Holbrooke: Persian Gulf oil money fuels Taliban insurgencies

America’s top diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan says the deadly Taliban insurgency in those countries relies heavily on funding from the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Such money even outpaces the cash gathered from Afghanistan’s multibillion-dollar exports of opium and heroin, said Richard Holbrooke, the United States’ special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, in an interview Tuesday with CNN.

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Memories of a bitter past ignite Indian book controversy

The wounds of partition festered again this week in India, resulting in the banning of a book and the expulsion of a respected politician. The home state of the father of Indian independence, Mahatma Gandhi, forbade the sale and circulation of a new book it says spews revisionist history about the birth of secular but predominantly Hindu India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Written by Jaswant Singh, a former federal minister and senior member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the book calls Mohammed Ali Jinnah, considered by Indians the architect of the partition, a great man who is wrongly demonized.

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An Impossible Mountain Rescue on Latok II in Pakistan

For nearly a week now, Spaniard Oscar Pérez has been alone on the wall of ice and rock that is Latok II. The 33-year-old mountaineer fell while attempting to summit the notoriously difficult peak in northeast Pakistan’s Karakorum range, breaking his leg and possibly his wrist.

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Saudis pull plug on Lebanese TV station after lewd content is aired

Saudi Arabian officials have closed a second office of a Lebanese broadcasting network, this one in Riyadh, after the network aired an interview with a Saudi man who bragged about his sex life, authorities said. Pakistani police registered a case Tuesday against Musharraf over his order to arrest and detain judges in late 2007, the Pakistani High Commission in London said. As a result, “If Musharraf returned to Pakistan, he would face a court who would decide whether he is arrested or released on bail,” a spokeswoman for the High Commission said

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Musharraf faces arrest on return to Pakistan

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf faces arrest if he returns, Pakistani officials said Tuesday. Pakistani police registered a case Tuesday against Musharraf over his order to arrest and detain judges in late 2007, the Pakistani High Commission in London said. As a result, “If Musharraf returned to Pakistan, he would face a court who would decide whether he is arrested or released on bail,” a spokeswoman for the High Commission said

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Pakistani Taliban chief alive according to group’s spokesman

Pakistan’s Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud is alive, the group’s spokesman told CNN on Tuesday — disputing the Obama administration’s contention that he was killed by a CIA missile strike. Spokesman Maulvi Umar said Mehsud is ill, but safe at an undisclosed location

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