During the same period, the head of Mossad, Israel’s main intelligence agency, made two trips to the country to apparently coordinate military operations. And last week, while 77 nations boycotted the Israeli prime minister’s speech at the UN General Assembly, the UAE delegation remained seated — a clear show of solidarity with the Zionist state.

Since joining the Abraham Accords in 2020, the UAE has not only established diplomatic relations with Israel but has gone much further, elevating the relationship into a de facto alliance — even as the Israeli state was carrying out a genocidal war in Gaza. That relationship deepened as the US, along with Israel, imposed an unprovoked war on Iran.

The extraordinary relationship between the two countries marks a developing unholy alliance in a rapidly changing regional order, as America’s war on Iran drags on. The UAE has reportedly carried out its own strikes on Iran and has also borne the brunt of retaliatory strikes — with devastating effect — despite the deployment of the Iron Dome air defence system, run by Israeli military personnel.

Its close military cooperation with Israel has drawn the UAE directly into the war on Iran.

It is the first time this highly advanced system has been deployed outside Israel and the US, signalling the critical role of the Emirates in a potential Israeli-led regional defence alliance. It is also the first Arab-Israeli relationship to acquire real military and industrial substance. And this Israel-UAE nexus goes beyond the ongoing Iran war: the UAE appears to be a critical part of Israel’s plan to build what Netanyahu calls the “hexagon of alliances”.

That idea was pitched by the Israeli prime minister early this year. Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Feb 22, 2026, days before the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Netanyahu presented his vision of creating “a hexagon of alliances around or within the Middle East” — a bloc against what he described as the “radical Shia and emerging Sunni axis”. He named four members — Israel, India, Greece and Cyprus — and left the remaining slots (Arab, African and Asian states) unnamed. But it is widely assumed that the Emirates is one of the six, given its close diplomatic and defence ties with Israel.

Netanyahu also pointed to intelligence-sharing and counterterrorism cooperation with India as the core of the project. Modi’s February visit produced a Special Strategic Partnership between the two countries, which have long cooperated on defence and intelligence. Israel is one of India’s largest arms suppliers. The UAE, too, has built close defence ties with New Delhi. All three are part of the four-nation I2U2 grouping, alongside the US, and of IMEC, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. This web of alliances, bound together by bilateral defence relationships, is shaping the emerging security landscape in West Asia and beyond.

Although the Israeli-proposed hexagon alliance has not yet taken formal shape, it is widely seen as a potential counter to the Makkah alliance — which Israel portrays, wrongly, as a ‘Sunni alliance’. Netanyahu has repeatedly called Turkiye a greater threat than Iran and a major challenge to his ‘Greater Israel’ ambition. Against this background, the growing Israel-UAE diplomatic and defence cooperation is alarming.

Over the past few years, the UAE has drifted away from its Gulf allies on a range of regional and foreign policy issues, above all by widening its differences with Saudi Arabia. The Emirates is accused of arming and financing a separatist group in strife-torn southern Yemen, bringing the UAE into conflict with Riyadh. It is also widely believed to be arming and funding an armed group involved in Sudan’s civil war, one accused of mass atrocities. And it backs Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia recognised only by Israel — while every other Arab state supports a united Somalia.

A few months ago, at the height of the Iran war, the Emirates pulled out of Opec, the Saudi-led oil cartel, severely damaging the organisation. Its close military cooperation with Israel has drawn the Emirates directly into the war on Iran, endangering its own security in the process. Any participation in an Israeli-proposed alliance could prove extremely destabilising for the region.

Pakistan’s own relations with the Emirates have hit a low over the past few years. Early this year, the UAE withdrew a $3 billion deposit from the State Bank of Pakistan, and once-close ties have become significantly strained. With a large Pakistani workforce in the Emirates, the shift has put Pakistan in a very difficult position, which requires a delicate balancing act.

The widening regional divide — in the middle of the Iran war, Israel’s continuing genocide in Gaza and its military actions in Lebanon — is extremely troubling. Israel’s idea of a ‘hexagon alliance’ that also includes India is dangerous for Pakistan’s security, particularly as Israel and India are already tied in a strategic relationship.

It is certainly not good news for the Middle East and the wider region, which is being rocked by America’s unending war on Iran. The situation has become much more complicated with the escalating conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Last week, the military chiefs of the three allied countries met to discuss the deteriorating situation, and there is talk that Article 5 of the alliance — under which an attack on one member is considered an attack on all — could be activated. Any such move could draw Pakistan directly into the conflict. With a resolution to the Iran war still far off, an expansion of the conflict could render the situation far more explosive. Against this backdrop, the unholy alliance between Israel and the UAE could further destabilise the region, with far-reaching implications.

The writer is an author and journalist.

zhussain100@yahoo.com

X: @hidhussain

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

Anatol Lieven offered an uncomfortable explanation more than a decade ago in Pakistan: A Hard Country. Writing about Pakistan’s bureaucracy, he observed that “The bureaucracy acts as an agency of distributing patronage rather than good government”. He was making a broader point than simply accusing officials of corruption: formal institutions themselves can be shaped by patronage, personal relationships and competing interests.

The result is a paradox. The machinery of the state can be weak and dysfunctional, yet the networks around it can make the system remarkably resilient. Those same networks, however, can make the state harder for ordinary citizens to navigate. Lieven’s observation remains relevant because the problem citizens encounter today is not simply corruption. It is the growing difficulty of dealing with the state itself.

Getting a document attested from the foreign affairs ministry can mean hours in queues, repeated visits, uncertainty about requirements and the possibility of another objection from another official. When a legitimate administrative process becomes sufficiently difficult, the middleman finds an opportunity. And when the middleman becomes almost indispensable, corruption has fertile ground in which to grow.

The answer to every administrative failure cannot be another layer of control.

I know something about this from personal experience. Last year, I wrote to the foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, about the immense difficulties you­ng Pakistanis were facing in getting documents attested. I asked for a system that would allow citizens to obtain a legitimate government service with dignity, without spending hours standing in the heat or cold. The response was brief: the authorities were aware of the problem and had already taken steps to improve the situation.

Unfortunately, my experience since then suggests that the problem has not disappeared.

My own family has encountered similar problems elsewhere in the system. Two adult daughters were once stopped at Lahore airport and questioned for almost two hours before an international trip, including being asked why they were travelling without a male relative.

On another occasion, the Foreign Office refused to attest an affidavit prepared for a university abroad because, I was told, both parents had to consent even though the applicant was an adult. The embassy of the country concerned eventually accepted the affidavit without the Foreign Office attestation.

More recently, a newborn’s passport became another bureaucratic journey. The father, living abroad, had to fly back to Pakistan because his presence was considered necessary before the passport could be issued. Even after the passport was processed, the parents were asked to have their identity documents attested by a Grade-17 officer before collection. These are not extraordinary demands in a country facing war or famine. They concern passports, affidavits and identity documents.

And that is the point. A state does not become stronger by making every legitimate interaction with it more difficult. Nor does every additional verification, signature, attestation or layer of authority necessarily make a system more secure. Sometimes it simply creates another point at which a citizen becomes dependent on an official’s discretion.

We often discuss corruption as though it begins with the person offering money at a counter. But the deeper problem can begin much earlier, when the legitimate route becomes so cumbersome that people start looking for another route.

Lieven’s insight was that the problem is not simply individual dishonesty. It is the way the system itself can operate through patronage, personal rel­a­­tionships and discretion. As he put it, people with even limited power can use it to “turn to their ad­­vantage the workings of the law and the bureaucracy”.

That is why the answer to every administrative failure cannot be another layer of control. A new verification may be introduced to prevent fraud. Another signature may be demanded in the name of security. Another attestation may be added to ensure authenticity. Each may appear reasonable in isolation. Together, they can create a maze in which the honest citizen becomes increasingly dependent on the very system that is supposed to serve them.

Pakistan is a poor country. Its citizens understand that. They do not expect government offices to provide five-star service. But they can reasonably expect something much more basic: when the law gives them a legitimate right, the state should make it reasonably easy to exercise that right. This is the argument I had made in my letter to the foreign minister a year back.

A birth certificate should not become an odyssey. A passport should not require unnecessary suspicion. A document attestation should not require an agent. A citizen should not have to prove, at every counter, that he or she is innocent of some imagined wrongdoing.

The government does not need another committee to discover this. It needs to look at the citizen’s journey through the system and ask a simple question: how many of these steps are actually necessary?

Because corruption is not created only at the counter. Sometimes the conditions for it are created much earlier, by a system that makes a simple, legitimate service unnecessarily difficult.

The writer is a former journalist and strategic communication and public health professional, with experience across Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

There are good reasons for Islamabad to view this as a significant strategic opportunity. The arrangement, forged in the shadow of the US and Israeli war on Iran, responds to a growing imperative for regional stakeholders to exercise greater control in stabilising a region fractured by conflict.

It also builds on long-standing relationships between three important middle powers whose security is bound up in regional outcomes. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have decades of military and diplomatic cooperation behind them. Turkiye has important extensive defence ties with both. With US retrenchment from the region increasingly appearing inevitable, institutionalising these relationships offers some much-needed strategic coherence to a region beset by complex challenges.

But for Pakistan to make the most of this moment — and for it to translate the compact into lasting strategic advantage — several caveats deserve consideration.

First, for this ‘non-directional’ arrangement to truly be regionally tenable, it must avoid becoming a source of further division in the Middle East. For Pakistan, the present crisis involving Ansarullah (the Houthis) in the Red Sea offers an early test of whether the alliance can resist being drawn into the region’s existing rivalries. There is no disputing the fact that the stability of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia matters enormously to Pakistan: it is an important source of energy and financial support, and home to a large Pakistani diaspora whose remittances contribute significantly to foreign exchange earnings.

The strategic opportunity comes with caveats.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has also dramatically increased Pakistan’s dependency on the flow of oil through the Red Sea. But direct military involvement against the Houthis does risk drawing the alliance deeper into existing regional rivalries, risking Islamabad’s position with Tehran, and testing Pakistan’s stated policy commitment to avoiding camp politics. Ultimately, Pakistan’s usefulness to the alliance might lie in its ability to exploit the diplomatic space it retains with both Tehran and Riyadh, using those channels to encourage dialogue and de-escalation.

Second, in terms of objectives, military coordination, defence-industrial cooperation and, ultimately, collective defence are not incompatible with one another. But it is that final commitment, however, that will require the most careful thinking about where Pakistan’s obligations to the other two countries begin and end. A decade ago, in 2015, Pakistan’s parliament played an important role in the decision not to commit Pakistani troops to the Saudi-led war in Yemen. While the intervening decade has arguably seen an erosion of Pakistan’s democratic institutions, the country’s leaders must still remember that major commitments abroad still require political dialogue and consensus at home, not least given the country’s demographic diversity and the ability of external security choices to reverberate internally.

Finally, and relatedly, those shaping Pakistan’s strategic direction would be wise to recognise that Pakistan’s expanding strategic horizons cannot be divorced from the pressures it confronts at home and that while there is no arguing that regional influence can be an asset, it is important to build the domestic capacity to sustain. At present, Pakistan confronts a serious trifecta of terrorism, political instability and persistent economic fr­­agility. This year has been among Pakis­tan’s deadliest for terrorism in recent memory. Fraught go­­vernance challe­nges in KP and Ba­­lochistan add to that insecurity. For a country already contending with multiple sources of instability at home, expanding commitments abroad without thought to improved governance and/or a corresponding domestic reset at home risks weakening the very foundations on which any newfound regional influence must ultimately rest.

None of these caveats detracts from the rare opportunity Makkah presents. In the shadow of looming threats from India and Afghanistan, and general instability unleashed by America’s war in Iran, the arrangement offers Pakistan the chance to do several things: to extract strategic currency from its military capacity, to expand defence-industrial cooperation with important partners, and to eventually be a consequential voice in shaping whatever security architecture emerges from the ashes of the US war against Iran. But these things also require more than aspiration. For Islamabad, that means navigating existing regional fault lines and developing a better political compact at home.

The writer is assistant professor of political science, Tufts University.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

More seriously, though, it’s somewhat gratifying to see the top honchos of the world’s biggest military and economic powers playing footsie with one another. Trump’s first presidential campaign a decade ago was grounded in relentless hostility to China, and he has blamed the 2020 election outcome partly on Beijing’s interference — which is as absurd as his adversaries crediting Russia with the 2016 result. Noticeably, that plaint wasn’t revisited last week.

There was no joint statement at the end of what both sides officially declared to be a huge success. But whereas the mainstream Western liberal media has generally been unduly sceptical about specific achievements, Chinese state media has been celebrating the win-win accomplishments in platitudinous terms, such as “working in the same direction” and “respect, fairness and reciprocity”. That is vaguely reassuring, even though nothing is guaranteed. AI wasn’t ignored, but the scope for future discussions remains uncertain.

A decade ago, in one of his last documentaries, The Coming War on China, John Pilger laid out the prospects of an operation in the making since the 1950s. He focused in part on Bikini Atoll in the colonised Marshall Islands as a site where hydrogen bombs were regularly tested, with little concern for the inhabitants, in the quest for Asia-Pacific domination. Many decades later, the “pivot to Asia” was essentially part of the same pattern.

There is much that China and the US appear not to have discussed.

‘Who lost China?’ was a key factor in the purge of State Department officials who correctly predicted the Maoist takeover in 1949, which led to the Formosa ‘crisis’ that remains unresolved. Trump does not appear to be too concerned about what becomes of Taiwan and has thus far held back on supplying new arms to the island. Any future war over Taiwan would be both stupid and globally disastrous. But can it be avoided? That’s a question for an indeterminate future. Pakistan, like several other nations, has relied on both China and the US for decades. This is likely to continue. The perception of Beijing as an all-seasons saviour flows into a different challenge. What comes next might come as a surprise.

The difference between the US and China is that the former is floundering, while the latter, for all its flaws and tribulations, retains its edge. There is no guarantee that the US and China will remain on close terms for the remainder of the year, never mind the forthcoming APEC and G20 gatherings. Whatever Xi’s Washington ordeal might have accomplished, the US and China remain at loggerheads in various respects, and the possibility of a war cannot entirely be discounted. The consequences of such an eventuality are too horrible to imagine. Xi’s reception in the US has been seen as an unusual accomplishment. What does not necessarily follow is superpower bonhomie, despite the likelihood of two more Xi-Trump encounters before the year is out.

Whether the envisaged progress can be taken at face value is an open question. Le­­a­­ving AI aside, there is much else that China and the US ap­­pear not to have discussed. The pron­o­u­­n­cements from Beijing have broadly been more positive than the American pronouncements. Neither side, though, has offered clarity about what lies ahead. Neither technology nor Taiwan may be enough to persuade Trump to challenge China, but the post-Trump scenario remains hazy.

A US-China conflagration is unlikely but cannot be dismissed out of hand. As long as both sides see each other as adversaries, the prospect of eventual hostilities cannot entirely be discounted. Such hostilities would be a multifaceted disaster.

China has not stood out as a consequential opponent of the genocide in Palestine. Nor has it directly participated in Iran’s resistance to the US-Israeli onslaught, despite allegations about shared intelligence. China cannot be excluded from West Asia, but it has largely been silent about the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. Precisely what kind of role China wishes to play in the region is unclear. Yet, notwithstanding the evidently meagre accomplishments of the summit, even the slightest hope of superpower rapprochement deser­ves to be embraced as a triumph of hope.

mahir.dawn@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

The management of reservoirs should follow transparent rules based on water availability, crop requirements, environmental needs and future risks. There is also a need to distinguish between wasteful releases and legitimate environmental flows. Rivers cannot be reduced to irrigation channels. They require water to sustain their ecosystems. Environmental needs must be properly calculated and incorporated into planning. The coming shortage will also revive the old provincial dispute. Irsa will have to distribute a smaller pool of water among the provinces. The existing arrangements already generate disagreement, particularly over how shortages should be shared. Severe shortages will intensify interprovincial tensions — which the centre must prevent. Decisions should be based on verifiable data, in accordance with the Water Apportionment Accord, 1991. The government must also invest in irrigation efficiency and water conservation. Farmers cannot be expected to bear the cost of decades of institutional neglect. The larger failure is that our policymakers still treat water shortages as emergencies rather than as a permanent national constraint. That approach is not sustainable. Climate change makes water availability less predictable while population and food demand continue to rise. The country, therefore, needs a water policy that looks beyond one crop, one harvest and one province. It needs to conserve more, waste less and plan years ahead.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

This was reflected in a resolution passed by the held region’s assembly on Monday, which called for a restoration of statehood that was scrapped when the Indian constitution’s Article 370 was abrogated in 2019. The occupied area’s chief minister, Omar Abdullah, claimed that statehood was “our right”. BJP lawmakers termed the resolution “anti-national”. Two similar resolutions have been passed over the years by the IHK legislature.

The problem goes far deeper than the restoration of the status quo ante that existed before August 2019. The core issue is the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination, which India has been blocking since the division of the subcontinent. Unless this core issue is addressed with justice, the problem will linger as Kashmiris in the occupied territory are denied their fundamental rights. While speaking at the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also highlighted the Kashmir issue, saying that Kashmiris had been waiting “for eight decades” for the UN to fulfil its commitments. He also pointed out the human rights violations that India has carried out against the Kashmiri population. Turkiye’s President Recep Erdogan, while speaking at the UNGA, similarly called for a resolution of the Kashmir question as per the “relevant resolutions”.

The human rights situation in the disputed region is very grim. A UN report from November 2025 has condemned the arbitrary arrests, suspicious deaths in custody, torture and “discriminatory treatment of Kashmiri and Muslim communities”. Held Kashmir’s wounds cannot be left to fester. The people of Kashmir, including even those politicians who were or are close to New Delhi, are chafing under the post-Article 370 regime in the held region. Along with rights abuses, there is also alarm over the demographic changes in IHK, as the Kashmiris are being turned into a minority in their own land. The just solution lies in India addressing the issue through a trilateral dialogue involving the legitimate representatives of the Kashmiri people and Pakistan. India’s rulers can continue to believe the fiction that occupied Kashmir is an ‘integral’ part of their country. But that does nothing to address the dissatisfaction that both the common Kashmiri and the political elite of the region feel towards Indian rule. The dispute has poisoned all chances of normalisation in South Asia. Instead of arrogantly dismissing talk of freedom, India’s rulers need to listen to voices from IHK, and together with Pakistan, work towards a just solution to this dispute.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

That requires more than telling families to make better choices. People should know what is in the food they buy, particularly when products contain excessive sugar, salt or unhealthy fats. Health experts have called for clear front-of-pack warning labels on such products, while schools can also play a greater role by encouraging physical activity and limiting children’s exposure to unhealthy foods and drinks. Parents, too, need simple and reliable information about proper nutrition and healthy menus. None of this removes personal responsibility, but it recognises that choices are shaped by the environment in which people live. The value of World Heart Day should, therefore, lie in what follows after the observance itself. Its broader message must be that prevention starts early. If the country wants fewer heart attacks and strokes in the decades ahead, it must begin by protecting the hearts of those who are young today.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2026

Insecurity destroys the very conditions on which economic development depe­nds, while development strengthens the foundations of security. Our crisis makes this nexus impossible to ignore. For decades, discussions on investment, production, growth, and development have largely focused on economic policies while underestimating the non-economic environment in which they operate. Yet, security of life and property, political stability, rule of law, judicial independence, federal-provincial coordination, accountability, and regional peace directly affect economic outcomes. Unless these improve, returns from economic reforms will remain below potential.

Increasing militancy and Pakistan’s top position on the Global Terrorism Index 2026 are damaging lives and economic prospects. The recent attack on a police compound in Kohat, in which 37 people, including military personnel, were killed, received international coverage. Foreign business people and executives reportedly cancelled plan­ned visits, while travel advisories issued by sever­al governments can discourage their nationals from visiting Pakistan. In 2025, TTP attacks in KP and BLA strikes in Balochistan caused hundreds of ca­­sualties among security personnel. The past decade’s trend shows that terrorism is no longer episodic. It is a structural constraint on investment, trade, tourism, development and employment.

The origins of the TTP challenge go back several decades. Pakistan’s decision in the 1980s to align with the US in opposing the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan had consequences beyond the immediate strategic goal. The proliferation of arms and drugs, sectarian violence, growth of militant groups and the spread of extremist ideologies created a social and institutional environment that facilitated terrorism in Pakistan.

After the Soviets left Afghanistan, Pakistan became involved in efforts to shape a political settlement among Afghan factions. The failure of power-sharing arrangements and the ensuing civil war led to the emergence of the Taliban, who captured Kabul in 1996. Pakistan supported their regime. But 9/11 fundamentally altered the situation. Pakistan joined the global campaign against terrorism, itself becoming a major target. When the US decided to leave Afghanistan, Pakistan played an important role in the Doha process. The Ashraf Ghani government’s collapse in 2021 and the Taliban’s return led to expectations that cross-border terrorism would decline. Instead, the TTP, now equipped with modern weapons left behind by Nato forces, intensified their attacks.

The challenge is to build security through development, and development through security.

Diplomatic efforts involving China, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye have not produced a durable solution. Insecurity along the western frontier has disrupted bilateral trade, imposing costs on manufacturers, traders and transport operators, especially in KP and Balochistan. Security and commerce are now directly linked. Balochistan poses a different but equally serious challenge. It has seen a sharp escalation in asymmetric warfare and insurgency. Highways, railways, bridges, gas pipelines, electricity transmission lines, and other infrastructure have been targeted. Mine workers, labourers from other provinces and government officials have been attacked or abducted. In places, the state’s administrative presence and writ have been weakened.

The economic consequences are immediate. Chi­­nese nationals and companies in Pakistan need extensive security. Attacks on Chinese citizens in Karachi, Dasu and elsewhere have led to concerns in Beijing and slowed some CPEC-related activities. Gwadar’s industrial potential remains largely unrealised, partly because Chinese companies are reluctant to deploy personnel in insecure conditions. An industrial zone won’t flourish when investors can’t operate confidently.

Security operations alone can’t resolve Balochistan’s problem. Kinetic action is necessary against militants but must be accompanied by development. Balochistan suffers from serious deficits in education, health, clean water, infrastructure, employment and private investment. When economic opportunities are few, grievances become a source of recruitment for insurgent groups. So the province needs not just security spending but also a development strategy to create jobs, boost local institutions, and ensure communities see tangible benefits from Balochistan’s natural resources and strategic location. Regional instability adds to the problem. Disruption of trade with Iran and closure or restriction of border crossings such as Chaman have hurt exporters and communities that rely on cross-border commerce. Clearly, peace is not just a diplomatic aim; it is an economic asset.

Pakistan must use its diplomatic capital to promote regional economic integration. Better ties with Afghanistan, structured dialogue with India, stable relations with Iran, and expanded links with Central Asian states can enlarge its economic space. Afghanistan, Iran, north India, and Central Asia can be important markets for Pakistani goods and services. Gwadar could become a transshipment and logistics gateway for landlocked Central Asian economies, generating transit revenues and creating opportunities for Pakistani exporters. Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan offer markets that Pakistan has so far penetrated modestly. Regional connectivity can revive projects such as the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, TAPI, and CASA, subject to their political, financial, commercial, and security feasibility.

Greater regional trade will create demand for transport, logistics, warehousing, banking, insurance, IT and manufacturing. It will create jobs and give border communities greater economic sta­­ke in stability. None of this means that economic reforms should wait for peace. Quite the contrary. Fiscal reform, energy sector restructuring, taxation, deregulation, privatisation, export diversification, human capital development and institutional reform must continue uninterrupted. But they must be supported by steps that reduce the security premium imposed on economic activity.

Security and development are two sides of the same national strategy. Insecurity raises transaction costs, discourages investment, destroys infrastructure, disrupts trade, deters foreign personnel and limits employment. Lack of economic opportunity, weak institutions and regional isolation can deepen the conditions in which insecurity flourishes. The goal should be to create an economy in which security, development and opportunity reinforce each other. Military capability can suppress threats. But only sustained economic development, effective institutions, political stability and regional peace can remove many of the conditions that allow those threats to regenerate.

Our choice is not between security and development. The challenge is to build security through development, and development through security. Until that nexus becomes the organising principle of policy, economic reforms will operate below their potential and Pakistan will remain vulnerable to cycles of instability, low investment and weak growth.

The writer is a former State Bank governor.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2026

Meanwhile, the fascism-hugging president of the US is busy doing what he can to try to strip those of citizenship and voting rights who are least likely to vote for his party. If he doesn’t win the midterms, he could be impeached. India’s ruling party, struggling to mask its old inspiration from the Nazis, has devised its own methods of stripping the citizenship rights of millions. According to a slew of reports, the BJP government is leaning on its chosen three-member election commission to deregister millions with a view to contriving state victories for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party. Bertolt Brecht’s satirical call to elect another people since the people had lost the confidence of the government has become ominously and palpably real.

Coordinated moves by the three countries are linked by a quirk of fate in a post-Cold War bond. The rogue measures are not going unchallenged. A groundswell of protests primarily by students and unemployed youth is spreading across India against what reports have identified as the plundering of democracy in the country.

New York’s Zohran Mamdani, Israel’s filmmakers and India’s Cockroach Janta Party are leading the pushback. The Indian protesters are directly accusing Modi’s handpicked three-member election commission of effectively changing poll verdicts, most recently in Bihar and West Bengal, by manipulating electoral rolls and surrendering the election commission’s neutral platform to the ruling party. The subversion is part of a global fraying of the lipstick on the pig, the ideological sleight of hand that was used to paint bourgeois democracies as enticing options against communist hardships. The moment the Soviet Union collapsed, however, the West’s definition of democracy itself took on a new life. It would henceforth be ‘free-market democracy’. Now that veneer, too, has blown away to herald raw plunder, assassinations, kidnappings and what leftist analysts have called ‘AI feudalism’.

As the lipstick fades, big-power global rivalries deepen with unabashed candour. The West sought to keep up the pretence of supporting democracy, even though the fangs were out against elected and independent-minded leaders — for instance, in Iran in 1953 or Chile in 1973. Drooling at the promise of the American century, a clutch of former allies of the USSR were reduced to rubble. Yevgeny Primakov was the head of the KGB’s foreign intelligence unit when the USSR collapsed. He became Russia’s foreign minister and subsequently rose to become prime minister. Primakov moved to staunch the Russian haemorrhage caused by the chasm between Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. The Russia-India-China (RIC) grouping was his brainchild, but he was already late since the US-Israel-India group was installed more swiftly. For Indian ideologues, who were regarded as Western catspaws during the Cold War, the alignment with Israel under the false pretence of democratic camaraderie was a windfall. The BJP gained most from the turn of events, though the Congress had its own pro-West ideologues licking their chops.

As the lipstick fades, big-power global rivalries deepen with unabashed candour.

As capitalism struggled to breathe sans the Red Terror as its ruse, the fangs could barely be hidden. During the Cold War (roughly 1945-1991), capitalist democracies — particularly in Western Europe and North America — faced a powerful ideological rival in global communism. To prove that capitalism was the superior system for the working class, many Western nations built robust welfare states. They invested heavily in public healthcare and education, strong labour unions and worker protections, high progressive taxation to fund social safety nets, and affordable housing and infrastructure. Most analysts have concluded that the systemic threat of communism acted as a ‘regulatory check’ on raw capitalism, forcing it to present a more compassionate, egalitarian face to prevent domestic socialist revolutions. Once the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, critics and economists argue, this pressure disappeared. With no competing global model, a more aggressive, unregulated version of capitalism led by neoliberalism gained dominant global traction.

Whether it involves winning elections by waging brutal wars or carrying out genocide, or stripping voters of their rights, the trigger is capitalism’s inability to leave its fate to the voting masses. While democracy promises power to the many, its mechanisms can be co-opted by the few to maintain control. Some regimes maintain the outward appearance of democracy — such as holding regular elections — while systematically eroding democratic institutions from within. This dynamic is often referred to as a ‘hybrid regime’ or ‘competitive authoritarianism’.

Ruling elites use legal frameworks, regulatory bodies, and gerrymandering to tilt the playing field in their favour, making it incredibly difficult for opposition forces to compete fairly. It’s evident in India, as in the US or Israel — the post-Cold War ‘democratic allies’ — that campaign financing, lobbying, and the influence of wealthy donors mean that policy decisions really reflect the interests of economic elites rather than those of the average voter. All three countries have used religion to manufacture consent. This is beginning to create a disconnect in which citizens feel their vote carries no real weight in policy outcomes.

The Jantar Mantar protests in Delhi are a clear aspect of this churning. The protesters are well aware that elites consolidate control over media landscapes or leverage algorithms and disinformation to shape public perception. By controlling the narrative, they can manufacture consent or distract the public from systemic issues. Donald Trump’s threat from the UN platform to murder 91 million Iranians, and the Indian election commission’s removal of 130m names from electoral rolls in the last nine months, are shared responses to their fraying economies’ growing need to dump democratic pretence all over again.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2026

Our rulers entice patron states to bankroll a near-bankrupt state via its geopolitical, not economic, value. Rulers exploit both for personal, not public, gains. They court patrons well, but turn patronage into public progress poorly and personal profits ably. So, our growth spurts are all import-led rather than export-led. We spend dollars faster than we earn and court crises. We recover by choking growth instead of increasing it alongside exports. We have had several chances but have squandered most of them.

Musharraf squandered the biggest one this century. He ruled the longest, with the deep state and opposition under his thumb, and gained over $45bn in US aid, debt relief, FDI, and portfolio inflows after 9/11. Yet, a strong export base eluded him. Inflows fuelled consumption, imports, and property binges and bubbles; volatile portfolio funds and domestically focused FDI later led to outflows. They initially kept the rupee high, hurting exports. Their value doubled, but value-added dawdled and the export-GDP ratio fell below 1990s levels. A record current account deficit of 8.2 per cent of GDP in 2008 led to a big crisis. Bad security policies fuelled two conflicts that still hurt progress. The PPP cut the deficit. But energy woes, insecurity, ineptitude and failed reforms reduced growth.

Later, CPEC provided over $20 billion for energy and roads. This eased energy gaps, but the PML-N failed to build a durable export base. An expensive rupee led to an import surge and a current account deficit of about 6pc by 2018. The PTI had brought it down to 0.6pc by 2021 and managed the Covid phase well. But the Covid stimulus raised imports as exports lagged. The deficit rose to 4.6pc in 2022, partly due to global price shocks and political turmoil. So, the PML-N bequeathed a crisis to the PTI only to inherit one back, karma-style.

We spend dollars faster than we earn and court crises.

Import-led growth led to dollar crunches. Instead of curbing crises, high reserves made them more likely as rulers increased imports to fuel growth. Their frequency and common causes could have taught the current rulers how to avert such crises. But they are as clueless about them as they are about regular floods, even though such crises can be foreseen and forestalled. This is worse than incompetence; it shows wilful neglect. They cause and gain from such crises. The people are worse off now.

As CPEC flows shrank, we courted IMF loans and state deposits, which ballooned from 36pc of the State Bank’s reserves in 2016, when deposits were only $700 million, to nearly 600pc in early 2023. About $11bn in IMF debt, $8bn in Saudi deposits and $4bn in Chinese deposits together still exceed even our highest-ever SBP reserves of $21bn. We are the most persistent user of both crutches over time, and we now have the second-most such deposits and the third-most IMF debt globally. They are on top of an external debt of over $80bn. Unlike that debt, they don’t fund projects or jobs directly, earn no direct revenue to pay the interest and are taken only due to a dollar crunch. Even these crutches may not carry the weight of our follies, so we now eye a $10bn lifeline from our oldest but most fickle patron — the US. Bangladesh, once our lesser half, has no such deposits, and its IMF debt is only 13pc of reserves as its $48bn exports mock our $30bn levels.

Such crutches hurt. The PML-N and PTI both ignited growth spurts as reserves peaked. Despite hi­­g­her SBP reserves now, this set-up hasn’t cha­nged outcomes, given the nature of its rese­rve cushion. The IMF keeps us on a leash, and patron-state de­­posits can be recalled quickly (as in the UAE case), unlike flows with longer, fi­_xed return dates. So, even patronage quality has fallen: from post-9/11 aid and debt relief to CPEC flows to harsh loans and fickle deposits. We now build reserves precariously rather than finance them prudently or earn them creatively.

After four years, this set-up boasts only stabilisation and opaque foreign forays. But as a strong export base and growth elude it, stabilisation is really stagnation. Foreign forays are sucking us into endless wars, jeopardising our own security for the sake of others. We face two risky paths: hobble on with slow growth and risk unrest, or rush recklessly into import-led growth to court a dollar crisis and unrest. With no major investments here even from the patrons it serves loyally, only the two crutches prop up a bailout state. How long will its weak life jackets keep it afloat?

The writer has a PhD in political economy from the University of California, Berkeley, and 25 years of grassroots-to-senior-level experience across 50 countries.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

X: @NiazMurtaza2

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2026

At home, a social media meme keeps resurfacing, even as the man who gave it new currency keeps being discredited: “koi sharm hoti hai, koi haya hoti hai” (“there’s something called shame and decency”).

The lack of both in not just the political class but also in many quarters that wield power and their camp followers is not only harming democracy, it is also undermining the concept of accountability, which has to be at the core of all human endeavours and systems, especially those that pretend to be representative.

A social contract, whether formalised in a constitution or codified in tradition, will be stymied if it relies solely on formal legal checks and balances, because a bit of ‘shame and decency’ will not only curb harmful actions, it will also save millions in litigation and prevent millions from losing trust in the system. Official vehicles and residences for state functionaries have long been the subject of civil service reform studies and will continue to be, as extensions and consultancies are provided to retired officials so that they can retain vehicles and refuse to vacate residences they have proposed monetising. The discussion has been elevated to include planes for public office holders.

The absence of shame is hurting the world.

Both the optics and economics of maintaining and operating aircraft at state expense for public officials in debt-burdened countries are problematic. One argument calls for a fuller account of the impact of the time saved. The security angle is even more irksome, as those endangering security are, or have been, state-sponsored at some point.

The air around the topic grows more turbulent when these aircraft are (mis)used for private travel. The respective courtiers’ justifications keep absurdity levels high. In the recent case involving Punjab chief executive Maryam Nawaz, she was first heard telling critics off, asserting that no activity by a chief minister is purely personal, thus implying that important provincial business was conducted alongside her daughter’s graduation ceremony in London. Then her spokespersons announced that she had paid for the trip out of her own pocket. How about the aircraft’s depreciation, since these aircraft come with flight-hour limits?

The most vocal critics of the chief minister’s flight of fancy are from the PTI — the same people who went blue in the face explaining that Imran Khan’s helicopter jaunts between Prime Minister House and Banigala were cheaper than a taxi ride. But expecting shame and decency from someone who thinks women should be discouraged from riding bikes because he believes they are “horrible drivers” is like asking a jellyfish to show spine. People who gifted back hundreds of millions of repatriated pounds in a UK money-laundering case to a criminal have the temerity to ask “koi sharm hoti hai…”

‘Honour’ is another word that needs careful handling. In the hands of ruffians, when it is confined to the female body, it becomes a tool for ‘ho­­nour’ killings. When practised by societies that encourage dece­n­­cy, a sense of honour calls on people in positions of power and responsibility to beg forgiveness and/ or resign from office. In certain cultures, officials who lose face take the extreme step.

The world is regressing. One hopes it’s a phase that will pass. At the UN, we have heard of antics such as tearing up speeches, aiming shoes at the rostrum, and marathon addresses. But for the chiefs of the ‘shameless brigade’ to threaten the annihilation of a 91-million-strong ‘Islamic Republic’ and to gloat over a prototype gadget used in targeted killings reflects not only on these individuals but also on the systems that elevate them to positions of power and on their beneficiaries. The absence of shame is hurting the world, indeed.

Meanwhile, back home, tax evaders, money launderers, rent-seekers, and shady characters continue their pilgrimages. The poet had lamented: “Kaaba kis munh say jao gey Ghalib/ sharm tum ko magar nahin aati” (“What face will you show in Kaaba/ but you’re shameless”). Those feeling left out should find solace in a translated Sindhi proverb: “kings are those unburdened by shame.”

The writer is a poet. His latest publication is a collection of satire essays titled Rindana.

shahzadsharjeel1@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2026

On Sunday, a day after he had announced putting off the opposition’s planned protest march to Islamabad, Chief Minister Sohail Afridi visited Dera Ismail Khan to check in with those wounded in a deadly gun-and-bomb attack in Darazinda over the weekend.

The attack targeted a police and customs check-post and killed at least 12; militants then fired on an ambulance carrying the victims, killing two rescue workers. Accompanied by his predecessor, Ali Amin Khan Gandapur, he asked for his province’s input to be incorporated into the national counterterrorism policy, so it could “reflect the ground realities”. “Peace cannot be established without taking the people of KP into confidence,” he said. Mr Afridi complained about the non-provision of modern weapons and equipment from the centre despite payments being made.

Unfortunately, he could not steer clear of politics and accused “some elements” in the federal government of polarising the country, while daring them to make good on the threat to impose governor’s rule in KP. Federal ministers responded on Monday, slamming the PTI government for “failing to provide leadership, resources or power” to the security forces. “If Pakistan is burning in the fire of terrorism, it is because of KP’s incompetent leadership,” the minister of state for interior remarked, sitting alongside the information minister. The state minister also accused the provincial government of having “a soft attitude” on Afghanistan. The information minister, meanwhile, branded the PTI the ‘B team’ of the banned TTP. “You will now have to decide if you are with Pakistan or with Afghanistan,” he added.

This is extremely poor leadership and statesmanship from top-level leaders at a time when national unity is needed. Pakistan’s fight against violent extremism long predates the current crisis, and it is deeply unfortunate and disingenuous to cast it as a problem created solely by a single political party. That said, the KP government must demonstrate far greater responsibility in meeting the governance challenges it faces. The chief minister cannot lead a political movement at a time when citizens are dying on an almost daily basis. There is an urgent need to tone down the rhetoric and tackle terrorism as a collective challenge for both the affected provinces and the federation.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2026

This means connecting what is seen from space with what scientists find on the ground. When satellite images show a lake expanding rapidly, it should lead to closer field checks involving Suparco, Wapda, universities, meteorological experts and the provincial disaster authorities. Their findings should be brought together in one system showing which lakes are growing, which natural barriers may be weakening, and which villages, roads or other infrastructure lie downstream. Experts have warned that agencies often work separately and that important information about glaciers and local conditions remains missing. With more than 13,000 glaciers, Pakistan cannot study each one in equal detail. Nor does it need to. Satellite monitoring can help identify the lakes that deserve the closest attention, allowing limited scientific resources to be used where the danger is greatest. The jump from 40 to 105 unfrozen lakes should, therefore, be seen as more than another warning about climate change. It is also a test of whether Pakistan can turn the information it already has into practical knowledge — and use that knowledge before a dangerous lake becomes a disaster.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2026

The international community’s disgust with Israel’s anti-Palestinian pogroms and its regional warmongering was on display last week when Mr Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly. As he took the rostrum, most of the delegations headed for the exit. Those who left, including Pakistan, mostly represented the Global South, although some European states also joined the boycott. Expectedly, the US, Israel’s European friends, as well as India and the UAE, among a few others, stayed to watch Mr Netanyahu’s macabre act. The global majority — common citizens as well as governments — have had enough of Zionist butchery and land theft. The need is to transform this solidarity into action. Israeli leaders have announced what they intend to do in the West Bank; it will be an unforgivable crime if the comity of nations allows Tel Aviv to repeat the genocidal violence it carried out in Gaza in the West Bank. Moreover, the world must stand firm that Israeli occupation of Arab land will never be accepted. Unless Israel stops this reprehensible behaviour, the global majority must end all interaction with it.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2026

The underlying principle should remain clear: indiscriminate culling is neither a humane nor a durable answer to the canine crisis. Killing large numbers of dogs may temporarily reduce their visibility, but it does little to address the conditions that allow stray populations to recover. A sustained trap-neuter-vaccinate-release programme, backed by proper monitoring, offers a more rational path. Humane euthanasia of dogs showing clinical signs of rabies is consistent with WHO guidance; indiscriminate culling of healthy strays is not. At the same time, citizens bitten by rabid dogs must have immediate access to vaccines, proper wound care and other anti-rabies treatment. Municipal authorities must also tackle the heaps of exposed refuse that provide stray animals with a ready food source. A competent administration should be capable of protecting both public safety and animal welfare, by reducing the dog population humanely, preventing rabies transmission and ensuring that no bite victim is left scrambling for life-saving treatment when needed.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

The government appears to be expanding the hardware much faster than it is developing the institutional capacity to turn data into intelligence. This is where the project needs greater attention. Punjab is generating an enormous stream of potentially valuable data from cameras, emergency calls, traffic systems, police records and other digital platforms. However, there is little public evidence that this information is being systematically combined and analysed to understand the causes, patterns and geography of crime. The reported 70pc reduction in serious crime is encouraging, but such claims need independent verification. A fall in reported incidents in areas covered by cameras is not, by itself, proof that surveillance caused the decline. The larger opportunity lies in using the network as a public safety intelligence system rather than treating it primarily as a surveillance project. Data should be integrated with police investigation, prosecution and court outcomes. This could help explain why cases fail, where investigations break down and which policing interventions work. There is another requirement: safeguards. As surveillance expands into union councils and public spaces, rules governing access, retention, sharing and use of personal data become essential. Facial recognition and other AI tools should not become a licence for indiscriminate monitoring. Access to sensitive data must be logged and audited, with penalties for misuse. The technology can improve policing, but only if the authorities develop the analytical capacity, accountability and institutional discipline needed to extract its full value.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

The challenge is no longer simply access to information, but knowing what deserves belief. This year’s message, ‘Choose trusted journalism’, is therefore particularly apt. Yet trust cannot be demanded by news organisations as a birthright. It must be earned through the daily, often invisible work of checking claims, verifying evidence, consulting multiple sources, separating fact from opinion and correcting mistakes openly. In a media environment that rewards speed, outrage and certainty, such principles may appear old-fashioned. They are, in fact, journalism’s strongest defence. They also remain essential because false information can inflame tensions and erode confidence in institutions.

Newsrooms must look inward. Every sensational headline, careless error or blurring of reporting and commentary weakens public confidence and makes serious journalism harder to distinguish from the flood of material surrounding it. But responsibility does not rest with journalists alone. In Pakistan, the work of verification is made more difficult by pressures on reporters and news organisations, restricted access, interruptions to communications and the use of legal and administrative measures that inhibit independent reporting. When journalists cannot investigate freely, citizens know less about the exercise of power. When communications are blocked during moments of crisis or political tension, rumour gains ground. This is why press freedom and public access to credible information are inseparable. A society cannot demand trustworthy journalism while simultaneously making the practice of it more precarious.

That is why World News Day should be less a celebration of the press than a reminder of mutual obligations. Journalists owe the public accuracy, fairness, independence and the humility to correct themselves. Governments owe journalists the freedom to ask difficult questions, pursue uncomfortable facts and publish without intimidation. Readers, too, must learn to recognise the difference between reporting built on evidence and content engineered for reaction. News organisations can help by being more transparent about how stories are sourced, verified and corrected, and by resisting pressures that reward sensationalism over substance. The problem of misinformation will not be solved by adding yet more information to an already crowded stream. What matters is whether information has been questioned, corroborated and placed in context. In an age when technology can create convincing falsehoods in seconds, scrutiny is not an optional extra. It is the value journalism must continue to provide — and the reason it must continue to be protected.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

It was helpful, then, to see more nuanced positions emerging from New York Climate Week, which unfolded at the same time as the UNGA. Here too, climate and AI were at the top of the agenda, but with less zero-sum messaging.

Undoubtedly, AI’s environmental impact is significant, and arguably unconscionable, given the scale of the climate crisis, and the failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Data centres that power AI use land, already scarce water supplies, and immense amounts of energy, still largely derived from fossil fuels. By 2030, 40 per cent of electricity used by data centres will be for AI workloads — that equates to the residential electricity needs of all of sub-Saharan Africa (1.3 billion people), according to a 2025 study by Gartner, a technology insight company. Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that the AI load on data centres will increase global power sector emissions by 10pc over the coming decade. This is on top of emissions associated with other computing linked to cloud storage, video-streaming and the growing use of cryptocurrencies.

The AI debate is heating up just as scientists are confirming that this year marks the tipping point beyond which restricting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels is unachievable. The more evident the scale of the climate crisis becomes, the more perverse it seems to double down on a technological advance that has an insatiable appetite for electricity (fossil fuels) and water.

But AI is here to stay, and plans to colonise Mars are still nascent. And so at New York Climate Week, more attention was paid to mounting claims that AI can help tackle the climate crisis. Examples of this include the use of AI for more intelligent load management for renewable energy; using AI to track pollution more effectively by pulling together disparate data sources from weather stations, satellites and private monitors; and better modelling of climate change impacts for adaptation and mitigation. There was also recognition that in a US that at the federal level is rolling back on climate commitments, American Big Tech companies are playing an important role funding renewable energy projects through multimillion-dollar contracts.

The climate aspect should be a core focus of AI regulation.

But this more balanced AI-fights-climate change story should not enable greenwashing by Big Tech. While there are hopes that data centres will increasingly be powered by renewable sources, the overall effect of bringing coal- or gas-fuelled power plants online now to sate immediate energy needs is hugely damaging. It stymies efforts that have been underway to retire fossil fuel-based power generation.

In a recent paper, Ketan Joshi, a clean energy and corporate accountability researcher, highlighted that many claims of AI’s climate impact link back to case studies being published by Big Tech and other corporates that are deeply conflicted, rather than independent acade­m­ic res­earch. Joshi’s paper also points out that the AI that can be used to benefit the climate is ‘traditional’ mach­ine-learning whi­ch has a much lower environmental im­­pact than consumer-generative AI tools, such as Copilot, Gemini or ChatGPT, that are more resou­­rce-

intensive.

With this awareness comes the pressure on AI consumers to make more ethical choices about when and how they use AI. Since generative AI has a greater environmental cost, users should be more informed about when they genuinely need the extra computational power (stick to Google for the recipes; images and video are more wasteful than text; don’t automatically opt in for the AI search option).

But it’s unfair to put the onus on end users. The climate aspect should be a core focus of current AI regulation and sovereignty debates. As with political discourse in recent years, it’s important that these issues not be hijacked by zero-sum thinking, knee-jerk polarisation and absolutism. The dire warnings punctuated by glimpses of hope in New York last week are a reminder that the only way forward — on the climate, AI and much else — is on the basis of empirical evidence, nuance, transparency and accountability.

The writer is a political and integrity risk analyst.

X: @humayusuf

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

Humanitarian organisations recognise this: they depend on local media to reach affected populations in ways that few other actors can replicate. And yet, these are precisely the media organisations least likely to survive without sustained, long-term external support.

Committed media support networks, such as the Global Forum for Media Development and IFPIM, are working hard to convince policymakers and donors of the evidence that without a robust media and information infrastructure, there is no resilient society.

Operating in fragile and conflict-affected settings means constantly navigating insecurity, mis- and disinformation, displacement, political harassment and economic precarity. Fondation Hirondelle, a media development actor with more than 30 years of experience in such contexts, knows the difficulty of creating and sustaining public-interest media despite all odds.

Short-term, project-based funding — still the dominant model — does not build resilient newsrooms. It builds precarious ones. It forces editorial teams to chase grant cycles rather than serve audiences. It rewards visibility over depth, and activity over long-term impact.

Independent news media need more than short-term funding.

On this 2026 World News Day, we are reminded of the importance of showing what goes into journalism that matters. This is backed up by evidence and academic research such as the global call from leading economistsurging action to protect public interest media for economic prosperity and human progress.

Recognising the value of independent journalism, however, also means asking what allows it to continue.

If we are serious about independent journalism as a pillar of democracy and stability, we need funding frameworks that reflect that commitment.

This question is particularly urgent today. International funding for media and development is under increasing pressure, while the need for reliable, independent information is growing. At the same time, major donors are making decisions that will shape their priorities for years to come.

The European Union’s negotiations over its next Multiannual Financial Framework are one important example. The decisions now taking shape will define EU external action from 2028 onwards. At the heart of that framework is the Global Europe instrument, through which the EU supports democracy, human rights, resilience, development and humanitarian action in partner countries.

The choices made about the ways these resources are allocated will have direct consequences for the already limited share of international assistance that supports public interest media — including in fragile and conflict-affected contexts where that support is most needed.

Without explicit recognition of independent journalism as critical democratic infrastructure, and without flexible, long-term funding mechanisms to match, there is a risk of replicating the same structural failures that have left public interest media consistently underfunded.

This is not simply a question of protecting media organisations. When an in­­dependent news­­-room disappears, communities lose more than a source of news. They lose access to verified in­­formation, a spa­ce for public debate and, often, a channel through which their concerns can reach decision-makers.

This is why funding for independent media should not be treated as an optional addition to democracy, development or humanitarian programmes. Reliable information is part of the infrastructure that allows these efforts to succeed.

2026 World News Day is an opportunity to demonstrate what journalism contributes to societies around the world — particularly in places where producing reliable information is difficult, dangerous and economically fragile.

Journalists and media organisations will continue to do this work because they believe in its value. But commitment alone cannot sustain independent journalism. If we want public interest media to remain present when communities need them most, they need predictable, flexible and long-term support.

The writer is director-general of Fondation Hirondelle. This opinion piece was commissioned as part of World News Day, a worldwide campaign highlighting the essential role of journalism in providing facts and clarity.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

The first concern, around broad-based risks, has gained quite a bit of attention with a spate of resignations from top AI companies, with departing individuals claiming that AI poses a serious risk to society and carries a non-zero chance of triggering human extinction.

What is the pathway of such a catastrophe? The most common position at this point is that, in the absence of clear ethical guardrails, AI tools can be used to create biological weapons of the sort that could trigger large-scale human loss. Others think that, in the wrong/rival hands, AI could be used to trigger weapons of mass destruction.

These fears appear to be fairly fantastical, and the timing with which they’re being made public — just when the frontier models are poised for initial public offerings — suggests they’re part of a Silicon Valley hype cycle.

However, if these claims about capabilities and the risks they could carry are even remotely true, they pose a much simpler question. If a technology is truly this capable, then what is it even doing in private hands? Historian and economic commentator, Adam Tooze, made an insightful analogy that if we take the claims of societal risk at face value, we’re essentially developing a technology that is similar to the nuclear bomb in the type of catastrophe it can pose, and that too at a much greater scale.

The impact of AI on labour markets is something that many workers will face in a variety of ways in the coming years.

But the key difference is that the development of the bomb took place through the Manhattan Project, which was entirely governed and steered by the state, with private enterprise playing a junior and often strictly compartmentalised role. AI, on the other hand, is being developed by private enterprise, with private investment steering its priorities, and commercial viability shaping the discourse around it. At any other point in human history, has anything posing purported risks of this nature been allowed to emerge via a process of borderline anarchic market-led competition?

The logical corollary of this parallel is that anything that poses large-scale existential risk is too important to be left in private hands. Public regulation determining its development, use, sale/purchase, and evolution becomes a necessity. And that this regulation cannot emerge from the ind­us­­try itself, which is subsumed under intense com­peti­tion and has a vested interest in skirting around various legalities, but rather from the state.

Beyond pushback against the fearmongering, there is also some scepticism around AI’s potential to generate astronomic growth in capitalist societies. In particular, Ben Moll and Alex Imas argue in a recent Substack piece that predictions of double-digit AI-driven growth, the kind floated by Dario Amodei, Leopold Aschenbrenner, and various technologists, are unlikely to materialise within the next decade or so, even though making a textbook case for it is relatively simple.

Moll and Imas argue that explosive growth is easy to generate in a standard textbook growth model. If automation steadily raises the share of tasks that machines can perform, diminishing returns to capital weaken and eventually disappear once machines can do everything.

The core of their position, however, argues that this outcome depends on several assumptions that are unlikely to hold in practice. Automation would need to spread across the whole economy very quickly, not just in cognitive or remote tasks but across physical, messy, and relational work that resists mechanisation. Spending patterns would need to stay proportional even as automated goods become cheap, rather than shifting towards whatever remains scarce, which is the usual pattern of structural change.

But a central facet, which these authors don’t give much attention to but others have honed in on, is that in a society where the cost of production approaches zero, there would need to be enough demand to absorb all that cheap, expanded output. Where would such demand come from once automation shifts jobs and income away from wor­kers who spend a large share of what they earn?

This brings us back to perhaps the key issue of AI capability that has been drowned out by fears of biological weapons and global catastrophe. The technology’s impact on labour markets is something that many workers will face in a variety of ways in the coming years. It’s not just about a machine replacing a human, though that is the most commonly held view. It’s also about how the threat of a machine replacing humans changes working conditions and the kind of income one can expect to receive.

The history of technology adoption in labour processes is often told in large sweeps of history. Technologists tend to use common examples, such as how the arrival of machines after the late 19th century unlocked rapid growth and raised prosperity or how the creation of the ATM didn’t lead to a mass exodus of banking sector jobs. The implication is that society adapts and the outcome is usually positive.

What this cheerful story misses out is that adaptation processes produce winners and losers, with the latter taking years to adjust. In a world already characterised by the deskilling of labour, people rendered jobless by a machine (or the threat of a machine) won’t suddenly find alternative employment. Those two or three decades in which the labour market sorts itself out will seem minuscule in a broad sweep of history, but for those living through this period, it will be a particularly bleak eternity.

The writer teaches sociology at Lums.

X: @umairjav

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

A provocative new book joins this debate. In Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings: (When) do Leaders Make a Difference Jared Diamondexamines whether individual leadersalter the course of their societies. The study marks a break from the American author’s earlier books which earned the Pulitzer Prize winner much fame. But his bestselling 1997 book Guns, Germs, and Steel and other works also attracted criticism for geographic determinism and playing down human agency. His latest book reverses the lens. Across politics, business and sports, it examines whether individual leaders play a decisive role in shaping the world around them, and under what conditions if they do. He considers how the interplay between an exceptional individual and historical circumstances determines success or failure.

At the book’s outset, Diamond narrates the incident of March 1930 when Adolf Hitler’s car was hit by a huge trailer truck in which he survived. Three years later, Hitler became chancellor of Germany and unleashed the Holocaust and World War II, in which millions of people were killed. He asks whether these horrific events would have happened if Hitler had died in the car crash. Some will argue things would have turned out differently. Others would point to the humiliation inflicted on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, by the hyperinflation it suffered and the fact that antisemitism was deeply embedded in the country well before Hitler’s rise. That makes it hard to decide whether Hitler made a difference. This, Diamond says, exemplifies the question of whether leaders determine outcomes, for better or for worse.

The role individuals play in shaping history has always been a contested issue in an age-old debate.

He mentions three competing schools of thought in this debate. One sees exceptional and heroic leaders determining history. The opposite view is that leaders are constrained by circumstances and have little influence on events. An in-between view holds that individual leaders sometimes do and sometimes don’t make a difference. His book takes a middle ground in this debate. For the author, the key question is under what conditions can leaders make a difference.

In his discussion of leaders’ impact on history, Diamond sets what he calls the Hamlet test. This refers to whether any contemporary person had comparable qualities to achieve a similar outcome as the individual being assessed. In Shakespeare’s case, his unique talent meant no other Elizabethan could have written Hamlet if Shakespeare hadn’t done so. He cites the example of independent Botswana’s first president as a political figure who passes the Hamlet test. Seretse Khama’s policies made his country well-governed and not consumed by civil wars or diamond revenues being wasted on ostentatious projects. Although he leveraged Botswana’s inherent advantages and his position as a tribal leader, his contributions to his country would not have happened under another founding president. No other figure had comparable skills. He was an effective leader at a particular place and time, and therefore made a difference.

Leaders however gifted, Diamond says, can be effective only in certain circumstances. For example, Genghis Khan, who established the largest land empire in history, had exceptional qualities but was lucky enough to be born “at the start of the wettest decade in the last 2,000 years on the steppes of Central Asia”. In other words, a military and administrative genius was helped crucially by climatic factors which had favourable economic, social and demographic consequences. Therefore, much turns on enabling conditions.

Diamond draws up a list of 22 modern leaders — familiar names — and asserts that historical figures may be forces for either good or bad. Some leaders led their countries to independence and left lasting legacies. Others established dictatorships and systems that did not outlive them. Some leaders had enough power to execute their policies and make an impact. Being at the right place and at the right time, their context aided them to make a difference.

One conclusion he draws is that those who made a difference rarely left office voluntarily — the two notable exceptions being Nelson Mandela and Lee Kuan Yew. He regards education as an important variable in a leader’s effectiveness. He cites the cases of Lee Kuan Yew and South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki, trained in economics, whose countries’ economies grew spectacularly under their leadership. His account of leaders who contributed positively — and negatively — to national economic growth is particularly insightful.

In discussing business leaders, Diamond notes that many famous names notably Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are credited with changing the world. But were they uniquely qualified to accomplish what they did? He concludes that none of them pass the Hamlet test. They are important and successful risk-takers in modern business but they were all replaceable. If Bezos hadn’t built an online ‘everything store’, someone else would have, as its time had come thanks to the explosion of the internet. These business leaders made a difference but not the kind that shapes a society’s trajectory.

Diamond concludes that context, timing and a leader’s abilities determine impactful leadership. Some situations offer an opportunity for leaders to make impactful decisions while other situations severely constrain a leader. “A leader’s lowest potential for impact is under circumstances making it improbable that a single person could have changed the outcome,” he writes.

There is much in the book to criticise. In places, Diamond’s what-if counterfactuals confuse rather than clarify. His “natural experiment” methodology of comparing similar societies or business firms facing similar crises but led by different individuals, in order to isolate the leader’s impact, also raises questions. History rarely provides comparable cases. Although he acknowledges the importance of charisma, he says too little about the distinctive qualities that leaders need to be effective. Still, it is an engaging book that makes an important contribution to a debate that will undoubtedly continue for years to come.

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

Islamabad is not witnessing a siege-like situation for the first time; it has become part of life for the inhabitants of the twin cities. Even a cricket match or a visiting dignitary can bring life to a standstill. Despite huge investments in infrastructure and expensive surveillance systems, the security providers remain nervous. They have turned the federal capital into a city of checkpoints, where the average citizen must pass through long queues every 10 minutes during his daily commute — with police officers regarding him with suspicious eyes. Citizens end up feeling that they themselves are responsible for all the country’s ills, while those who have actually encroached on green belts, footpaths, and even highways escape punishment for crimes they do not even understand. The crisis runs deep, and even the postponement of the protest by the PTI, and earlier by the Jamaat-i-Islami, will not solve the country’s political, governance, economic, and security crisis.

These lines may seem cynical, but the streets of the federal capital tell Pakistan’s whole story. The ‘container-ment’ approach shows serious fractures among the power elites over the division of power, which has not been shared proportionately and has, in fact, caused a chronic political crisis and led to a rent-seeking economy. Rent-seeking means economic actors become adept at obtaining privileged access to the state or controlling scarce resources.

The masses are not responsible for the country’s state of affairs; it is fractured power elites who have yet to learn the art of distributing power among themselves. Here, another term needs explaining. The ‘fractured elite’ comprises Pakistan’s dominant political, civil-military, judicial, and institutional elite — sometimes referred to as the establishment — when it no longer agrees on the basic rules of the political game. The elite includes religious and ideological authorities, but in an evolving power order, their role and share have been minimised for now. Major businesses and landed interests have become important actors within the fractured power order.

Serious fractures exist among the elites over the division of power.

A question arises: what does an elite power accord look like? Is it about who will have the political power to govern, and under what conditions? Another question emerges: aside from political power, who holds the real power, also referred to as institutional power? Does this authority belong to parliament, the executive, the military, the judiciary, or the bureaucracy? Institutional power brings control over major economic resources and rents, as well as coercive or security institutions. It also has territorial power to determine how the interests of the centre and the provinces are accommodated. Among the elites, succession remains a key question: how will power change hands? A linked challenge arises. How are influential groups accommodated? Foreign policy remains the exclusive domain of the power elites — what strategic interests are considered non-negotiable?

Now look at the Pakistani elites, which have failed to define the role of political power. Gradually, an institution has assumed authority, while the ruling political parties have surrendered several rights to retain power. The opposition, meanwhile, is demanding its legitimate rights. Many political analysts arguably contend that the opposition, now led by the PTI, along with smaller parties within the opposition alliance, the Tehreek-i-Tahaffuz-i-Ayeen-i-Pakistan, is struggling for power rather than restoring or developing a new social contract in the country. Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s JUI-F is also part of the opposition. It has been marginalised in the power structure because the changing rules in the power playbook leave less space for religious actors now.

The political power structure has clearly failed to advance nationhood, and power remains confined to one major influential ethnic group in the country. Those who represent the power structure in the public discourse and the social and mainstream media malign less powerful and marginalised groups, suggesting they go to Afghanistan — their remarks target both the Pakhtuns and the Baloch. They stigmatise the Kashmiris as well, who have been demanding their rights in Azad Kashmir. If state propagandists are suggesting a course of action for them, where are they supposed to go?

Fractured power elites cannot create cohesion within a nation. They cannot resolve their internal discord, so how can they devise a broad formula for national cohesion? In their paranoid view, security has taken over dialogue, and they have grown accustomed to killing an ant with a hammer. Even when clear indications show dialogue is the best policy, power elites know it would mean accommodating new members in the power club and remain hesitant to admit newcomers.

A lack of flexibility or capacity for dialogue creates a need for a hyper-coercive internal security order. An internal security review is underway to make it more coercive. KP has resisted somewhat by introducing the Police Act, 2026, which will bring provincial government oversight over the system, as was required in the KP context, where discord between the police and other institutions has become challenging. But the federal government is resisting it. It seems the power elites will not compromise on the new internal security order and will continue to push their agenda through Nacta or the interior ministry. Foreign policy and geopolitics are sensitive domains for public discourse in the country. The parameters of non-negotiable interests continue to blur and narrow.

For the masses, the crisis in the country is no more than a long, tragic soap opera on screen, which they can watch, cry over, and laugh at, but cannot act on.

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2026

Vessels deemed to breach the blockade faced attack wherever they entered the Houthis’ operational reach. Attacks on Saudi tankers and energy infrastructure were followed by traffic through Bab al-Mandeb falling to its lowest level in months. By September, Houthi forces had seized strategic islands around Bab al-Mandeb and gained control of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, increasing their capacity to threaten, disrupt and potentially control maritime traffic through the strait.

The conventional legal position is that naval blockade is a belligerent right associated with international armed conflict (IAC), mainly because it permits interference with neutral commercial shipping. As per this view, a non-state armed group engaged solely in a non-international armed conflict does not ordinarily have the authority to impose a blockade that is binding on neutral vessels. However, customary international law does not conclusively foreclose blockade in a sufficiently intense NIAC, particularly where an organised armed group exercises extensive territorial and governmental control and can enforce maritime restrictions.

This question is particularly significant in Yemen, where there is a strong argument that the Houthis function as a de facto governmental authority rather than merely an insurgent movement. They have long controlled Sana’a, govern territory containing a substantial population, and have expanded along the Red Sea coast and around Bab al-Mandeb. Crucially, under the ICRC approach, effective governmental control, rather than global recognition alone, is central to determining de facto governmental authority. If the Houthis are treated as exercising Yemen’s governmental authority, their external hostilities may be characterised as those of Yemen itself, strengthening the argument that the relevant conflicts are international and that traditional belligerent rights, including blockade, are potentially available.

Even if this characterisation is rejected, other factors point towards possible internationalisation. Saudi Arabia is directly engaged alongside the internationally recognised Yemeni authorities against the Houthis, while the latter have repeatedly attacked Saudi territory. Saudi intervention by invitation does not, by itself, transform the underlying conflict into an IAC, but it adds an international dimension. Israel provides a separate route: it has used force on Yemeni territory in response to Houthi attacks, and under the ICRC’s view, the unconsented use of force by one state against another state’s territory may itself create an IAC between them, even where the immediate target is a non-state armed group. Israeli strikes on Houthi-held territory could therefore support a parallel Israel-Yemen IAC.

Do the Houthis, as a non-state armed group, have the legal authority to enforce a naval blockade?

Iranian involvement provides another possible route to internationalisation. Arms, financing and political support alone are insufficient. Under the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’s “overall control” test in Tadić, however, the threshold may be met where a state, beyond financing, training or equipping an organised armed group, also participates in planning its military activities; specific instructions for each operation are unnecessary. The ICJ’s stricter “effective control” test, relevant to attribution of particular conduct, requires proof that the state directed or controlled the specific operation in question.

Accordingly, if the conflict is international, traditional blockade law is more readily applicable; if the Houthis remain solely a non-state party to an NIAC, their authority to impose blockade obligations on neutral shipping remains controversial. In either case, a declaration alone is insufficient: a blockade must satisfy the requirements of effectiveness, notification, impartiality and applicable humanitarian limitations.

Regardless of classification, the Houthis are bound by applicable international humanitarian law. In an NIAC, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and applicable customary IHL apply; in an IAC, the Geneva Conventions apply in full, together with customary IHL. In either case, rules governing distinction, military goals, proportionality and precautions constrain the conduct of hostilities.

The law of naval blockade is further governed by the law of armed conflict at sea and customary international law, as elaborated in the San Remo Manual. Under paragraphs 93-104, a blockade must be declared and notified to belligerents and neutral states; specify its commencement, duration, location and extent; allow neutral vessels an appropriate period to depart; be effective and impartially applied; and comply with humanitarian restrictions, including those concerning essential civilian supplies.

Importantly, the Houthis have denied seeking to close Bab al-Mandeb to international navigation. Their spokesman stated that there was “no closure” of the strait and described the measure as a maritime blockade affecting only the Saudi side. The main legal question, therefore, is not whether the Houthis may close Bab al-Mandeb as a coastal authority, but whether they may lawfully impose and enforce a belligerent blockade against Saudi Arabia and shipping falling within its scope.

Military necessity, however, does not independently make commercial shipping a lawful target. Article 52(2) of Additional Protocol I, reflecting the customary definition of a military objective, requires an object, by its nature, location, purpose or use, to make an effective contribution to military action and for its destruction, capture or neutralisation to offer a definite military advantage. Particular Saudi vessels, ports or assets directly supporting military operations may satisfy that test, but the general contribution of commercial trade to Saudi Arabia’s economy and war capacity does not, by itself, transform every merchant vessel into a military goal. Any attack remains subject to distinction, proportionality and precautions.

This distinction is particularly important for neutral shipping. Neutral vessels do not lose protection merely because they trade with Saudi Arabia or indirectly contribute to its economy. Whether a vessel may lawfully be intercepted, cap­­tured or attacked must be determined under the specific rules governing blockade, neutral shipping and military objectives, rather than through a general invocation of military necessity.

Finally, the simultaneous closure of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb would place roughly a quarter of global oil flows and a major share of LNG trade at risk. Some analysts view pressure on both chokepoints as part of a broader Iranian strategy, working through the Houthis to increase economic pressure on the US and its Gulf partners and create leverage over the wider war. Pakistan has condemned Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia while continuing to stress diplomacy and regional de-escalation. It has so far avoided direct military involvement under the Makkah accord, maintaining a cautious approach that limits the risk of Pakistan being drawn into the widening regional conflict.

The writer is a professor of law at Lums.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2026

The title refers to the Hail Mary pass, the desperate last throw in American football when nothing else is left. The phrase itself comes from a prayer to Mary, or Maryam as we refer to her here, a plea to be rescued from above.

The film’s hero is a schoolteacher who wakes up alone in space, with no memory of how he got there and no great enthusiasm for dying to save the planet. He is not a soldier, a politician or a billionaire. He is frightened. He makes mistakes. He improvises. He does what ordinary people do when faced with an extraordinary problem: he deals with whatever is in front of him and hopes the next thing will be manageable.

Then he meets Rocky, an alien. At first they cannot even communicate. They have a different biology, different languages and different reasons for being where they are. Yet the heart of the film is not the rescue of Earth. It is two very different beings learning to trust each other. The world is not saved by one exceptional person. It is saved by cooperation.

Pakistan can feel like a place designed to exhaust hope.

I landed to find another flight was still dominating the news. Punjab’s chief minister, Maryam Nawaz, had used the provincial government’s aircraft to attend her daughter’s graduation in London. Faced with criticism, she said she had paid Rs27.5 million for the trip from her own pocket, that the plane belonged to the Chief Minister Office rather than to her, and that all four provincial chief ministers had one. She was not accountable, she said, to vloggers and YouTubers, but to God and the people.

She may well have paid. That is not really the point. What struck me was how she defended it. The plane, she said, belongs to the office, not to her. A chief minister’s time is valuable. Her critics are not really upset about the plane but about her work. All these arguments come down to the same idea: that she matters so much that making her journey easier is somehow a favour to the rest of us.

I suppose we too are meant to pray for a miracle. Many of us do, for someone else. At the moment, probably Imran Khan. His time in government was hardly a lesson in how to run a country. Yet even in custody he carries the hopes of millions who believe that, given one more chance, he alone could set everything right.

We are practised at this kind of hope. We look upward: to the prime minister, the chief minister, the general, the billionaire, the technocrat, the great leader who will finally arrive and sort everything out. The supporters of each believe their saviour is different. The critics of each are already waiting for the next one.

It is not hard to see why. Pakistan can feel like a place designed to exhaust hope.

There is always another political quarrel, economic worry or institutional failure waiting to consume the day. We watch the powerful fight over who controls the machinery while the rest of us wonder whether the machinery works at all.

Project Hail Mary offers a different fantasy. Not that a great person will save us, but that people will help one another. Its act of faith is not in human exceptionalism but in human usefulness. You don’t have to be extraordinary to matter. You don’t have to have the answers. You don’t even have to understand the person beside you. You only have to keep working on the problem together.

We have seen this at home. When a cable car snapped over a ravine in Battagram in 2023, leaving eight people hanging for 14 hours, it was local men who understood those wires, rigging a line in the dark, who brought them back. Nobody waited for a saviour. There wasn’t time. They worked with the police and the military.

None of this means leaders don’t matter. Governments, institutions and competence matter, and people with power carry responsibilities that ordinary citizens do not. That is precisely why it matters how they travel, and whom they believe they are serving. But no chief minister, prime minister or political dynasty can substitute for the millions of small acts of competence, decency and courage that keep a society running.

Ryland Grace does not save the world by becoming a messiah. He saves it by becoming useful. Perhaps that is the hope we could use here. Not that a hero is coming, on a government jet or otherwise, but that there are still people willing to look at the next impossible problem and say: all right, let’s figure this out.

The writer is a journalist and conducts writing workshops in Karachi.

X: @LedeingLady

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2026

A fact-check indicates that Iran had kept its civil nuclear programme under IAEA safeguards. It had also willingly agreed to a nuclear deal in 2015. It was President Donald Trump who pulled the US out of the deal in 2018 and re-engaged with Iran in his second term under a “maximum pressure” campaign.

While talks were still underway, Israel attacked Iran in June 2025, resulting in a 12-day war. Having failed to subdue Iran, the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran on Feb 28, this year, killing much of the Iranian leadership and relentlessly bombing Iranian facilities and installations for 40 days.

All this while Iran remained in the NPT and maintained that it was not building a nuclear bomb, thanks in large measure to a directive from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to not pursue a nuclear weapon programme.

This means that Tehran’s nuclear programme was only a pretext to attack Iran this year. Arguably, the real objective of the February strike was to change the ruling regime in Iran.

It would be recalled that by 2020, many Arab countries had joined the Abraham Accords and normalised relations with Israel. Lest the Palestinian cause be forgotten, Hamas mounted a resistance attack on Israel in October 2023, which was used by the Benjamin Netanyahu government to bomb Gaza to rubble, committing horrific genocide.

Having weakened Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel began to entertain the idea of establishing a ‘Greater Israel’ and found the Iranian regime to be a major roadblock to its ambitions.

Since his efforts to dislodge Iran’s government had failed in June 2025, Netanyahu persuaded Trump to undertake a joint attack against Iran on Feb 28. Two factors seem to have encouraged Trump to accept this gamble. He had successfully dislodged the government of president Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela in January, and Iran had witnessed massive protests against the government on account of inflation. The US and Israeli leadership wrongly assessed that they would be able to wipe out the Iranian regime within days.

They also failed to destroy Iran’s long-range missile programme, though they did succeed in weakening Iran’s Axis of Resistance.

The conflict has been nothing short of a disaster for the US itself.

While Iran has survived the American and Israeli onslaught, the war has been nothing less than a disaster for the US itself. For the first time, there is a fracture in America’s relations with the Jewish state. The Gulf states are increasingly becoming disillusioned with America’s capacity or will to provide them with security. The US bases in the region have been practically destroyed. The myth of invincibility of the US military machine has been shattered.

The Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war, is now being contested. The war is expanding horizontally, with Iraqi militias targeting Saudi Arabia’s east-west pipeline and Yemen’s Houthis attacking Saudi cities and oil installations. Bab al-Mandeb also runs the risk of closure as the Houthis have captured all key positions and islands along the Red Sea. With oil prices soaring, most countries have run into serious economic difficulties. The Gulf countries, whose economies largely depended on energy flows, tourism, and services, have been shaken to the core.

Meanwhile, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye have entered into a regional arrangement for joint defence, predicated on the principle of collective security.

With Israeli pa­­rliamentary elections due on Oct 27 and mid-term Congressional elections in Ame­rica on Nov 3, the US is contemplating how best to handle the war with Iran.

One way is to revert to the MoU that was mediated by Pakistan and signed in June by the presidents of the US and Iran. However, the MoU had received severe criticism within the US and was largely interpreted as capitulation by the US. Ever since, Trump has pulled back from any peace attempts.

The other option being considered is to resort to another large-scale military attack. Given what had happened in the earlier military campaigns, it can be safely assumed that another confrontation is unlikely to yield a different result.

The only feasible solution is diplomacy. Pakistan, Qatar, and others must continue their efforts for peace. Secondly, it is time for China to step in as a mediator as it depends heavily on oil flows from the Gulf and had successfully brokered normalisation between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023. China should also impress upon the US leadership the futility of finding a military solution to the crisis in the Gulf region.

The writer is chairman Sanober Institute and a former foreign secretary of Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2026

As per one count, there were at least 89 terrorist attacks in Balochistan in August. At times, major highways in the province are cut off by violent elements, while the provincial government has had to place curbs on nighttime travel. Terrorists have stormed towns, and in July, the nation’s top civilian and military leadership rushed to Quetta to take stock of the situation. All these events, taken together, point to a terrorist insurgency, and it would be ill-advised for the state to underplay what is going on in the province. Mr Bugti also said that unrest and backwardness in the province were not linked. This observation is incorrect. The fact is that the province has the poorest socioeconomic indicators in Pakistan, and terrorists exploit this situation to gain recruits and swell their ranks. The need, therefore, is for the state to honestly appraise the situation in Balochistan. Handling the issue involves both kinetic measures to eliminate violent elements — who may be supported by hostile states — and engagement with groups that reject violence and opt for dialogue. But the initial step requires officials to accept the nature and scope of the problem. Balochistan’s people must live in an atmosphere free of terrorism and enjoy a major share of the province’s natural wealth. This goal can only be achieved when the state honestly diagnoses the province’s problems and sincerely strives to address them.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2026

For example, both the American and Iranian delegations held talks mediated by Qatar, while the Iranian president told Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif that Tehran was still committed to the Islamabad MoU. Moreover, other reports indicate that both the US and Iran are looking for an off-ramp, with Tehran offering to open the Strait of Hormuz for marine traffic if Washington ends its blockade of Iran. The key question is: who will blink first in this battle of wits, as neither side will want to appear weak? Now it is up to both sides — as well as the states mediating this conflict — to take forward the progress made in New York.

As the US, along with Israel, initiated this aggression, it should take the first step and offer confidence-building measures to Iran in order to de-escalate the situation and come to a long-term settlement. Though White House officials have said Iran is ‘desperate’ for a deal, the fact is that high fuel prices are also hurting the Trump administration at home. An unpopular war coupled with high inflation is not likely to have a positive effect on the Republicans’ chances going into November’s midterm elections. In a meeting on the UNGA sidelines, Mr Trump’s Gulf allies reportedly asked him for a post-midterm strategy regarding Iran. Perhaps something can come out of the interactions at the UN. However, the talks must not be a ruse to open Hormuz and to merely suspend hostilities and stabilise oil prices until the US midterms. There are some indications that the Trump administration may be considering kinetic action after the elections. It would mean a disastrous new confrontation in the Middle East. Hopefully, wiser counsel will prevail in Washington.

The way forward seems simple. The US must approach Iran with sincerity, and the talks must not be a smokescreen for further military action later. The blockade of Iran should be lifted and its funds released to enable a longer-term peace. Tehran, on its part, should commit to keeping Hormuz open in the interest of both its neighbours and the wider international community, while also refraining from targeting the Gulf states. Also, any new agreement should cover all fronts: Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen. Although these are separate conflicts, they are also interlinked as Iranian allies are involved in all of them fighting Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia. Hence, a peace treaty with Iran alone may not last unless there is also calm in other regional theatres, while there is a particular need to rein in Israel’s murderous attacks on regional states.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2026

The way this government has responded to the challenge posed by the opposition’s protest march has done it little credit. At first, it seemed the authorities were overreacting to the prospect of another siege of the federal capital. Yet with that siege averted, at least for the time being, instead of relief we see government representatives and their media allies either goading the PTI government in KP or fantasising about overthrowing an elected government on the tired pretext of national security. As this paper noted earlier, this fight between political factions was being pushed in a dangerous direction by casting it as a confrontation between a province and the federation in the official narrative. Cutting off that province’s road links to the federal capital further reinforced that impression. Mr Sharif’s good intentions must now prevail. The country needs restraint from both sides and clear-eyed leadership from him.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2026

The foundation alleges that in June of the same year, Gilboa was in Rafah ordering the demolition of multiple buildings and in July was involved in another demolition. It argues that Gilboa’s actions — and the actions of thousands of Israeli soldiers who took part in similar mayhem — are in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Where do these Israeli war criminals go to ‘rest’ after destroying the lives of innocent Palestinians? Many go to India, following a backpacking route so well known for hosting Israeli soldiers that it is called the ‘Hummus Trail’. It stretches through destinations like Kasol and the Parvati Valley, Dharamkot and Tosh in Himachal Pradesh and on to places like Pushkar in Rajasthan, and Goa. Around 80,000 Israeli soldiers are said to travel there annually.

This is also where Gilboa went. The path of guest houses frequented by Israeli travellers is well established and Indians have gone through a lot of trouble to accommodate them. Attractions include raves where visitors can lose themselves in trance music and drugs.

So established is this trade in providing peace and ‘healing’ that one writer called towns on the Hummus Trail the “ashrams for war criminals”. Dharamsala even boasts of a ‘mini-Israel’, where shopkeepers speak Hebrew and serve Israeli food. In 2015, a cafe in Kasol was accused of refusing to serve Indian customers while admitting white tourists.

Israeli soldiers reviled in other parts are welcome in India.

The most important thing that India provides is absolution. Here, Israeli soldiers condemned and excoriated in most other parts of the world, are welcome. They can partake of a commercialised, tourist-friendly mix of ‘healing’ from the trauma of war, without having to take accountability for their actions in Gaza.

Gilboa was no different. The Hind Rajab Foundation analysed photographs and other material from his Indian journey and filed complaints with the Himachal police, the home ministry and the Bureau of Immigration seeking his arrest. No arrest followed and Gilboa eventually left India.

India’s ties with Israel run deep and increasingly point to an ideological, economic and military alignment. Hindutva’s founder Vinayak Damodar Savarkar praised the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine, describing Palestine as the Jews’ “Fatherland and Holyland”. Zionism’s blend of attachment to a motherland and religious attachment to a holy land was precisely what Savarkar wanted for Hindus.

Modi’s India in this sense is like Zionist Israel. India’s Citizenship Amendment Act created an expedited route to citizenship for specified non-Muslim migrants from neighbouring countries while excluding Muslims from its provisions. Israel’s 2018 nation-state law similarly privileged Jewish national identity by declaring that the right to national self-determination in Israel is unique to the Jewish people.

In contemporary India, the state supports these Israeli enclaves on the Hummus Trail even as it punishes people for expressing their support for Palestinians. An editorial published in The Edict, a newspaper at Ashoka University, noted how eager Hin­­dutva supporters want to fraternise with Israeli tourists, imagining their sha­red hostility tow­ards Muslims as a natural alignment, while some Israeli travellers treat br­­own Indians as les­ser locals there to serve them. In Pu­­shkar, The Edict re­­ported that the Chabad House has Hebrew signage and a perimeter fence, with Indians facing restrictions on entry while white tourists were admitted with less scrutiny.

So India welcomes Israeli soldiers on their ‘healing journeys’, including those facing allegations of war crimes. The Indian state — as evidenced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s eager embrace of Israeli officials — is keen to emphasise the closeness of the two countries. In his speech at the Knesset, Modi even peddled yoga and ayurveda as sources of holistic wellness that Israelis could partake in when they visited India.

This, then, is the tale of two hatreds. Men like Eitan Gilboa, accused of participating in the destruction of civilian homes, can leave Gaza and seek succour in a new environment where they can forget the cruelties of war. Hosting those accused of such acts without demanding accountability raises its own moral questions, but this is a truth that India, drowning in its own hatreds, appears unable to acknowledge.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2026

But this is not only a story about central banks. The same battle is now fought daily on the phone in your pocket. It is the call from someone claiming to be ‘from your bank’, warning that your card is being blocked and asking you to ‘verify’ your details. It is the fake loan app, the link that looks exactly like your bank’s website but is not. The Bangladesh Bank robbers needed months of planning to trick a central bank. Today’s fraudster needs only a phone call and 30 seconds of your trust.

The reason this matters to every Pakistani household is simple: our money now lives on digital rails. Nine in 10 retail payments in Pakistan are made digitally — the salary that arrives in an account, the pension drawn from an ATM, the remittance sent from Dubai, the utility bill paid from a mobile app, the shopkeeper’s QR code. In a single quarter, these transactions now approach Rs170 trillion in value. This is a genuine triumph of convenience and financial inclusion. But it also means that when the rails are attacked, it is not an ‘IT problem’ — it is your salary and your savings that are on the line.

As mobile banking grows, so does the attack surface.

And the attackers are getting smarter. AI, the same technology banks use to detect fraud, now helps criminals write flawless fake messages, clone voices and mimic official websites. Globally, nearly three in four people report that they, or someone close to them, were touched by cyber-enabled fraud last year. Pakistan is no exception: the credentials of more than 180m Pakistani internet users surfaced in a global data breach, and malicious software targeting banking apps on smartphones rose by more than half in a year. As mobile banking grows, so does the attack surface — and unlike a bank branch, a smartphone has no security guard.

Banks themselves remain the most attractive target, for an obvious reason: they hold valuable information and they can move money. Global studies put the average cost of a single breach at around $5m — higher in finance — while institutions that invest ahead of the curve lose far less when trouble comes. The principle applies to a bank exactly as it applies to a household: prevention always costs less than loss.

There is encouraging news. Pakistan has climbed from 79th to 29th on the ITU’s Global Cybersecurity Index in just three years. The State Bank has set up a dedicated Cyber Risk Management Depart­ment, launched Cyber Shield 2025-30, and this January conducted the country’s first industry-wide cybersecurity drill across 34 financial institutions — a recognition, at last, that an attack on one bank is a threat to all.

Consider what disruption would actually feel like. If even a tenth of digital payments stopped for two days — apps down, cards declined, QR codes dead — transactions worth roughly Rs100 billion could be affected. The queue outside the ATM would be the least of it: shopkeepers unpaid, salaries delayed, and a corrosive question in people’s minds — is my money safe on this phone? That question, repeated often enough, would push people back towards cash and undo a decade of hard-won progress. Trust takes years to build and one bad weekend to lose.

The task for Pakis­tan’s banks, therefore, is to move beyond minimum compliance towards genuine resilience. Cybersecurity must sit on the boardroom agenda alongsi­­de credit and liquidity risk — with continuous monitoring, tested defences, scrutiny of third-party vendors, and staff trained as rigorously as tellers once were trained to spot forged cheques. Banks, regulators and technology firms must also cooperate far more closely, because criminals collaborate freely while defenders too often work alone. The benchmark must be the attack withstood.

But the reader has a role too, and it is decisive. Remember three things. Your bank will never — not once, not ever — call to ask for your PIN, password or the one-time code sent to your phone; anyone who does is a thief. A prize you never entered for is bait, and an offer too good to be true always is. And a moment’s pause before clicking a link is the cheapest security investment ever invented. The strongest firewall in the country is an alert customer.

Bangladesh Bank lost $81m in a single night because attackers found an opening. The question — for every bank, and for every one of us holding a phone — is not whether such an opening exists. The question is whether we find it before they do.

The writer is a banker.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2026