Latvia presses for euro despite unease among population
Latvia is looking to exchange its lats for euros starting in 2014 as the small Baltic nation last week officially submitted its bid to become the 18th member of the…
The bubble that burst
Gen Pervez Musharraf has returned to the country. This time, mercifully, his return has not been heralded by a posse of armed soldiers clambering over a gate to pave the…
Of absurdity and tragedy
Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s sudden gush of ‘peace-mongering’ and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and the PML-N’s support for the same is one of those absurdities of life that are too deep for…
Pipeline economics
A G00d deal of excellent comment has appeared recently on the geopolitics of the Iran-Pakistan (IP) natural gas pipeline. But what about the economics of it? Contrary to most expectations,…
New leaders, old problems
The world is watching closely as China`s 12th National People`s Congress prepares to confirm the appointment of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang as the country`s president and premier respectively. China`s…
FATF and AML compliance requirements
1. Legal Measures: Criminalization of Offences, Investigations and Prosecutions: FATF recommendations require Criminalization of money laundering through domestic legislation.1 The recommendations also provide to specify the scope of liability in…
Missing women
“The average North Carolina housewife had to walk 148 miles per year while carrying 3.5 tons of water. There is no more important event that liberated women than the invention…
The general’s dream
In an informal meeting with a group of senior journalists, Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani insisted, “The army does not have any intention of derailing the…
Foreign investment
Four features of Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s budget stand out. First, thanks to its obsession with reducing the fiscal deficit, the budget fails to raise social-sector expenditure – just when…
First-cousin marriages
Last year I wrote on the topic of thalassaemia, to which I received many positive reactions. Because of the importance of this disease and its relationship to first-cousin marriages, I…
