As a new generation of graduates enters the workforce, it is unfortunate that they are beginning to find it increasingly difficult to gain a measure of access and exposure to the professional world. The International Labor Organization (ILO) has touted good internships as an important vehicle for connecting young talent to the labor market, but finds that there are serious deficiencies in internship management around the world. In fact, one can view the problem as one of diminution in the internship model more broadly, and it is not specific to Pakistan but rather speaks to a larger international problem that finds echoes in every capitalist society. CASS sees the internship system around the world as having devolved into two types: exploitation and anomie.
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The Extraction Trap
Trump’s declaration to “run Venezuela” after Maduro’s capture is a seeming promise of a sudden cure to Venezuela’s ills. However, it ignores the nation’s terminal diagnosis of a century of plunder. The rhetoric of imminent revival on the basis of the speedy return of international oil capital and the promise of 100 billion US dollars in reconstruction funds made the intervention seem like a unique opportunity.
Future Shield: The Saudi-Pakistan Security Partnership
Although the SDMA does not identify an adversary, effectively functioning as a deterrent, it cannot be viewed in isolation from the Israeli belligerence in the Middle East. Israel’s war against Hamas has expanded beyond the genocide of Gaza; it has bombed the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and recently Qatar. Tel Aviv’s campaign under the banners of ‘anti-Semitism’ and ‘terrorism’ has engulfed the whole Middle East in a war-like situation, which has generated new enemies and has deepened the instability of the region.
The Trilateral Shift
On 15 January 2026, the Pakistani defence production minister confirmed that an agreement for a new trilateral defence deal between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and TĂ¼rkiye is in the pipeline, other than the Pakistan-Saudi bilateral deal announced last year.
