Prevention is still better than cure

Health

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

The message carried year after year by WHO’s World Health Reports is that “progress in health depends largely on viable national and local health systems”. The 2003 report speaks of the need for “effective health promotion and disease prevention services” to give people a chance to lead a long and healthy life. The 2002 report focused on the reduction of risks to health and held this to be the primary responsibility of the government.
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Profiting from the Iraq war

Defence and Disarmament, Foreign Policy of Pakistan

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

As the insurgency in Iraq escalates and the chaos in that devastated country intensifies, analysts and social scientists are attempting to explain the new phenomenon. The most commonly cited reasons for the mess the Bush administration finds itself in Iraq a year after the invasion is the “arrogance and ignorance” of the leadership in Washington.
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A curriculum of hatred

Education

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

The religious parties in Pakistan are at loggerheads with the government on yet another issue: the so-called “exclusion” of some Quranic verses from the biology textbook for Intermediate classes. What has annoyed the MMA?

It all began three weeks ago when in reply to a question in the National Assembly, the federal education minister explained that the inclusion of Quranic verses is not a requirement of the curriculum.
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The death of two little girls

Politics, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

About four weeks ago, two little girls – Hajra (8) and Sassi (5) – went missing in Murad Memon Goth on the outskirts of Karachi. They had gone to gather firewood for their homes. Two days later their mutilated bodies were recovered from the premises of a veterinary hospital in the possession of the Gadap police station.

This heinous crime, which sent a shiver down most people’s spine, was not the first one of its kind in this megacity which has become so unsafe and insecure not just for our children but for all of us as well.

What is shocking is that the incident failed to overly shock the people of Karachi, so desensitized have they become to violence. The kidnapping and killing seemed such a routine affair that no paper reported it until the bodies were found two days later and the people of Memon Goth attacked the police station in anger. The attack on the thana, rather than the killings, made news.
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Bomb & public opinion

Defence and Disarmament, War and Peace

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

As the nuclear proliferation saga unfolded in Islamabad and reached its denouement earlier this month, the government sought shelter behind the so-called public opinion in the country.

It was made out to be sacrosanct in this case which is quite intriguing since military rulers do not usually worry about mundane issues like public opinion.
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