Mercifully and finally, the death of illusion
Pakistan’s problems are unfixable, my considered opinion after working journalism’s fields for over 30 years. Not that the problems are complicated or unique. They certainly are not. Only this that…
Medium or message?
It was the late 1980s and the early 1990s. There was a municipal committee-run secondary school in Gujjar Khan, district Rawalpindi, which was seen as the best girls’ school in…
Convalescent eurozone seeks to escape debt overhang
As the eurozone's weakest members crawl out of their longest recession in modern history, their prospects of recovery are weighed down by a crushing mountain of debt far heavier than…
Palestinian downturn bites, aid falters, tunnels collapse
The arteries of Gaza's economy have collapsed as Egypt demolishes the smuggling tunnels along its sandy border. Ancient stone villages in the occupied West Bank have become trapped in rural…
Business as usual
Almost every member of the small group of hajis that I formed an acquaintance with seemed to have paid a slightly different rate for the pilgrimage package we had purchased.…
The UN is past its sell-by date
Remember Muammar Qaddafi? Of course, who could forget the inimitable colonel and his matchless antics at home and abroad! There are lessons for all those given to delusions of grandeur…
Syria: a chance for honest diplomacy
It’s an irony of history that an adversary can sometimes rescue you from trouble better than a friend. So when Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov proposed that the US should…
Afghan endgame – BSA
The US started laying down the basic paradigms for creating the post-2014 strategic and operational environment in Afghanistan a long while ago. Its efforts took roots with the Enduring Security…
View point: Saudi annoyance with UN
Something unprecedented happened at the UN last week. Within 24 hours of winning a non-permanent member seat on the UN Security Council, Saudi Arabia announced its resignation. The country had…
Harsh realities
Until October 16, the whole world (especially China and Japan - America's biggest creditors) feared a likely default by the US on its debt repayment commitments. The last-minute deal between…
