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Europe Delayed Parenthood. Can IVF Really Beat Biology?

  Europe has expanded access to reproductive technology as parenthood moves later, but IVF cannot erase the biological limits of age or the inequalities created by cost and public policy. They arrive at fertility clinics carrying something medicine cannot manufacture: time already spent. Sometimes it was spent building a career. Sometimes housing never felt secure enough for a child. A relationship came late, or infertility was discovered only after months of trying. By the time a couple reaches an IVF clinic at 39 or 41, the story may already contain years that no laboratory can return. I used to look at IVF mainly as a medical breakthrough. The more I read about its growth across Europe, the more I saw another story underneath it. Europe has become extraordinarily good at helping people reproduce after fertility becomes difficult. It has been much less successful at asking why parenthood is happening later in the first place. IVF Is Growing, But It Is Not Yet the “New Normal” Inf...
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Flydubai Flights to Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar Are Reappearing. Check the Date Before You Book

  Flydubai flights to Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar are reappearing in late-October booking searches, but Pakistani travellers should verify their exact date before making firm travel plans. A traveller in Lahore opens the flydubai website in September and searches for a flight to Dubai near the end of October. Flights begin appearing again. The screen looks reassuring. Flydubai stopped serving Lahore months ago, so seeing late-October inventory creates an obvious impression: the suspension is ending and the airline is coming back. I would still check the exact date before paying. Flydubai suspended flights to Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar earlier this year. In May, the airline's Pakistan flight inquiry told Dawn that operations to the three cities would remain suspended until 26 October 2026 because of "operational reasons." Karachi flights continued. Now something interesting is happening. Flydubai's current fare pages are showing Islamabad and Lahore itineraries...
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Unauthorized Card Transaction in Pakistan? Do This Before the Bank Closes Your Complaint

  A practical guide for Pakistani cardholders on reporting fraud, preserving evidence, and escalating a dispute when the bank does not give a satisfactory answer What should a Pakistani cardholder do after an unauthorized transaction? Secure the card, lodge a formal dispute, preserve evidence, obtain a written decision, and escalate through the proper complaint channel when necessary. The Fraud Alert Is Only the Beginning I saw the international transaction on my card account and knew I had not made it. My first reaction was simple: contact the bank and stop whatever was happening. Complaints were opened. Later, they were closed. The merchant eventually refunded my money, but the episode changed the way I think about card fraud. A customer can easily mistake a complaint number for a proper transaction dispute. They are not the same thing. Reporting fraud tells the bank that something has gone wrong. A card dispute asks a harder question: was the transaction authorised, and who...
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Pakistan’s New Bank Data System Is Really About Algorithmic Tax Surveillance

  Pakistan’s Section 165AB introduces algorithmic cross-matching of high-value banking data with tax records, shifting tax enforcement toward automated financial scrutiny. A businessman in Karachi can move Rs150 million through his bank account without being Rs150 million richer. I see this distinction clearly because I work around banking transactions. Money moves for reasons that have little to do with personal wealth. A distributor may collect large sales proceeds and then send most of that money back to manufacturers. An importer may move even larger sums simply because the goods he buys are expensive. Pakistan's tax system is now preparing to look at such flows differently. Under Section 165AB of the Income Tax Ordinance, banks and Electronic Money Institutions must electronically report prescribed information when deposits or withdrawals exceed Rs100 million during a six-month reporting period. The Rs100 million figure is not a minimum account balance. It concerns transaction...
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MQM Had the Power Jamaat Never Had. Why Did It Still Fail the Muhajirs?

  The shift from Mohajir to Muttahida promised a national future. MQM expanded its mission before securing the institutional gains its original voters expected. MQM rose by promising Muhajirs direct political representation. After decades of electoral dominance and coalition power, many of the institutional grievances that created the movement remained unresolved. In Karachi, political history used to be visible on the walls. Jamaat-e-Islami posters stood beside JUP slogans, then another political vocabulary appeared in the neighbourhoods where Urdu-speaking families lived. I watched the argument change from religion and Pakistan to quotas, jobs and representation. By the 1980s, MQM had turned that shift into a political movement. Its message was sharper than the one Jamaat and JUP had offered: if Muhajirs wanted their grievances addressed, they needed organised political power of their own. Karachi listened. Within a few years, MQM had turned urban Sindh into one of Pakistan's mos...
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Pakistan Keeps Looking to the IMF. The Bigger Debt Story Is Sitting Inside Its Own Banks

  Pakistan’s debt debate often focuses on the IMF, but the larger domestic story sits inside the banking system, where government borrowing competes with private-sector credit. I have spent enough years around banking to know that risk never looks the same from both sides of a desk. A businessman walks into a Pakistani bank asking for money to expand a factory. He may need new machinery. Perhaps cash is tight because customers pay slowly while electricity bills arrive on time. The bank studies his accounts and collateral, then asks the question that matters most: will this business generate enough money when the loan falls due? Another borrower enters the same financial system under very different conditions. The Government of Pakistan. It can issue Treasury bills and Pakistan Investment Bonds on a scale no private company can match. Banks understand these instruments. A market already exists for them, and the credit calculation looks very different from financing an exporter whose...
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China Is Losing America’s Garment Market. Pakistan Has the Cotton and the Factories. So Why Is Cambodia Beating It?

  Pakistan has cotton and a deep textile base, yet Cambodia exported more than twice as much apparel to the United States during January-July 2026. China's retreat from the U.S. apparel market should have opened space for Pakistan. Instead, Cambodia is expanding while Pakistan remains far behind. The comparison exposes an uncomfortable weakness inside Pakistan's export model. The Country Missing From the Graphic A graphic caught my attention on my phone in Karachi. It ranked the leading Asian suppliers of apparel to the United States during the first seven months of 2026. Vietnam stood far ahead at about $9.37 billion, while Bangladesh followed at $4.66 billion. China had slipped just behind it. I kept moving down the chart. Indonesia appeared. Cambodia came next at roughly $2.62 billion. India occupied sixth place, but the country I expected to see was absent. Pakistan. The omission looked strange because Pakistan has spent decades building an enormous textile industry. Cotton...
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