Over the last 10-15 years, increase in the use of methamphetamine, globally, has outpaced that of any other drug. In its World Drug

The morning was laden with an overcast sky, yet a brazen sunburst rifting through the haze bode a promising day. Despite the overwhelming laze and considerable reluctance, I moved my gaze away from the engaging serenity. With much disinterest I leafed through the pages of a newspaper lying beside me. There she was spread all across the front page, affording me a perchance face-to-face meeting. However virtual, the famed Indian silver screen infatuation of millions was in my hands.

These days the world is faced with a barrage of lies from powerful leaders. They often make statements that contravene international law but major media outlets carry them as “news” quite convincingly. What is extremely distressing is that these lies have led to wars in the past and can lead to wars again.

The Paris Agreement on Climate Change adopted at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP 21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in December 2015 is the road map for all countries to tackle climate change by 2030. However, the rule book for the countries to follow will have to be agreed at COP 24, to be held in Katowice, Poland in December this year.

FEW, if any, people/philosophers get as bashed up on their 200th birthday anniversary as Karl Heinrich Marx did on May 5, 2018. Whether it is the neo-liberal atmosphere or a guttural reaction to his opposition to private property rights, this German philosopher's 21st Century portrait as a punching bag is woefully deficient.

First it was the Transpacific Partnership then the Paris climate agreement and now the Iran nuclear deal that President Trump has succeeded in torpedoing.

Nearly 15 million Malaysians will go to polls today to elect 222 members of the 14th federal parliament and representatives for 12 state legislatures. Parliament majority is 112 seats. The 13th parliament was dissolved on April 6 and the nominations of candidates were finalised on April 28, when the 11-day formal campaigning started that would determine the fate of scandal-plagued Prime Minister Najib Razak (64), who is leading the interim government.

In the negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), every word used can be contested between countries (sometimes they even argue for hours about a coma!). Hence every term has to be accepted by consensus by all the countries for it to be adopted in any UNFCCC decision.

The 45th OIC Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) met in Dhaka on May 5-6, 2018 with the theme “Islamic values for sustainable peace, solidarity and development.”

Had Shakespeare been alive and the opportunity to visit Bangladesh, he would have withdrawn his poem, “Crabbed Age and Youth.” Instead, seeing Bangladesh's politicians, he would have written a new poem, “Shining Age and Subdued Youth.” Rabindranath too would disown his poem, “Expedition of the Youth (Taruner Abhijan).”

Behind the brouhaha of the recent Macron-Trump and Moon-Kim summits, the Modi-Jinping rendezvous may have made less noise, but could make more substantive global changes. A multi-layered appraisal at the local, regional, and global levels examines the proposition.

The general attitude toward journalists is perhaps summed by what Norman Mailer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer, expressed many years ago, “If a person is not talented enough to be a novelist, not smart enough to be a lawyer, and his hands are too shaky to perform operations, he becomes a journalist.”

The optimists see the historic events of April 27, 2018 in the Peace Village in the demilitarised zone at Panmunjom, which happens to be the only contact point between two countries but one nation, as the foundation for a permanent reconciliation and enduring peace. The skeptics would like to agree but attach a rider of uncertainty. They wonder at Kim's climb down from the high horse and willingness to engage, and would rather wait to see more

At the 19th Conference of Parties (COP19) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Warsaw, Poland in 2013, there was a breakthrough agreement to set up the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) on Loss and Damage with its Executive Committee having equal representation from developed and developing countries.

OVER the last two decades, if not more, the global press, if taken as a whole, has largely failed to live up to the lofty ideas and ideals talked about by former US President John F Kennedy and countless other visionaries who understood that “a critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy,” as Nelson Mandela said. That is why journalism and journalists around the world today face

It is hardly a new phenomenon to see how governments, especially in South Asia, claiming to be democratic to suit their convenience, become anything but that when it comes to dissenting views. Curbing press freedom, in particular, will always become the target for governments that have succumbed to insecurities of their own creation. Corruption of leaders or their cronies seems to be the topmost reason for state paranoia of the media which is seen as a thorn in the flesh rather than an essential component of democratic maturity.

Amid Bangladesh's rapidly expanding foreign trade, trade-based money laundering has become a major concern for the banking industry, a recent survey by the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management has found. This includes over- and under-invoicing of goods and services and mis-declaration of goods.

The summit meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the Peace House at Panmunjom on April 27 was a path-breaking effort to establish lasting peace in the troubled Korean peninsula.

While the prime minister's statement on quota abolition in public services has prevented a volcano from erupting, many are shedding crocodile tears to keep the unfair quota system with some temporary treatments; and so the call for reform continues.

If 2018 was meant to be the year of the “moon”, we have not been disappointed. There was the March 31 Blue Moon, that is, when the full moon appears for the second time in a month.