All posts by Raza Jaffri

ARTICLES: Ancient treasure of knowledge

Books, Library

By Zubeida Mustafa

London has a new landmark. The British Library. Opened to the public five years ago, it has emerged as a major crowd-puller in the British metropolis. That is not at all surprising for it combines on its premises the beauty of its architecture, the aesthetic delicacy of its decor and the wealth of its collected treasures to attract even the most ‘unliterary’ of people. You don’t have to be a bibliophile or a scholar looking for reference material to visit the library, though 431,000 of its visitors last year were readers who had come to consult its books. But nearly as many came just to have a look around and marvel at what they saw.
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Will Pakistan sign tobacco treaty?

Foreign Policy of Pakistan, Health

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

HOW much is a human life worth? Why is it held to be invaluable in the developed democracies of the West but dirt cheap in a Third World country like Pakistan? This contradiction emerged clearly last month when the annual World Health Assembly of the WHO adopted the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) on May 21 in Geneva after four years of protracted negotiations interspersed with hot bargaining.
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Against their will

Social Issues, View from Abroad, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

The ugly tradition of protecting honour by killing and violating women is not limited to Pakistan. Girls from Pakistan living in the UK have been forced into marriages with cousins back home to protect honour, writes Zubeida Mustafa

Five years ago 19-year-old Rukhsana Naz was strangled to death by her brother while her mother held her down by her feet. This happened in Britain, the country Naz’s parents had migrated to from Pakistan and where she had been born and bred. The murdered girl’s crime? She had “shamed her family.” First she had refused to stay in marriage to the man in Pakistan whom she had been wedded to when she was 16. Second, she had decided to return to the man she loved.
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The burden of old age

Health

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

HOW many birthdays should one have celebrated to be called old? In other words, at what age does one qualify to be a ‘senior citizen’? Or rephrased in very mundane terms the question would be, when does one become a pensioner? Of course, many would give cliched answers such as the one in self-help books, if you are young at heart you never grow old. There are others who comfort themselves by saying that the body might age but the mind doesn’t: it improves with age and experience!
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