By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Two months after the Indian government abruptly decided to swap the most widely used currency notes for new bills, the economy is suffering. The manufacturing sector is contracting; real estate and car sales are down; and farm workers, shopkeepers and other Indians report that a shortage of cash has made life increasingly difficult. Prime Minister Narendra …

Author: The New York Times Opioid addiction is America’s 50-state epidemic. It courses along Interstate highways in the form of cheap smuggled heroin, and flows out of “pill mill” clinics where pain medicine is handed out like candy. It has ripped through New England towns, where people overdose in the aisles of dollar stores, and it has ravaged coal country, …

By Tariq Mahmud As this column goes to press, I will be completing my four years of uninterrupted association with The Express Tribune as a contributor with a fortnightly regularity. During this period, I enjoyed the writer’s premium when it came to the choice of subjects, diction and the freedom of thought process. I had a fairly instructive experience in …

By Ehsan Malik It is natural to start a new calendar year on an optimistic note. Pakistan’s macro economy has stabilised. However, there is a fundamental issue that Pakistan needs to tackle urgently if it is to accelerate and sustain growth. On reversing the premature deindustrialisation which has impacted jobs, value-added exports and tax revenue, there should be a national …

Carl Zimmer Bird migrations have stumped the greatest minds for thousands of years. Aristotle thought that the robins living in Greece in the winter somehow turned into redstarts in the summer. In fact, robins migrate from Greece to Northern Europe around the time redstarts arrive from Africa. Scientists have gotten a much better understanding of bird migration in recent centuries, …

Mahir Ali PEOPLE who are pumped up about the prospect of a Trump presidency fall broadly into two categories. Most of those who voted for the property magnate and TV show host and many of those who backed him from afar believe — or at least hope — Donald Trump will do some good, if not on an international scale …

Zurich (AFP) – Following FIFA’s ruling council’s unanimous approval Tuesday of an expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams in 2026, AFP Sport looks at the evolution of the tournament since the inaugural edition in 1930. – 1930: The first World Cup final kicked off with 13 teams in Uruguay, including four European nations – Belgium, France, Romania and …

In his farewell address, the outgoing President will counter growing – but misguided – criticism of his administration’s approach to the rest of the world. Barack Obama gives his farewell address as US president on Tuesday at McCormick Place in Chicago, the venue for his election night celebration in 2008. This will be the first time in US history that …

BY Abdul Quayyum Khan Kundi Since the news broke out about General Raheel’s appointment as the first commander of the Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMAFT) there have been two major criticisms of this decision. First that he has taken up an appointment after just two months of retirement as commander of Pakistan army and second that the alliance hasSunni …

Uzair M. Younus The writer is a South Asia analyst at Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington D.C. THREE hundred and twenty billion dollars. That is the amount by which China’s gargantuan foreign exchange reserves declined by in 2016, according to the latest data that has been made available by the People’s Bank of China. Chinese reserves, which peaked at $4 …