The reaction to the “Innocence of Muslims” video started a few days late in Pakistan, compared to the violent protests Egypt in Tunisia. But demonstrations ramped up quickly. In Karachi, an Islamic group last Sunday attempted to storm the US consulate in Karachi. Police opened fire, and killed one person.
Fahad Desmukh is a journalist based in Karachi, Pakistan. He has previously worked as a news reporter for Express 24/7 and Geo TV in Pakistan. Cotton fabric "Lawn" is becoming popular in Pakistan fashion circles. (Photo: Fahad Desmukh)There is a new fashion craze in Pakistan. Reporter Fahad Desmukh tells us this material will be very popular on this year’s fashion runway.
Its 8 p.m. and young comic Danish Ali’s show is underway at a cultural center in Karachi. He suggests it’s about time the country got its own superhero. And he imagines what the movie trailer for a Pakistani Batman might sound like. “In the city of Karachi,” he said dramatically. “Where darkness has spread through the land.
Former general and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, has announced that after three years in self-imposed exile, he wants to return home to run for office. Musharraf, who now leads his own political faction, the All Pakistan Muslim League, addressed a rally by video link from Dubai. Fireworks were set off when Musharraf announced that he promised to return to Pakistan some time between the 27th and 30th of January.
Pakistani sports-hero turned politician Imran Khan held a massive rally in the city of Karachi, attracting at least a hundred thousand people according to estimates. This was his second rally in two months that’s attracted such a turnout. It’s a big deal, because up until recently, many observers in Pakistan considered Khan and his party to be politically irrelevant.
Army Cpl. Joseph Rentie,1st Battalion, 279th Infantry Regiment, concludes a search of a truck at a Pakistan border crossing in Paktya province. (Photo by: U.S. The head of Pakistan’s army Friday gave the go-ahead for his soldiers to return fire on US troops, if attacked. The change in rules-of-engagement comes after Saturday’s NATO airstrike that killed 24 uniformed Pakistani soldiers.
Pakistan has given the US 15 days to evacuate a military airbase, and shut down NATO supply lines to Afghanistan through its territory over the weekend. It’s the fallout of a NATO airstrike on a Pakistani border post near the border with Afghanistan on Saturday which killed at least 24 Pakistani troops.
Authorities in Pakistan are set to implement a plan that they say will clamp down on unsolicited spam mobile phone text messages. They have compiled a list of banned words, and ordered telecom companies to filter all text messages containing any of them. The order and the list of words have become a target of both ridicule and criticism.
A demonstration organized last week by the Gender Interactive Alliance in front of the Karachi Press Club in Karachi (Photo: Fahad Desmukh) It is not uncommon in Pakistan that you walk through a market, or stand in a corner and encounter a beggar – a transgender beggar. The transgenders in Pakistan tend to stand out from the crowd.
A nation is a complex entity, unnaturally forged in a geography. The nations we are so passionate about didn’t exist just a few generations ago, and may not exist a few generations from now. In a nation it is never the case that all folks will get equal privilege. Even the best of the nations have backward regions, where folks from other regions won’t consider shifting/settling.
A military tribunal in Bahrain has sentenced eight prominent opposition activists to life imprisonment and 13 others to lesser prison sentences, on charges of seeking to topple the monarchy and collaborating with a foreign terrorist group, among a host of other charges. The group was arrested in March as part of the Saudi-backed security crackdown on pro-reform protesters who had occupied the Pearl Roundabout in the capital Manama.
When there is breaking news in the tiny island state of Bahrain, you are not likely to hear about it on the local television or radio channels. Instead, the first place it is likely to be reported is on one of the scores of Internet discussion forums run by Bahrainis. This is just what happened earlier this month when someone posted a message on the popular forum BahrainOnline.org breaking the news that the site's founder, Ali Abdulemam, had been arrested by the National Security Agency.
Anchor Marco Werman speaks with reporter Fahad Desmukh in Karachi, Pakistan about the murder of a prominent member of Pakistan’s MQM political party. The murder occurred in London, but the ripple effect is being felt in Pakistan’s largest city.
More than a month has passed since unprecedented monsoon rains started to cause devastating flooding throughout Pakistan. But the crisis isn’t over, especially for millions of displaced people. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with reporter Fahad Desmukh, who’s based in Karachi, about the latest on the relief effort.
I am a freelance journalist based in Karachi, Pakistan, with experience in radio, television and print. If you're interested in my personal musings, check out my blog or my twitter account.