US govt shutdown means hard times for civil servants
A civil servant for 20-plus years, Mark has been through US government shutdowns before: Congress deadlocks on spending and many federal workers are temporarily forced into unpaid leave. But the…
US delays key jobs report due to government shutdown
The United States suspended the publication of a key employment report Friday as a partial government shutdown entered its third day, casting a fog over the health of the world’s…
Prolonged US government shutdown could raise market risks
Investors have anticipated for weeks the risks of a US government shutdown to markets. Now that it is here, they are hoping it will be brief. A shutdown that lasts…
Shutdown in Washington, setup in Beijing?
Comrade Xi must’ve chuckled watching the Capitol shutdown from Beijing. What better advert for yuan-denominated stability than a Washington paralysed by its own budget? What more could the renminbi ask…
Bid to relocate US Space Shuttle Discovery faces museum pushback
Tucked inside President Donald Trump’s flagship tax and spending bill last month was a little-noticed provision to relocate the iconic Space Shuttle Discovery from a museum outside Washington to Houston.…
Shut up & bear it
NINETY or so years ago, the Western liberal establishment largely ignored Nazi Germany’s pathway to genocide which targeted Jews, communists, socialists, the Roma, homosexuals, and those seen as intellectually or…
The Bhutto reboot
Putting a youthful face at the center of Pakistan’s diplomacy is no mere cosmetic gesture. It signals a long-overdue realisation: the country must project voices fluent in twenty-first-century concerns. At…
A Pakistan without Benazir Bhutto
The general belief is that no one is indispensable in this mortal world. But in my humble opinion, there are definitely exceptions to this general rule. Had Jinnah (our Quaid-e-Azam)…
IMF’s risk assessment: eyes half shut
The first coronavirus outbreak – SARS – in the shape of epidemic happened around the beginning of this century. The second coronavirus epidemic – MERS – struck around the close…
The making of HuT
IN January 2024, the British government labelled Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) as the 80th proscribed terrorist organisation, raising significant questions about balancing the protection of democratic institutions against subversive ideologies and…
