German-Swiss pact on hidden accounts
The PPP government has no intention to renegotiate the existing tax treaty with the Swiss government as has been done by a number of countries including India, to retrieve billions…
Zappelli and the ‘Swiss Case’
A development which may have a bearing on our own Swiss Case has gone virtually unnoticed: the premature resignation in November of Geneva‟s attorney general Daniel Zappelli. Zappelli stepped down…
Manias and magic bullets
REMEMBER the great ‘water car’ mania from the early 2010s? When some fellow managed to convince a large number of senior politicians and TV anchors that he had invented a…
Nature’s rights
PAKISTAN, seen as the land of waters, is, in fact, strewn with obstructed, polluted and abandoned water bodies. Almost all of its 19 Ramsar sites — wetlands of international importance…
Hidden watermark
THE atomic mushroom cloud has changed shape: it is now a nuclear umbrella. Historically, an umbrella has symbolised ‘protection, power, and prestige’. (The Thai king has nine above his head.)…
How the United States is eating Trump’s tariffs
US companies and consumers are bearing the brunt of the country’s new import tariffs, early indications show, contradicting assertions by President Donald Trump and complicating the Federal Reserve’s fight against…
Shutdown in Washington, setup in Beijing?
Comrade Xi must’ve chuckled watching the Capitol shutdown from Beijing. What better advert for yuan-denominated stability than a Washington paralysed by its own budget? What more could the renminbi ask…
Plastic pollution plague blights Asia
Kulsum Beghum sorts waste at a landfill in Dhaka. Her blood contains 650 microplastic particles per millilitre, according to an analysis funded by a waste pickers’ union. “Plastic is not…
Is Gold Standard coming back?
Several countries have begun to trade in currencies other than the dollar as the US-led West continues to use punitive sanctions as a foreign policy tool — sanctions designed to…
Wasting public funds
How would taxpayers feel after reading the headline in this newspaper: 'Losses of 15 SOEs surge to whopping Rs5.9 trillion'. We had heard of a ‘billion’ with apprehension, but here…
