PARIS: The hunt for masks, ventilators and other medical supplies consumed the US and Europe on Monday, as new coronavirus infections soared and political paralysis stalled efforts for a quick aid package from Congress. On the financial markets, US futures jumped and global stock benchmarks trimmed their losses after the US Federal Reserve said it will lend to small and …

CM announces lockdown for Gilgit-Baltistan HOME LOCKDOWN COMES INTO FORCE FROM MIDNIGHT————————————————–Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister announces enforcement of home lockdown plan in Gilgit-Baltistan to contain spread of Coronavirus. He urged people to follow health guidelines and strictly ensure physical distance which is the only way to avoid get infected. He said the relevant officials have elaborated the details of the lockdown. …

  The two organisations arrange buses, to send 500 students to Gilgit-Baltistan; another 500 students will depart on March 18   Herald Special Report As the cases of coronavirus soared in Pakistan, the federal government, as usual, announced the closure of educational institutes and called for enforcing social distancing without putting in place any concrete alternative mechanism to deal with …

Herald Report   The worldwide spread of coronavirus that has devastated the global economy has also hit hard the tourism and hospitality industry with major tourist destinations seeing limited visitors while several airlines have suspended or limited their operations. The World Tourism Organisation of the United Nations, (UNWTO) in response to the worldwide COVID-19 outbreak, has cancelled immediately, all its …

Pakistan’s lowest spending in the social sector will create an incompetent generation, writes Amir Hussain in his lastest column published in The News today. He suggests that if PTI government wants to translate its rhetoric of building 5m houses and create 10m jobs, it must double its GDP and ensure growth at a rate of 8% for next 10  years …

The world is facing a growing disillusionment with current economic and political order that was historically erected through great games and neoliberal economic agenda and development concepts by the colonial empires. These issues were deliberated upon by scholars, academics, development practitioners at a workshop held recently in Ottawa University, Canada. They debunked the neoliberal development concept and advocated pluralistic, universal …

Swiss activist Loukina Tille, Swedish climate change activists Greta Thunberg and Isabelle Axelsson attend the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Photograph: Denis Balibouse/Reuters The individuals leading change, and making the largest sacrifices, are all too often the people most threatened by inequality   by Darren Walker   As we enter 2020 and survey the state of the …

Each family has several hundred goats, all of which need to be moved separately so they don’t get mixed up in the Changthang plateau.–Andrew Newey At an altitude of 5,000 metres (16,400 feet), it is hard to believe anyone, or anything can survive up in the vast ice desert of Changthang region straddling the Tibetan Plateau between India and China, …

Herald Report   The US invasion of Iraq was aimed at setting up permanent military bases there and to benefit energy corporations and weapons industry, comments Professor Noam Chomsky, an internationally acclaimed American linguist in a conversation with Hassan Mirza, published in The Express Tribune Blogs section. The conversation is based on correspondence between the two over a period of …

Experts say Pakistan needs to shift its foreign policy from geostrategic to financial diplomacy   Special correspondent Islamabad: Diplomatic and development experts have termed the Pakistan recent diplomatic overtures ill-conceived and ill-prepared. They suggested that Pakistan needs a paradigm shift in its foreign policy and focus on economic diplomacy rather than on the traditional geostrategic partnership. They were speaking at …