A spendthrift budget
Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar presented last Friday his fifth and presumably his and the PML-N government's last federal budget before the next general elections. There is not much to…
Soundtrack of imperialism
Oscar winner for best picture, Argo and its comrade in imperial revisionism, Zero Dark Thirty both attempt a recasting of America’s failed foreign adventures, first during the Iranian hostage crisis…
Journalism as activism
In modern societies, journalism is often framed through the ideals of objectivity, neutrality, and professional detachment. These concepts are widely treated as the hallmarks of good journalism. Yet, while they…
South Asia’s climate quandary
South Asia, home to nearly two billion people, is no longer peering at climate risk through the telescope of 2050; it is living it now. Heatwave clusters, glacial-lake outburst floods…
Protecting democratic ideals
THE modern authoritarian threat reminds one of an old saying attributed to Mark Twain: “Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” However, Yale history professor Timothy…
As Gaza faces starvation, reluctant Germany starts to curb support for Israel
The worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel’s plans to expand military control over the enclave have pushed Germany to curb arms exports to Israel, a historically fraught step for…
Reviving the two-state solution
Amid Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza with the possibility of an immediate ceasefire becoming even more distant, the High-Level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of…
Bridge the climate-debt divide
At the recent UN-sponsored roundtable organised by TabadLab on ‘Bridging Pakistan’s Financing Gap at the Intersection of Debt and Climate’, convened after the FFD4 conference in Seville, I had the…
Crowns and chips
MARRIAGES are made in heaven, except for royal unions. These require intervention by elders. In June 1509, Prince Harry (later King Henry VIII) was ordered by his father to marry…
Debt crisis and SDGs
‘Today, 3.3 billion people live in countries that spend more on interest payments than on health, and 2.1 billion live in countries that spend more on interest payments than on…
