Afshan Subohi For political considerations Punjab may not actively object to Finance Minister Ishaq Dar’s proposal of resource distribution under the 9th NFC award, but Sindh and KP have decided to collectively oppose the move that they feel violates the law and infringes on their rights. The opposition to Dar’s resource sharing formula is primarily based on simple logic: it …

Irfan Husain There are times when decisive military action is the only way to break the deadlock. In this case, the Syrian civil war had been dragging on for five years of relentless bloodletting without any resolution in sight. Desultory diplomacy was going nowhere as the rebels insisted on Assad’s ouster as a pre-condition for talks. In this, they were …

BALANCING freedom of speech, especially the freedom of the media to report and comment on public figures and issues of public importance, against the right of individuals to be protected against libel and slander is a delicate art. In all cases, the public interest should be given precedence over unreasonable personal protection of information and reputation. This newspaper is a …

By Dr Waseem Ahmad Qureshi Many of the wars in this century have been for oil, but wars of the next century will be over water – Ismail Serageldin, former vice president, World Bank. The Indo-Pakistan water conflict dates back to 1948, when India first blocked the river water flow to Pakistan and threatened the agrarian system of the time. …

By Shahid Mehmood One of my friends runs a small-scale business. His business is located in the older part of Rawalpindi – in a place popularly known as purana shehr. While the outlines and landscapes of cities outside these old places have changed dramatically over time, these spaces have retained many of their old charm. It’s as if time moves …

By PETER BAKER JERUSALEM — On the wall of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office is a giant floor-to-ceiling map with Israel at its center. Mr. Netanyahu likes staring at the map. He regales visitors with stories about how Israel has made friends with so many of the countries shown, some nearby, others far away. His point is that Israel has …

By Tehreem Husain NORTHAMPTON: Culture defined as a collection of shared beliefs and norms is widely believed to be an important factor towards explaining economic performance of countries. Culture continues to shape individual incentives that lead people to develop institutions affecting the development paths of nations. Nobel laureate Dr Douglas North in his seminal work on institutions has also discussed the …

By Shahid Javed Burki While some of Trump’s egregious promises made during the over-charged electoral campaign will go unimplemented, his worldview will no doubt hasten the emergence of a new global arrangement.  As we near the end of the second decade of the 21st century a new world has begun to take shape. It will be defined by a number of …

By Daoud Kuttab The Palestinian issue is likely to get widespread coverage in 2017, but internal issues will mostly dominate the news agenda rather than the external developments. And by the end of 2017 the occupation of Palestine won’t end and global powers will continue to play the word game about a peace process that is spinning its wheels. However, …

Moeed Yusuf THERE is a lot of curiosity about how the Donald Trump administration may deal with Pakistan and the broader South Asian region. But there is too much uncertainty still for political analysis to produce anything truly meaningful in response. More useful would be to explain the various nodes of uncertainty and narrow down the focus of the discussion …