Study Kit

Among the many worrying outcomes of the recent German elections was the further collapse of the main center-left party, the Social Democrats, which received only 20.5 percent of the vote, its worst performance since World War II. Across Europe, social democratic or center-left parties are in decline. In elections this year in France and the Netherlands, the socialist and labor …

NATIONAL Aug 16: PML-N nominated Senator Yaqoob Khan Nasar as the acting president of the party. The PML-N came into being in 1990, and since then, Shahbaz Sharif is the only person, other than Nawaz Sharif, to have held the office of party chief. Aug 16: The United States designated Hizbul Mujahideen as a specially designated terrorist organisation led by …

In Pakistan’s agro-based economy, where agricultural production depends largely on irrigated areas, watersheds and their management can have significant positive impact on socio-economic growth. Over the years, water disputes with neighbouring India, coupled with climate change vagaries have painted a bleak picture for the long-term availability of water in the country. Add our current profligacy and the growing pollution of …

A new, upgraded cross-border fibre optic cable will address multiple challenges faced by China and Pakistan. KARACHI: A radical overhaul of Pakistan’s communications framework appears to be on the cards — or at least that is what Beijing and Islamabad have envisioned under their Long Term Plan (LTP) for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. A closer examination of the LTP document …

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump spoke harshly about Pakistan; but he has not yet imposed sanctions, as has been the case with Iran, nor threatened to “totally destroy” it, like North Korea. Pakistani diplomats believe there is room to maintain a working if not a cosy relationship with Washington. That remains to be seen. Islamabad disagrees with the ‘new’ US strategy …

BERLIN — Angela Merkel’s re-election as chancellor of Germany was supposed to be the ceremonial capstone of a year in which Europe did better than anticipated in holding off a populist surge, especially after the new French president, Emmanuel Macron, won so decisively over the National Front of Marine Le Pen. Instead, the election results on Sunday showed that the …

The tragedy of American foreign policy is seen when the intention to improve human rights leads to war and chaos. The nineteenth-century Germans focused so much on philosophy partly in order not to compete with the protean genius of Goethe, who had dominated all the other literary genres in Germany for so long. And so we have Hegel, Nietzsche and …

PAKISTAN has decided to opt for a paradigm shift in its foreign policy. It has also for the first time wisely used its strategic location for deriving long-term economic benefits for the people of this country, particularly in the face of the heightened risk of shrinking foreign capital flows from Western bilateral or multilateral sources. CPEC should be the beginning …

PAKISTANI politics is very conservative. Conservatives have ruled us for 53 years and centrists just for 17. The most likely winners in 2018 (PML and PTI) are both conservative. So, the next prime minister will very likely be a conservative too. Conservatism is so big now it is fracturing. Zia, its Pakistani father, had its social, political and economic wings …

The Kurds’ hunger for self-rule must not be denied by dark forces imposing their will on the region It can be argued that Kurdistan’s regional government (KRG) was ill advised to hold a referendum last week on creating an independent state. It may be the case that Masoud Barzani, veteran leader of the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, is a …