QeRN Monthly Newsletter #11-6 29/06/2011

Welcome to the all-new Monthly Newsletter #11-6. We started this newsletter with limited circulation in October of 2001, and after ten years, we have a brand new web site, and our first monthly newsletter that goes out to a wider audience.

Rapidly Changing Al-Qaeda Endgame in Pakistan

Saleem Shahzad was the fearless Pakistani reporter who was kidnapped last night and found dead today. As usual, the Interior Minister promised an inquiry and visited his home, and all the foreign news agencies for whom he worked expressed their condolences.

In addition to the sorrow over a reporter I admired, his death tells us a lot about the changing game within Pakistan. Saleem was as close as you could get to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda while not being overtly sympathetic to them. A gifted reporter, he found his natural voice when reporting about the intricacies of the relationship between the various warring factions in Pakistan. He had written Part 1 of what went on behind the attack on the Pakistani Navy but did not live long enough to write Part 2. He had also written a well-received book on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. (Read More)

Faux Muslims on Faux News – How Long?

Harris Zafar, Naseem Mahdi, Faheem Younus and Qasim Rashid have been mis-representing American Muslims for quite some time now, mostly on Fox News. It has been a symbiotic relationship for both: the Ahmadiyya, a religion that is an offshoot of Islam, getting media time and Fox getting a faux Muslim to peddle their biased and unreal agenda. (Read More)

Lessons from Greek Financial Woes

The country that is widely considered to be the cradle of Western civilisation is bankrupt. Its bonds are now rated lower than any other country in the world. With a population of only 11 million, the country that was once regarded as an antidote to Turkey by traditional European powers is not even a shadow of its former self. Without discussing much about what led to this, let us see what lessons we can learn from this situation? (Read More)

Pakistan Tug-of-War: For-sale Liberals vs Myopic Fanatics

Pakistan is caught in a struggle between two flawed sides: liberals without moral anchor who are pushed around by Indians and Americans, and Islamists who may have their hearts in the right place but are woefully unequipped to function in the 21st century. (Read More)