As if Karachi has not endured enough bloodshed and mayhem, it has been struck yet again by a heinous massacre of the Ismailis in a bestial frenzy of sectarian violence. Gunmen on motorcycles boarded a bus and opened fire on commuters in Karachi on Wednesday, killing at least 45. The pink bus was pockmarked with […]
Imperialisms democracy
The liberal and ‘secular’ intelligentsia have all praise for US democracy and freedom. Their economic colleagues brazenly ape US economic experts. The political elites of the liberal and religious variety, in cutthroat competition, desperately strived to take their turns to seek Washington’s patronage in this country’s seven decades long chequered history. Some former leftists of […]
Belligerence to the fore in Saudi shakeup
After tacit retreat from the initial misadventure of attacking Yemen, instigated by the new defence minister, Prince Mohammad, King Salman’s youngest son, the veteran strategists of the despotic regime are now trying to calm down and bring bin Salman to some degree of sanity. The despotic regime is now wavering. This new generation of royals […]
Pakistan-China friendship: between whom? II
In the last few years the Chinese ruling elite has desperately been trying to salvage a declining growth rate, unravelling economic decay, exacerbating poverty and the sharpening class struggle. The Chinese economy in 2014 experienced its lowest economic growth since 1990. The IMF downgraded its 2015 growth projection from 7.1 percent to 6.8 percent. According […]
Pakistan China friendship: between whom? I
There was a great pomp and show. There was the din of “eternal Pakistan-China friendship” broadcast on every media channel and printed in every newspaper incessantly for almost two days. A Chinese head of state was paying a desperately awaited visit to Pakistan for the first time in many years. The government rolled out the […]
Human incentive: is money the motivation?
One of the most common and frequently used arguments of the apologists of capitalism is that incentive for money and competition is necessary for human incentive to work and create for socio-economic growth and development. If one gives deeper thought to this prevailing misconception, then do teachers teach, writers write, journalists report, doctors treat, engineers […]
Hellfire missiles in a hellish region
The one billion dollar arms sale to Pakistan recently approved and announced by US officials failed to stir the Pakistani masses from their deep indifference and inertia. The media also failed to whip up much jingoistic fervour. However, in a country with mounting debt, a crumbling economy and an impoverished populace, plunging ever deeper into […]
Saudi aggression and the mercenary state II
The Iranian regime has been supporting clerics and sectarian terrorist outfits not only in Pakistan but also in many other countries in the region. Shia clerics and religious parties are heavily funded across the Middle East and other countries of the region by the Iranian state. To keep them subservient these Shia outfits are fed […]
The investment syndrome
It would have been hilarious were it not so devastating. The only panacea the Pakistani religious and liberal political elite and their intelligentsias are united on is the policy of sustaining this decaying capitalist economic system by subscribing to cruel Thatcherite economic doctrines. Corporate investment has been declared the ‘economic miracle’ for growth, development, poverty […]
Saudi aggression and the mercenary state I
What has been shocking for Pakistan’s ruling elite, the state’s bosses and media and intelligentsia barons has been the negative response of the masses at large to becoming an accomplice in the Saudi monarchy’s brutal aggression against Yemen. Some in the media have even dared to reveal the vicious character of the despotic Saudi regime […]