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The value of creative labour has always been very context specific and dependent on subjective appreciation of the buyer of the products of such labour. The importance of aesthetic value of products has increased particularly with increased possibility of customisation of products. This has also increased the demand for artists, designers and different types of content creators who could add value to the product or service beyond its core uses. The range of creative activities has also increased with the process of globalisation and particularly with the use of internet which impacted both on the demand and supply side.

It is no secret that Pakistan economy is in doldrums and International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved $ 7 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for the beleaguered country following a staff level meeting with Islamabad. A United Nations report stated that Pakistan's economy is to face global challenges this year, with a modest GDP growth expected.

MEXICO CITY: Following her landslide victory in Mexico’s June 2 presidential election, Claudia Sheinbaum was officially inaugurated as president on Tuesday October 1. The first woman president in Mexican history, Sheinbaum will be the second president in a row from MORENA, the party founded by her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), in 2014.

Shigeru Ishiba becomes the new prime minister of Japan when Japan is in a sort of way at a cross roads. Shigeru has been in the wings for a long time. His efforts to emerge as the leader were foiled a number of times. But only after the last incumbent had to leave under a cloud, that Shigeru could really claim the mantle of the prime minister.

LONDON: An emergency resolution at Britain’s TUC Congress warned that “Israel threatens a much wider war in the Middle East that will lead to far greater death, destruction and instability.” It vowed to back a Britain-wide workplace day of action to stop that. The “much wider war” is already beginning.

The surge of the far right political parties continues unabated in Europe as the Austrian electorate voted most for the far right party Freedom Party (FPO) placing the ruling centre-right People’s Party (OVP) in the second position. This was for the first time since the Nazi era that a far right party came close to capturing power in Austria.

“Wish there is no hatred in heaven” wrote a mother in Shenzhen in China, while laying a floral tribute in memory of a slain Japanese school child in the city. That is symptomatic of the country’s current mood of sadness and self doubt about the Chinese avowed programmes to whip up rabid xenophobic attitude throughout the country. The hate programme, had admittedly, aimed at the Japanese and the state media had spread canards about that nation.

WASHINGTON: Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates expressed horror a couple of weeks ago on apparently learning from social media that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating dogs and cats, “eating people’s pets,” as Trump put it. The reports, as we all know now, were false, but their fallout was quite real. Bomb threats followed, schools and public buildings closed down, and longtime African-American residents felt threatened.

West Africa, which had been largely under French colonial rule, never saw decolonisation of the sort that India did. For a start, the erstwhile French colonies’ currency continued to be linked to the French franc at a fixed exchange rate, which meant that they could not pursue any fiscal and monetary policy of their choice (for that would have threatened the fixed exchange rate). Not only were their foreign exchange reserves kept by France, as had been the case with colonial India where its gold reserves, acquired through enforced borrowing (since all its annual export surplus earnings were taken by Britain) had been kept in London; but France also effectively controlled their fiscal and monetary policy despite formal decolonisation. Control over their natural resources remained with metropolitan corporations.

In quick-paced developments, Myanmar’s ruling junta has invited the armed rebel groups to stop fighting and participate in political talks. “We invite ethnic armed groups, terrorist insurgent groups, and terrorist PDF groups which are fighting against the state to give up terrorist fighting and communicate with us to solve political problems politically,” the junta said in a statement.