Daily Articles

By:  John J. Hamre CSIS President and CEO The greatness of a democratic political system is that there is legitimacy with change. When an authoritarian government changes leaders, there is always uncertainty of what it means and what will happen. This year, in the United States, Donald Trump won a legitimate election and is now president-elect. This was an election …

By TIM ARANGO, ERIC SCHMITT and RUKMINI CALLIMACHIDEC. ISTANBUL — After two months, the battle to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State has settled into a grinding war of attrition. The front lines have barely budged in weeks. Casualties of Iraqi security forces are so high that American commanders heading the United States-led air campaign worry …

By Zamir Akram For those familiar with American political commentator Michael Moore’s works will recognise the title of this article as being inspired by his best-selling book Stupid White Men which was a stinging critique of US domestic and foreign policies under the Clinton and Bush Administrations. It should also be acknowledged that Moore has been among the very few …

Within an hour of the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey by an off-duty policeman there was speculation that the event would create a set of consequences similar to that which arose after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Gavrilo Princip was catalytic in the triggering of World War One. Mevlut Mert Altıntas, an officer in Ankara’s riot …

By Imtiaz Gul The writer heads the independent Centre for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad and is author of Pakistan: Pivot of Hizbut Tahrir’s Global Caliphate In a controversial move, the Sindh government has the police chief A D Khwaja home following his apparent refusal to play second fiddle to it as well as admission of failure in “good governance” …

By Harris Khalique Part – I Side-effect One’s view is primarily that of a creative writer. But since one’s interests straddle history, politics, culture and society, there is an inherent compulsion to comment on issues that surround us. At times, one feels like – to paraphrase Milan Kundera – a hedonist trapped in an intensely political world. The compulsion to comment …

By Atta-ur-Rahman Amazing innovations are transforming our world at a mind-boggling pace. They are disrupting economies as conventional technologies recede into the past and are replaced by new products and processes. I will give examples from a few fields. Biotechnology involves the application of living systems or organisms to make products. It has been used in the production of golden rice …

By Amna Shafqat Developing countries such as Pakistan are struggling with a limited amount of finances to respond to the damaging effects of climate change. The surmounting risks posed by climate change and race against time to achieve the below-two-degrees Celsius target means that our progress is subject to a considerable amount of financial aid flow from developed countries. Therefore, climate …

Anjum Altaf The result of the most recent examination for the Central Superior Services (CSS) — in which around 10,000 candidates appeared and 200 passed — has elicited much commentary. Most of it, a lament on the falling standard of education, has been predictable. A different perspective is more intriguing: it lauds the examination for being meritocratic and so rigorous …

Dr Niaz Murtaza ISLAM does not belong in Europe, says the far right there. But such views consist only of rhetoric. Rational debates must review Islamic views on specific Western ideals, eg, democracy, to see whether it is more alien to Western ideals than other faiths. Let’s begin with democracy, the finest Western ideal. As I wrote in Dawn (‘Democracy …