Return of US hawks
Mike Pompeo’s anti-Pakistan outpouring They look like a more toxic version of George W. Bush’s kamikaze neo-con team, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, which finalised US invasion…
United despite differences
The government and opposition jointly pass Fata reforms bill Eight days before the end of its tenure of the National Assembly passed the 31st Amendment bill approving FATA’s merger in KP. As the…
Beijing and the begging bowl
Working with Pakistan While SBP Chairman Tariq Bajwa is right in implying that Chinese commercial banks are flush with credit – though whatever made him think they are holding the funds just…
Pak-India relations
The initial signs of a thaw? During the last two years and a half there has be a constant deterioration in Pak-India relations. The period is marked by the Pathankot terrorist attack…
Gutter politics
And discourteous politicians Political exchange between parties has become so unpleasant, to say the least, that it is difficult to remember who was the first to drag parliamentary politics into the gutter.…
Choosing a caretaker prime minister
Will the two parties display maturity? A fourth meeting on Tuesday and still no consensus between Khaqan Abbasi and Khursheed Shah on naming the caretaker prime minister. There could be valid reasons…
Karachi’s killer heat wave strikes again
Man helpless before Nature, but human callousness also The unfortunate inhabitants of Karachi, suffering from perpetual lack of basic civic amenities and social welfare facilities, are under assault by another increasingly familiar…
PTI’s 100 days plan
Ambitious, but requiring years to implement The PTI deserves credit for being the only party which has so far put before the voters the list of its priorities after assuming power. The…
Protest and be damned…
Speedy KP-FATA merger appears inevitable Last week witnessed hectic activity on the KP-FATA merger ‘front’ with meetings of federal cabinet, the opposition, culminating in the decisive National Security Committee Saturday meeting, which…
Water wars
Losing the dam argument There’s nothing about the Pakistani delegation’s argument, to be officially put forward today, that the World Bank hasn’t heard before. Yet India has been able to wriggle its…
Nawaz’s long reach
Anybody remember the market? For all the damage Nawaz’s controversial interview has done, nobody has quite noticed how it also sounded the death rattle at the stock market. Three weeks in the…
Muzzling the media
And the double standards associated with it Suppression of a free press is nothing new in this country. Successive military regimes and even civilian setups excelled at it, most notably the Zia…
Power woes
Scarcity amidst abundance Assurances to end power shut downs and load shedding by the time the PML-N government completed its tenure have not been fully materialized. On Wednesday, a massive power breakdown struck large…
A testing finale for PML-N
Will the party implode under external pressure and internal divide? The PML-N government’s tenure ends on May 31. The party faces an existential challenge as the election campaign gains momentum. While it…
Leading from the front
Motivation, morale and dedication par excellence Colonel Sohail Abid shaheed, of the army’s military intelligence, probably wanted to leave nothing to chance. On Wednesday, receiving reports of a high value target and…
Asghar Khan case again!
Time for closure? Strangely, if it hadn’t been for two of the more unconventional chief justices in the Supreme Court’s history, the Asghar Khan case would never have seen the light of…
Economic vulnerabilities
Debt time bomb Whatever the outgoing government has achieved on the economic front, or otherwise, it has done so on the back of a record 50.6pc ($31b) increase in external debt, which…