Daily Articles

BY RAFIA ZAKARIA SOMEWHERE late in the 1500s, after he had been king for many years, Emperor Akbar asked one of the Jesuit priests then in the Mughal Empire for a copy of the Holy Bible. It was this act that led to the commissioning of a manuscript known as the Mirat-ul-Quds, or the `mirror of holiness`, that tells of …

September 3, 2010: A suicide bomb attack killed 59 people at a rally held by Shia organisations on Al Quds day. August 31, 2011: A powerful blast killed at least 11 and injured 13 others when a bomb was detonated on Gulistan Road in the Murriabad area of Quetta. September 20, 2011: Militants gunned down 26 people belonging to the …

ISLAMABAD: Although they have improved since 2015, the federal government`s public approval ratings remained negative on most governance indicators, according to the assessment of Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat). Pildat found that 58pc of nationwide respondents rated the prime minister`s performance positively this year, while 41pc rated it negatively. This is a decline of 15 percentage points …

CALAIS (France): An island of comfort in the squalid Calais `Jungle`, the Khyber Pass Cafe is one of the few still serving customers even as migrants heed an eviction order and camp residents move out. Open since April, the cafe has been housed in a large forest green-coloured tent. Inside, migrants and aid workers sip tea and coffee, and eat …

BY Syed Zeeshan Haider The roots of contemporary problems are buried deep The rift between Pakistan and India has increased to a significant degree. A few elements on both sides have played a crucial role in aggravating the situation. These elements are present amongst mass media, political parties and various governmental and non- governmental institutions, on both sides of the …

Which part of Pakistan’s population is worth investing the most in? The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has provided a convincing answer: the 10-year-old girl. During the launch of the State of World Population Report 2016 , the UNFPA country representative noted that 35 percent of Pakistan’s population was between zero and 14 years of age. Out of this, two …

By Syed Rashid Husain TORONTO: Ali Al-Naimi has a story to tell. Through the 317-page memoir, `Out of the Desert: My Journey from Nomadic Bedouin to the Heart of Global Oil,` to be published next month by Portfolio Penguin, the old wise man of the energy world is finally opening up his heart to the extent possible. Ali Naimi has …

T is Pakistan`s shameful open secret that despite having passed legislation and set up regulatory authorities, the trafficking of human organs almost always kidneys continues. The incidence of this practice was at its highest around the turn of the millennium, and subsequently an estimated 2,000 vended kidneys were being transplanted per year. The passage of the Transplantation of Human Organs …

LL over the world, a new kind of populism is gaining momentum one that is frightening in the kind of appeal it relies on for support. Its thrust is in two directions: the first against the democratic conventions enshrined in the discourse of rights, citizenry and tolerance; the second in the anger aimed at an amorphously defined other, whether resident …

BY UMAIR JAVED THE government finds itself battling on three fronts. Civil-military relations are said to be at their lowest ebb in years, a main opposition party is gearing itself to lay siege to the capital, and inter-provincial tensions over the distribution of federal resources and CPEC projects are escalating. The first problem is recurring, and regardless of what many …