By Dr Akhtar Hasan Khan

THE hefty increase in gas prices will lead to serious consequences for the middle class and trade and industry sectors. It will aggravate inflation and depress GDP growth and employment. The universally acclaimed principle of economic policy-making is that changes should be gradual and phased. A shocking jump of 31 per cent in the price of a vital commodity like gas, which supplies 50 per cent of national energy, is bound to make a profound impact

By PAUL KRUGMAN

By huge margins, Americans think the economy is in lousy shape — and they blame President Bush. This fact, more than anything else, makes it hard to see how the Democrats can lose this election.

By ROGER COHEN

BERLIN

By Asha'ar Rehman

EXPATRIATE Pakistanis are a force to reckon with in the politics of the country. If a proof of their presence in absentia was ever needed, reports of recent meetings in the United States indicate just how desperate the Pakistani community is about the situation in the country of its origin.

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

When a distinguished American military commander accuses the United States of committing war crimes in its handling of detainees, you know that we need a new way forward.

By Maria Golovnina

ASTANA: If there is one thing Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev cherishes as part of his legacy, it is the gold-plated extravagance of his new capital, Astana.

By Rustam Shah Mohmand

The military operation,currently underway in Bara area of Khyber Agency was preceded by a deliberately orchestrated campaign of raising the spectre of an imminent attack on Peshawar. Who will attack Peshawar with what weapons and, more importantly, with what objectives and goals was not spelt out in the doomsday scenario painted by the protagonists of such a potent threat. A hype was created as if a force of pro taliban elements, by the thousands, was ready to invade Peshawar.

Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.

THE latest license plate controversy erupted last month when the South Carolina Legislature passed America's first-ever religious specialty license plate, with the slogan "I believe" and the image of a cross over a stained-glass window. The plate is being challenged in court by a group that promotes the separation of church and state.

Given the huge increase in inequality in most countries, higher taxes for those who have done well — to help those who have lost ground from globalisation and technological change — are in order, and could also ameliorate the strains imposed by soaring food and energy prices

Joseph E Stiglitz

Around the world, protests against soaring food and fuel prices are mounting. The poor — and even the middle classes — are seeing their incomes squeezed as the global economy enters a slowdown. Politicians want to respond to their constituents' legitimate concerns, but do not know what to do.

Despite the toning down of the war of words between Beijing and the followers of the Dalai Lama, Chinese concerns over the possibility of violent attacks by Tibetan youth to embarrass the Chinese have not subsided.

B. Raman

By Mary Dejevsky

FOR complicated reasons, I have been doing quite a bit of long-distance driving recently. Yes, I know it is not green; it's an extravagant use of time, and now that a full tank of petrol costs upwards of (pounds sterling) 50, it makes a big hole in the bank balance. Sometimes, though, you have little choice but to take to the road.

By DAVID BROOKS

Barack Obama sells the Democratic Party short. He talks about his fund-raising success as if his donors were part of a spontaneous movement of small-money enthusiasts who cohered around himself. In fact, Democrats have spent years building their donor network. Obama’s fund-raising base is bigger than John Kerry’s, Howard Dean’s and Al Gore’s, but it’s not different.

By THOMAS F. SCHALLER

THE interim between the primaries and the parties’ nominating conventions is, according to ancient writ, a fertile period for presidential campaigns to talk about how they plan to expand the political map in the fall.

By Tim Webb

MINING giant Anglo American and Impala Platinum are in talks with Robert Mugabe’s regime about handing over large stakes in their Zimbabwean subsidiaries to ‘indigenous investors’.

The opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, and London-based analysts said it was likely that these deals, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, would be used to raise money for the regime. MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told this reporter: ‘The indigenisation bill is another dimension of the kleptocracy. It’s not intended to legitimately promote indigenous investment.’

By John Lichfield

The explosive clash of personalities, and policies, between the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the European Union’s trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, is threatening to detonate another European crisis. France, which takes over the EU presidency for six months on Tuesday, announced on Friday that it has convened an unscheduled meeting of the 27 governments to — in effect — call into question Mr Mandelson’s negotiating position in the stalled world trade talks.

By PAUL KRUGMAN

It’s feeling a lot like 1992 right now. It’s also feeling a lot like 1980. But which parallel is closer? Is Barack Obama going to be a Ronald Reagan of the left, a president who fundamentally changes the country’s direction? Or will he be just another Bill Clinton?

By Shadaba Islam

By GAIL COLLINS

Unity, N.H. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton held their political bonding ceremony in the middle of a field since the tiny town where they did the deed had no buildings big enough to host such a momentous occasion. The symbolism was obviously supposed to stretch way, way beyond mere unity. Think the signing of the Magna Carta. Or that baseball movie with Kevin Costner. If you concede it, they will come.

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Congress has always had a soft spot for “experts” who tell members what they want to hear, whether it’s supply-side economists declaring that tax cuts increase revenue or climate-change skeptics insisting that global warming is a myth.

By SAM WANG and SANDRA AAMODT

FALSE beliefs are everywhere. Eighteen percent of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth, one poll has found. Thus it seems slightly less egregious that, according to another poll, 10 percent of us think that Senator Barack Obama, a Christian, is instead a Muslim. The Obama campaign has created a Web site to dispel misinformation. But this effort may be more difficult than it seems, thanks to the quirky way in which our brains store memories — and mislead us along the way.
The brain does not simply gather and stockpile information as a computer’s hard drive does.