Once again Pakistan seems to find itself in a severe quandary having to lie in bed with the most facetious of all villains – the Taliban. Commonly under the banner of Islamic Jihadist terrorist groups, they have siphoned themselves into many different sub-tribes. Amidst the chaos, post 9/11, there was a large majority of Taliban…
Recently, we saw Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman emerge as a strong proponent for climate justice. The UN Climate Change Conference COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, saw her as a vocal advocate standing for Pakistan. Calling other countries to rethink their lifestyles, highlighting the vulnerable position of Pakistan and its inability in tolerating this dystopia,…
Pakistan now sits on a cusp of several security concerns. The political upheaval has caused a domino effect which has set into motion too many factors (and people) to control. If amongst this chaos, bad statements and angering old allies have not made the year any less exciting; in came the apocalyptic floods and the…
Georges Clemenceau, a notable French politician (1841-1929), was apt as he said, “War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.” But in the case of the Russia-Ukraine war, it seems it is politicians at large who are failing in reading the bigger picture of peace and security, as the erstwhile bloc politics…
ContextFrom time to time there is a need to ascertain the status of global Balance of Power, is it in equilibrium or moving in the favor of one or the other power. While the global Balance of Power and the associated Spheres of Influence are not the only construct to assess power dynamics–they are the…
Bomb/IED BlastsA tribal elder was killed and five others, including a Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader, were injured on November 8 after their vehicle was targeted with a remote-control bomb near Chamrok Chowk in Khuzdar town (Khuzdar District) of Balochistan, reports Dawn. Police said the bomb exploded when PPP leader Abdul Latif Shahwani was travelling…
A national economy which depends on income from just one source will always be vulnerable, especially when that income comes from non-renewable resources. The prosperity of an economy usually relies on the successful implementation of economic diversification. In 2016, Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman unveiled a new five-year economic strategy, “Vision 2030”, to transform…
Consider these eye-watering statistics: inflation galloping at double digits, steepest rise in interest rates for 33 years, a two-year recession to look forward to, unemployment nearly doubling by 2025, longest downturn since records began! This is not the outlook for a developing, third world nation. It is the economic forecast for one of the developed,…
In his poem “the Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, the classic English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge gave the message that has become a metaphor for killing the innocent and what follows once the sin is done. It became known as “killing the Albatross”. It is alluring that these metaphors of classic literature remain relevant even…
So tell the tale — perhaps they will reflect. [Koran 7:176] The Word IslamThe Arabic word ‘Islam’ means “to turn oneself over to, to resign oneself, to submit.” In religious terminology it means submission or surrender to God, or to God’s will. The Koran uses the term and its derivatives in about seventy verses[1] but…
