Terminology matters
The recent decision by Al Jazeera English to use the word ’refugees’ instead of ’migrants’ to describe the thousands of people who risk their lives to make dangerous journeys to…
How to democratise the UN
As we approach the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, we’re moving further into a new century with many of the old, deficient institutions of the last century left untouched.…
Internationally disowned persons
Although the UN has acknowledged the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group in the Rakhine province of Burma (Myanmar), as ‘the most persecuted minority in the world’, yet the world community…
Space for dissent
Pakistan’s blistered soul faces challenges from overlapping factors of ideology, language, ethnicity and multi-denominational belief systems. Within this disparateness, the pulpit is a constant that can unite or divide. Right…
Six-point survival kit
If you are you shocked, dear reader, with the recent spate of murders of civil society activists. If you feel an inescapable sense of dread when you hear of bomb…
Malala, Salam, Faiz and Dr Khan
In Pakistan, with Malala Yousafzai winning the Nobel Peace Prize, it is proven once again that those subscribing to conservative social and political views reject new facts if they challenge…
A paradigm shift?
President Ashraf Ghani’s visit to Pakistan is being hailed as a watershed moment. Realising its promise will be a longer-term process. Hopefully, the expectations generated by the visit will be…
Asylum rights
THE handling of the predicament of Pakistanis seeking asylum in Sri Lanka these days has come in for much criticism by human rights advocates. We as a nation are in…
Rated for language
Over the past week, the PTI’s azadi dharna has witnessed the frightening spectacle of a rhetorically belligerent Imran Khan.He has used words for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the former…
GSP-Plus and labour compliance
Previously a beneficiary of the tariff cuts under the Generalised System of Preference, Pakistan is one of the 10 countries which have been granted the Generalised System of Preference Plus…
