By Declan Gaffney

‘British jobs for British workers’ was one of the most idiotic slogans ever voiced by a Labour leader, combining economic illiteracy with staggeringly inept political opportunism. With that simple phrase Gordon Brown mobilised a misleading association between two of the most poisonous issues in UK politics – migration and benefit receipt – which blew up in his face.

By Saroop Ijaz

“He who battles monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster himself, and if you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche. The arrest of a serving brigadier and four majors for allegedly having links with banned religious outfit Hizbut Tahrir has been the cause of considerable commotion recently.

By Reuters

Pakistan’s civilian leaders should capitalise on public anger with the military and try to ease its grip on power, a leading human rights activist and lawyer said last Tuesday. The army’s image has been dented by a number of setbacks starting with the killing of Osama bin Laden last month by US special forces on Pakistani soil. Traditionally seen as untouchable, Pakistan’s generals now face strong public criticism.

By Hasan Zaidi

American diplomats were not very hopeful about the long-term prospects of Pakistan and India easily resolving their disagreements about the “emotional issue” of water, especially given “Pakistani anxiety over access to water”, according to a number of previously unpublished secret US diplomatic cables accessed by Dawn through WikiLeaks.

By David Willetts

When Labour tripled university tuition fees in the 2004 Education Act, it was one of Tony Blair's bolder reforms. But, although he changed the funding structure of our universities, he missed the chance to make the sector more accountable to its students.

By Saleem Shahid

Organised criminal gangs are using thousands of children as sex workers across the country, a workshop on children’s rights organised by the Society for Protection of Rights of the Child (SPARC) was informed on Friday.