As mid-summer draws near, with the summer solstice on 21 June, and many countries prepare their annual budgets, including Pakistan, while others adjust their 2025 budgets halfway through the year, it should be a good time to take stock of developments at home and in the world around us. Are we on the right track? But the world has become less predictable and uglier. Israel has attacked Iran, and the USA may get involved on Israel’s side.

Last Sunday, when I went for a walk in beautiful but hot Islamabad, I met an old acquaintance now in his 80s, a retired top military and civil servant. He was buying some fruits and vegetables, but we didn’t go into opinions about increasing prices, although that could well have been a topic. Instead, we went to broader issues, and the old man said that he felt this is the most pessimistic time in his entire life. He added that he had not experienced WWII years, which would have been worse. He stressed that the decades after the war were very positive for many—both people like himself and countries. “We were on the way up,” he said, “and that we ought to be today as well. Alas, we are not.” Searching for a reason, he said that we don’t seem to have the right calibre of world leaders at this time. He was not quite keen on President Trump in the USA with long tentacles throughout the world, and he was negative toward Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel.

Two killed, two injured in Karachi road accident

The terrible situation in Gaza, and also in the West Bank, was mentioned as particularly bad, and the recent war attacks by Israel on Iran, making the Middle East region and the world more cruel and dangerous. He also questioned how Israel thinks it has a right to restrain Iran from developing nuclear weapons, which was used as a justification for the attacks on its arch-enemy after the Shah’s fall in 1979; until then, Israel and Iran were allies. It should be noted that Israel, which is believed to have nuclear weapons, has gained them........

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