In nuclear-armed Pakistan, everyday cities plunge into darkness and factories grind to a halt for several hours as the electricity goes out. Some Pakistanis look towards importing nuclear reactors as a solution.

This launching of the study organized by Heinrich Boll Stiftung, Pakistan, is the first activity of the Working Series on Women Religion and Politics. The other activity includes national and international conferences which shall be held in the year 2010-11. However, publications are also envisioned in order to successfully accomplish the aim of the working series.

On April 8th, US-President Obama signed an agreement on nuclear missile reduction with the Russian President Medvedev. The reduction of the two largest nuclear arsenals is an important step to the future success of a global non-proliferation regime. The agreement comes in time for the US Nuclear Summit and upon the eve of the UN negotiations on the future of the non-proliferation treaty.

Based on the analysis of Pakistan’s current environmental and economic state, the paper outlines concrete challenges caused by climate change. Pakistan, as a developing country, has higher incidences of poverty and the country is facing a number of problems.

There are factors that persuade Pakistan to fight against the terrorist organizations located on its soil. There are equally a number of factors militating against Pakistan’s campaign to fight terrorism. Together, these two contradictory compulsions characterize the current scene. Because of this fault-line of intent, the determination to fight against terror is constantly undermined, leading at times to internal rifts in the institutions that decide and implement anti-terror strategies.

In order to introduce and discuss the latest publication: “Pakistan - Reality, Denial and the Complexity of its State” the HBS Head Office in Berlin organized an Expert’s Round Table.

The American-led NATO mission in Afghanistan began with the stated objective of denying Al Qaeda a safe haven. President Barack Obama restated that in his speech at West Point earlier this month that the overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and its allies in the future. “We are in Afghanistan to prevent cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan.”

Due to the offensive by the military only a few weeks ago, Pakistan came into the focus of the international public again. The power of the Taliban in connection with the attitude of the society was widely discussed, but once again gender and women issues were not highlighted. Durre Ahmed, chairperson and senior research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Gender and Culture in Lahore, about the current situation and development of the gender discourse in Pakistan.

This paper analyzes the outlook of democracy and rule of law in Pakistan, as promoted by the Pakistani Lawyer’s Movement.

Presently, more than seventy thousand American and NATO troops are in Afghanistan. In addition, Pakistan has deployed more than hundred thousand troops in the tribal areas, adjacent to the Pak-Afghan border, to stop the infiltration of the Taliban and their supporters into Afghanistan. But no significant achievement is in sight. Interestingly, both Pakistan and Afghanistan are blaming each other of not doing sufficient to curb the militancy in the region.