also kicks in and therefore the Iranian identity sort of gets subdued or exists parallel to the Shia identity. Likewise, on the Sunni side, yes we're Saudis, we're Arabs and people in Lebanon are Lebanese and Iraqis have their national identity but as these nation-states are in meltdown mode and there's growing geopolitical sectarianism, it's the sectarian identity that has become the primary thing. I mean those who are fighting the Assad regime in Syria, they're largely driven by the fact that they see an Alawite Shiite conspiracy to destroy Sunnism in Syria and they're defending Sunni Islam against what they deem as a form of deviants, the Alawite Shiite creed. Same thing in Yemen between the Houthis and their opponents. And so the nation-state is still in somewhere; people haven't completely discarded it. But at the same time, because the nation-state has become weak, this sectarian identity has taken center stage. JLS: Is it fair to say that there are less subcategories of Shiites than there are of Sunnis? Like there are more Sunnis in the Middle East than there are Shiites, but would it be fair to say that the Sunni community throughout the entire Middle East is actually much more fractured and has a number of different subsets? Whereas, because maybe there are less Shiites, that camp is more unified? Or would you say there are actually, when you actually look into the camps themselves, there's actually a lot of subdivisions and internal rivalries that maybe don't even bubble up to the surface or that aren't obvious to the casual observer of news in the Middle East? KB: You are absolutely right and you have pointed to a key characteristic of this sectarian conflict that's brewing. So on the Sunni side, you have not just multiple subsects but you have, as I mentioned earlier, the nation-state or the national identity hasn't completely gone away. And you have multiple claimants who represent Sunni Islam. Saudi Arabia has since its founding tried to position itself as not just a leader of the Sunni world or the Arab world but the Islamic world in general. And in recent times with Turkey moving away from a Kemalist version of secularism to a more religious version of secularism, a more religious society not necessarily a religious state, it also sees itself as the leader of the region, the Middle East and of course the wider Islamic world. And ISIS is doing the same thing; al-Qaida claims the leadership of the Islamic world, the Sunni world as well. There is no unified coherent Sunni camp if you will. Now in contrast and in sharp contrast, because the Shia are a minority, their divisions – so the Syrians aren't mainstream, the Syrian Alawites aren't mainstream Shia. They're a heterodox offshoot of mainstream Shia Islam but yet they're close with mainstream Shiites in Iran, in Iraq and in Lebanon. Likewise, you have the Houthis who are Zaidis, who are another form of Shia Islam, which in a way from a doctrinal way is actually not so close to mainstream Shia Islam. It shares a lot more with Sunni Islam, but nonetheless, it is a form of Shia Islam, so therefore we see this alignment with Iran and that Shia camp. And so what we're seeing is a more coherent Shia camp because the Shia are a minority and they have this collective memory that they hark back to, when they have historically been suppressed at the hands of Sunni powers. And now that Sunni Islam has fragmented along multiple lines and one of the things that has really accelerated this fragmentation is the so-called Arab Spring phenomenon or what we call at Geopolitical Futures the hollowing out of the Arab world. You've written about this yourself. And so that has exacerbated the fragmentation on the Sunni side and the Shia look at this and say this is a historic opportunity and I would go on to say that if we look at the history of sectarianism in the Muslim world, it runs on a 500-year cycle. So around 1000 when the Sunni world was fragmenting, we see the rise of Shia policies such as the Fatimid empire in North Africa extending into the Levant and the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula. You had the Buyid empire in what is Mesopotamia and Persia and as time goes on other Shiite polities emerge. But then the Ottomans come back and they reclaim the Sunni center and Sunni Islam once again begins to thrive until the rise of the Safavid empire, which poses a challenge to the Ottomans, and now 500 years later today, we are once again seeing the rise of Shia Islam because Sunni Islam or Sunni Muslim territories are at war with each other. JLS: Kamran on a practical level, is there any significant difference between a Shiite country and Sunni country? Is that going mean anything for the way that particular country acts? Or are those countries just going to act in their geopolitical interest and whatever sect that country happens to be really doesn't play that much into it? I guess to even sharpen the question, does Iran act the way it does in some cases because it is a Shiite country or is that not really something that you can see? KB: At a practical level, different states, different types of states, you know operate more or less the same. You know, you have interests that are material interests and it doesn't matter whether you are Shia or whether you are al-Qaida or ISIS or Sunni or Turkey or whatever. I think that from a practicality point of view, the sect doesn't matter. You have to pursue your imperatives and deal with your constraints like anybody else and actually you're very similar to your rivals. But sect does come into play in terms of behavior, so I'll give you an example. So Iran realizes that it represents a minority sect and a minority ethnicity. They're Persians and they're Shiites in a Middle East that's largely Arab and largely Sunni. And therefore, that creates limitations and so yes they want to expand into Iraq because the majority of Arabs are Shia there. It has developed and cultivated Hezbollah because a majority of Lebanese Muslims are Shia. It's aligned with the Shia because the Alawite regime or the Alawites have dominated the Syrian regime for a long time. It's playing into Yemen to a certain extent because of the Houthis. But it can't go into Saudi Arabia just yet because that's a stronghold of very hardcore Sunni identity and ideology and they won't find so many converts there or supporters. So the Shiite and the Sunni thing does place constraints and limitations in terms of behavior. For example, ISIS only recently, a few weeks ago, was able to stage an attack inside Iran. It's been cultivating, I am pretty sure that it took a long time for it to cultivate the assets to pull off that attack on the shrine of the founder of the Islamic Republic and the Iranian Parliament. But you don't see the volume of attacks that you see even next door in a Shia majority country like Iraq and of course the list goes on and on. So I think that the sect does place constraints in how far a particular power can expand its tentacles and its influence. JLS: The follow-up question to that is I mean really this sectarian battle is focused in the Middle East mainly around the Levant, maybe extending a little bit outwards. But once you get into North Africa or once you get more to South Asia, countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh, you don't have the same type of sectarian rivalry and we see IS trying to expand outwards into these regions especially as it comes under so much pressure in the caliphate itself. Do you think that IS will have trouble finding the same type of equation that allowed it to rise in Syria and Iraq because there isn't that sectarian divide to join on or is there enough subdivision within Sunni Islam and some of these other countries that those are de facto sects already, if that question makes sense? KB: No absolutely and again this is another important point that you raise. What really made ISIS into the jihadist regime it has become, and controlling territory, having a very sophisticated military force and intelligence service and wreaking havoc all across the region and beyond even in the West, is the fact that it was able to consolidate itself in Iraq and Syria because of the sectarian divide. It exploited heavily the Shia/Sunni anxieties on both sides and created space for itself and essentially took over the leadership of first the Sunnis of Iraq because they're a minority in their country and they were disenfranchised after regime change in 2003 that toppled the Saddam regime. And then in the wake of the civil war and uprising against Assad, it tried to take over the leadership of the Sunnis who were trying to battle the Assad regime and trying to topple it. And it really gave them a boost, and exponentially, we saw the growth of ISIS. Now those things as you just mentioned do not exist in North Africa, those conditions. There aren't that many Shia beyond the Levant and beyond the Arabian Peninsula and that sort of heart of the Middle East, no matter which direction you go. You can even go into Central Asia and you won't find the same sectarian polarization, much less Southeast Asia like Indonesia and the Philippines. But I think that having said that, it may not see a major boost; it may take longer for ISIS to develop itself in a place like Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are already a saturated jihadist market if you will. Much less Bangladesh and Indonesia and Malaysia and the Philippines, but there is sufficient chaos in these other countries and internal divides within Sunni Islam and the question of who speaks for the religion. I was speaking to a journalist who's been doing a lot of work in Indonesia and she was telling me about how a version of Wahhabi Islam or Salafi Islam is really growing by leaps and bounds in a country like Indonesia, which was insulated from this ideology for the longest time. And I think that political conditions, the growing religiosity in Muslim societies across the world, these provide for that fertile ground or these are the conditions with which ISIS can latch onto and then begin to expand. So the scale may be different, the timeframe may be different, but I think that there are enough conditions on the ground in these various areas where there aren't any Shiites that will allow and become enablers for ISIS or other groups to expand. JLS: I want to ask you one more question Kamran before we wrap up and it might be an involved question but I think that it's an important one and it's one that I've been thinking about a lot. The sort of smaller version of this question is: Is it possible for nationalism and Islam to coexist? Are those two ideas that can actually be held at the same time in a person's mind and that they make sense or are they mutually exclusive? And if you zoom out a little bit, I would ask that question of all religions. Do you think it's possible for all religions and nationalism to really work in the same type of way or is it that nationalism is sort of at its core, I don't want to say atheistic because it's not that nationalism is going to say that there is no God, but nationalism is going to say that the nation is the most important thing. The defense of the nation, protection of the national interest is the most important all abiding thing that a state must provide for, whereas religion, if you really get down to it and if you want to be ideologically consistent, religion is not going to tolerate anything being the most important thing besides God. They might be willing to have the nation as a subset of that or a caliphate or something like that as a subset of that, but the most important thing is going to be God and if there is a disjuncture between what is interpreted as what God wants versus what is best for the nation, you know usually what God wants is going to win out or what God wants is going to be reinterpreted such that it is in the best interest of the nation. So we started with this strange report of ISIS potentially blowing up one of their own mosques and we've danced around the subject but I wonder if you could sort of speculate for a second about whether nationalism and religion just can't actually fit together or if they can? KB: Well I mean first of all, any religion emanates from a core text or texts that are considered sacred by the believers and those texts are simply texts collecting dust unless the believers operationalize them and it depends on the context, so there is text without context. And those contexts vary over time and we've seen historically – take the case of Islam. Islam has manifested itself in very, very diverse ways and this is not in the here and now, it all goes back to the very earliest centuries of Islam and you see rival groups practicing Islam in very different ways. Yes, there is a core belief that there is no God but God and Muhammad is his last messenger and there is something called a prayer and fasting and charity and pilgrimage and the list can continue depending on what your sectarian persuasion is. But at the end of the day, if we look at the period of the Umayyads, the first dynasty to rule over the Muslim lands and this dynasty took power very early on in 661 and they ruled until the mid-700s and then beyond that in the Iberian Peninsula. That was a dynasty that was built around a clan and it never really – yes it behaved in a religious way, it was motivated by religion but what was dominate was the power of the dynasty, the ruling clan. You had to be from the Umayyad clan. It was father, son and grandson and so on and so forth and it became an imperial dominion and therefore it became a nationalistic entity in some respect. This is obviously pre-nationalism as we understand in a modern world, post enlightenment. But nonetheless, it was not very religious as we understand religion. It wasn't solely religious. And you move through history. You have the various polities that existed. They were geographic and we had multiple competing caliphates. Some of them didn't even call themselves caliphates; they were sultanates. So the Ottomans never really referred to them on a day-to-day basis; the Ottoman emperors referred to them as Sultans. They called themselves the Ottoman Empire; there was an Ottoman identity and Islam was there but it wasn't really in the forefront. And you had divisions, so there is this sort of understanding that somehow the Middle East and the wider Muslim world has adopted nationalism because of the import-export of European thought and through the vehicle of colonialism and then decolonization. Well that's true, but it's not as if the Muslim world was united on the basis of religion. I mean you had multiple competing entities, all throughout history. So I think that nationalism exists in various forms. In the contemporary world, it exists; it manifests itself as the nation-state. The nation-state is the biggest sort of or the most profound expression of nationalism as we understand it. But nationalism has evolved over time so I don't think that Islam is somehow separate or cannot exist. I think that Islam is operationalized in different spatial, temporal settings and they can vary so who is to say which one is pure Islam and which one is veering towards more nationalism. I think it's a hodge-podge and a complex mixture. JLS: I agree with you, although I think just the last thought that I'll close on which came to me as you were talking was that, and you sort of talked in the beginning about how the main split between Sunni and Shiite really happens after the prophet passes away and some people want Abu Bakr to take over as caliph but then others want Ali to take over as caliph and one of the main reasons for Ali was that he was in the family of the prophet, right? So in some ways we might say that for the Shiites the blood has always been a little bit more important than it was in the Sunnis. I know the Umayyads were also – I mean they were a Sunni type of regime if we can even talk about Sunnis existing back then. But they were on that side of the split, right? They believed the chain went through Abu Bakr and that was the legitimate right of succession.  But the Shiites think that there is something about being in the prophet's family that is very important, and there is this aspect of blood tied into the religion that maybe isn't there in Sunni Islam. KB: You are absolutely right. I would just sort of modify that quickly and say that for the Shia, leadership of the faith and the community and the Muslim community, the ummah is divinely ordained, so the imams, they are divinely ordained and they follow from the family of the prophet. Whereas Sunnis believe that this is a political position that comes about through political ways and in many ways it could be, some would argue it could be democratic, some could argue it comes with the power of who has the stronger military force. But ultimately, it's a political position for the Sunnis and a more religious position for the Shia. JLS: Yeah so if we were going to grossly over simplify, we might say something along the lines of Sunni Islam is more democratic whereas Shiite Islam tends to more nationalistic principles. KB: The Iranian government would beg to differ with us [laughs]. They would say that we have achieved a hybrid between religion and politics. We have elected officials, even our clerics have been popularly elected. I mean, they would make that assertion. JLS: Yes, but not the supreme leader, correct? KB: Not the supreme leader. Although they would argue that he could be removed by the Assembly of Experts, which is a body of popularly elected leaders or clerics. JLS: Well when they do that, we can talk about it. But in the meantime, Kamran thanks for joining us. It's always a pleasure. For listeners out there, thank you for listening. We're sorry we missed last week but we're back on and we are going to keep doing these once a week and maybe even increase them more. As always, if you have comments and critiques: comments@geopoliticalfutures.com or just leave comments here on Sound Cloud or whatever your medium you're listening to us through and we'll see you out there. Thanks.

Fidayin is a term used to refer to various military groups willing to sacrifice their lives in open combat with overwhelming enemies, which has been a favored tactic among Islamic warriors and, more recently, jihadist terrorists. According to Herbert Tinsley, a researcher at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre and the November 2015 Paris attacks are potentially the realization of years of covert evolution. The genes of this evolution, known as fidayin tactics, were once claimed by a Pakistani Taliban spokesman to make the mujahidin “invincible.” Analysis Bureau Chief Dean Baratta was able to sit down with Mr. Tinsley at the 2017 International Studies Association conference to delve into fidayin attacks, as well as identity construction in jihadist literature.

Christopher Kolenda, senior fellow at the Center for Global Policy, answers questions from CGP senior fellow Kamran Bokhari on current political and security conditions in Afghanistan. Kolenda, who has first-hand experience in fighting alongside Afghan forces, discusses the government forces' capabilities and challenges as well as the militant landscape in Afghanistan and how regional interests shape the situation in the country. Kolenda says the main militant groups in Afghanistan are the Islamic State-Khorasan Province, the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban and a handful of other actors. The Islamic State's Afghan franchise is trying to gain a strong foothold in the country and has claimed responsibility for recent high-profile suicide bombings. Many members are disillusioned Taliban fighters who decided to join the Islamic State. The Afghan Taliban are the government's main opponent -- and though some try to say that all Taliban fighters are from Pakistan, Kolenda says there are plenty of Afghan Taliban fighters. Moreover, in some areas, residents prefer the Taliban to Afghan government forces and cooperate with the militants more easily. Al Qaeda remains in Afghanistan as well, and has maintained a tenuous relationship with the Afghan Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban's focus is disruption in Pakistan and Afghanistan, not ruling Afghanistan. On an international level, Kolenda says, Afghanistan remains important to numerous Asian powers. The longstanding rivalry between Pakistan and Afghanistan has led Islamabad to seek influence over its neighbor. Iran's interests in Afghanistan are on many different levels, from cultural to geopolitical. For instance, Tehran wants to support Kabul in order to balance Saudi Arabia's support for Pakistan. Russia, in the meantime, wants to curtail the spillover of any militant violence from Afghanistan into the Central Asian countries. Afghanistan's internal situation remains volatile. Kolenda says a power-sharing deal is not likely to end the conflict; historically, such deals in Afghanistan have led to more wars. But at some point, the war -- the longest in American history -- will have to end, even if it takes a protracted process of negotiations among international, national-level and local-level groups.

A terror attack rocked a busy park in Lahore, Pakistan over the weekend. 29 children were killed, more than 341 were injured. A splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing saying they were intentionally targeting Christians. Rev Majed El Shafie from One Free World International weighed in on the subject

The Taliban in Pakistan set off a bomb near the swings in a park in Lahore, Pakistan.

Pakistan faces many security challenges, both within and along its borders. The Taliban maintains a stronghold along the border with Afghanistan; the conflict with India over control of Kashmir has worsened in recent months; and in December Pakistan suffered the deadliest terrorist attack in its history when Pakistani Taliban attacked a school in Peshawar, killing over 100 students.However, some positive signs of change have emerged. The Pakistani army has ramped up efforts to combat the Taliban and other militants. Relations with Afghanistan have improved since Ashraf Ghani was elected president, promising greater security cooperation along the border. And US Secretary of State John Kerry is working to help India and Pakistan mend relations. Will these efforts be enough to ensure future stability? Pakistan expert Christine Fair will discuss Pakistan’s security concerns and the outlook for this complex region.Speaker Christine Fair is Assistant Professor of Security Studies Program for the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.For more information please visit: http://www.worldaffairs.org/event-calendar/event/1422

Two conflicting visions of the future present themselves on a visit to the Middle East; the Americans send in the drones to attack the Pakistani Taliban again -- what chance now of a negotiated peace? The long strike in South Africa's platinum mines may be ending, but the bitterness which has divided mining families will be long lasting; the president of Burundi is a keen footballer, we hear, but is it a surprise that he scores so many goals? And fond memories of a school in New York celebrating its centenary -- but what is it exactly that makes this school such a well-loved place? Producer - Tony Grant