Pakistan at 75
‘The Round Table’ – the Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs – has been enlightening its readers since 1910. It offers analysis and commentary on various aspects of international affairs, exclusively…
Crimes against logic
In August 1985, at a conference in Havana, Fidel Castro laid out the facts and figures and indeed the mathematical impossibility of the Third World ever being able to repay…
IMF programme and energy crisis
Pakistan has less than US$3 billion in foreign reserves, enough to finance less than three weeks of imports. It owes more than US$9 billion in principal and interest payments in…
Hypocrites galore
To say that Pakistan is at a flashpoint could be a massive understatement. The government is being threatened with a no-confidence motion by the opposition which has been in power…
From Covid-19 to war
In 1963, Barry Goldwater, the future Republican Party nominee for President of the United States, published a book titled Why Not Victory? In it, he argued that the United States was…
Daronomics vs Haqeeqi Azadi?
Shortly after his November 2014 visit to Islamabad, then Afghanistan president, Dr Ashraf Ghani sent his finance minister Dr Omar Zakhilwal to Islamabad to lay out a roadmap for a…
Science on health
First, the conservatives struck down New York’s requirement for gun owners to prove why they should be allowed to pack heat in public. The ruling ignored, among many practical realities,…
Climate takes backseat in Italy vote despite extreme events
From parched rivers to a glacier collapse and this week’s deadly storms, Italy has suffered numerous climate events this year — but many politicians pay the subject little more than…
Dangerous remarks
In a recent TV interview, the celebrated US political scientist Francis Fukuyama made what struck me as possibly the most foolish remark ever uttered on TV. And I know that’s…
Default risk at hand
Around end of March, in a World Bank published article ‘Are we ready for the coming spate of debt crises’ it was pointed out that ‘In recent weeks, Russia’s invasion…
