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Shahid Javed Burki
For Shahid Javed Burki's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 5, 2019
Pakistan is now the side vying for peace
It is up to the Modi government to look past short-term political considerations and allow tensions in Kashmir to ease.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 30, 2018
The Pakistan of Imran Khan
Can the former cricket great deliver on his promise to crackdown on corruption and improve services?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 2016
Sunni vs. Shiite at the heart of Islamic turmoil
Conflicts like those in Syria and Yemen reflect the struggle between Islam's two main sects, Sunni and Shiite, and that between fundamentalists and reformists.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2014
A tipping point for Pakistan?
The attack on an army school in Peshawar, Pakistan, was the Taliban's single deadliest in its history. The question now is whether it will turn out to be a turning point for Pakistan in its relations with the group.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 4, 2014
Pakistan waging a risky war at home
Pakistan's launch of a full-scale military operation in the North Waziristan Tribal Agency, to eliminate terrorist bases and to clear out foreign fighters, will trigger yet another refugee crisis. And that risks spreading the terrorist threat to other parts of Pakistan.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 13, 2013
The dawning of Pakistan's political renaissance?
Executive authority in Pakistan, a country long prone to military coup, increasingly is in the hands of elected representatives, rather than dispersed among various competing institutions. The political establishment has been revitalized.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 24, 2013
The irresistible rise of the Muslim middle class
The Muslim world's current turmoil is rooted in neither religious ideology nor sectarian struggle, but rather in increasingly assertive middle classes want a say in politics.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2013
Pakistan's democracy weathering the storms
Since mid-December, Pakistan has experienced political and economic volatility that is extraordinary even by Pakistani standards. The fragile political structure that began to be erected following the resumption of civilian government in 2008 is now shaking.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2012
Demilitarizing Muslim politics
Can Muslim governments free themselves from their countries' powerful militaries and establish civilian control comparable to that found in liberal democracies? This question is now paramount in countries as disparate as Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2012
Winds of political change blow through Pakistan
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari abruptly returned to Karachi on the morning of Dec. 19, following a 13-day absence for medical treatment in Dubai, where he lived while in exile. The government did not issue a formal statement about Zadari's health, but his supporters disclosed that he had suffered a mild stroke, which left him unconscious for several minutes.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 14, 2011
U.S. response to 9/11 plunged Pakistan into chaos
The 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States sent shock waves around the world from which Pakistan has still not recovered. Indeed, Pakistan's participation in what former U.S. President George W. Bush called the "global war on terror" has produced overwhelmingly negative consequences, as it thrust the country to the forefront of the international community's attention at a moment when it was utterly unprepared to reconcile the world's concerns with its own.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2011
China could fill Af-Pak vacuum left by U.S.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan have continued to fray since a U.S. Special Forces team killed Osama bin Laden in a comfortable villa near a major Pakistani military academy. But the tit-for-tat retaliations that have followed the raid reflect deeper sources of mistrust and mutual suspicion.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 2, 2011
Pakistan again turns toward China
Large events sometimes have unintended strategic consequences, as the killing of Osama bin Laden in a compound in Abbottabad, a military-dominated town near Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, shows.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2011
Bracing for Pakistan's 'Mubarak moment'
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's domestic situation is becoming increasingly precarious. Indeed, serious questions are being raised as to whether the country can survive in its present form.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 19, 2010
The return of Musharraf
LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan's former president, Pervez Musharraf, has decided to return to Pakistani politics, if not quite to Pakistan. He announced his decision at London's National Liberal Club, an institution founded in the 19th century by William Gladstone and other stalwarts of Britain's parliamentary tradition.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 29, 2010
Pakistan's aid-addicted economy needs reform
LAHORE — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's just-concluded visit to Islamabad — for the second session of the strategic dialogue that she and her Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, launched in Washington earlier this year — brought some comfort to her hosts. The United States promised to provide $500 million of funding for several "highly visible" projects in Pakistan. This was to be part of the $1.5 billion allocated to Pakistan in legislation signed by U.S. President Barack Obama last year.

Longform

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