Population rise: the big challenge
Last week the UNDP released its Human Development Report, which highlighted the abysmally low levels of improvement achieved by Pakistan in this critical area, wherein progress in South Asian countries…
Reality and rhetoric
“A Sophisticated rhetorician inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity.” Disraeli’s famous description of his opponent Gladstone, on July 27, 1878, has been justly applied to leaders who imagine…
DR Congo rebel transfer won’t bring peace
The transfer to the International Criminal Court of warlord Bosco Ntaganda would be a blow against impunity but will not fundamentally change the situation in eastern DR Congo, analysts say.…
Demons we must fight
Sometime back in these columns I had argued that if Islam were to sue for libel, many of its followers would find themselves in the dock. No faith has suffered…
WT O`s new challenge
The Doha round of trade talks has long dominated the agenda of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). An urgent priority for the organisation`s 157 members, however, is to appoint a…
Transatlantic trade
For some in Brussels, plans to create a vast Europe-America free-trade area which will generate jobs, more transatlantic investment flows and seal an alliance which under President Barack Obama has…
From high to low politics
The American presidential elections have always suffered from a dichotomy. They are won and lost on the basis of the domestic agenda. However, the president’s legacy is shaped by foreign…
Blood on the Saharan sands
For those who favour a simple explanation, it’s not hard to interpret the bloody goings-on at an Algerian gas facility deep in the Sahara as Al Qaeda’s response to the…
This is history’: Inaugural crowd celebrates Obama
This is how Americans celebrate their president: Braving ear-freezing cold and long security lines, hundreds of thousands of people flocked to the nation's Capitol to send off Barack Obama into…
Cruelty and injustice in the desert
Sri Lankans aren’t as prone to street protests as their other South Asian cousins. But when Rizana Nafeek, a young Sri Lankan Muslim girl, was beheaded in Saudi Arabia a…
