Asia

Iran: The real cost of sanctions

We look at the impact of increased sanctions against the Islamic Republic and ask who it really affects. The United States has unveiled aggressive new sanctions targeting Iran’s currency and car industry that are among the toughest yet. They are aimed at making Iranian money all but unusable outside the […]

Pakistan sets sights on drones

Source: Asia Times. Speaking at his first cabinet meeting on June 10, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said “the dual policy of issuing public statements against drone attacks while [secretly] giving the go ahead to the US to carry on with the strikes will not be allowed under our rule. […]

Google should ban Pakistan

ET: For a journalist, perhaps nothing is a greater violation of human rights than the denial of access to information. In the case of Pakistan versus YouTube, I think the nine-month banon Google’s video-sharing website is really the limit of regressive and, in the eyes of any global citizen who accepts the […]

Pakistan Budget 2013-2014:

Source: ET ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar presented the federal budget for the year 2013-2014 in the National Assembly on Wednesday, Express News reported. The first litmus test of the newly sworn-in government began when Dar presented a Rs3.5 trillion federal budget in a bid to revive the country’s ailing economy. Designed […]

Next generation radicals in Indonesia

Source: Asia Times: By Jacob Zenn JAKARTA – Driven by strong exports and buoyant domestic markets, Indonesia is projected to be among the world’s top 10 economies by 2025. While the future looks bright for Southeast Asia’s largest economy, a growing tide of religious intolerance threatens to undermine those gains. […]

Almost all key targets missed

Source: ET ISLAMABAD: The numbers speak for themselves, and they tell a sorry tale indeed. “All targets set for the current fiscal year have been missed”, said finance minister Ishaq Dar while unveiling the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2012-13. It read like an economic indictment of the outgoing government, with the […]