Express Tribune Editorials 14th September 2026

BRICS consensus

The BRICS summit in New Delhi has come as a precursor to a change in realpolitik. High-level international diplomacy saw India lay out the red carpet for China, Iran recognise the need to back down for de-escalation, and the UAE condemn attacks on nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards. The fact that the joint statement called for the protection of civilians, respect for sovereignty, keeping global trade routes open, and ceasefires in other Middle Eastern flashpoints - including Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan and Syria - is a breakthrough of sorts. This is tantamount to strengthening international law and global institutions, and is a departure from the prevailing world order dominated by the United States.

The 11-nation multilateral body has come a long way since May this year, when its foreign ministers differed over a proposed joint declaration. This time around, they emphasised the need for "inclusive global growth". As a conglomerate of nations representing 50% of the world's population, 40% of global GDP and more than 25% of global trade, the group tactically hinted at a consensus to fend off global economic shocks that impact them, while working toward a calibrated move on a gold-backed BRICS currency to replace the heavily pressured US dollar.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as two key allies of the US, and India, despite retaining close ties with Israel, were seen looking beyond immediate geopolitical exigencies to call for a new world order for the collective good of humanity. President Xi Jinping's first visit to New Delhi since 2019, along with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's debut in deliberations with special representatives from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, has surely led to some much-needed ice-breaking.

As President Xi called for a political settlement to the war in the Middle East, Russia and Iran backed the proposal. That in itself is a laudable achievement. The bare minimum required is to broker a thaw over the shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, ensuring that supply lines remain uninterrupted. While BRICS mobilising for tranquility is appreciated, Washington too must put its weight behind the declaration. The bottom line is that there isn't a military solution.

Students in danger

It is no secret that human life barely holds any value in Karachi, given the fact that every other day brings news of a murder or a death. It is, however, unconscionable even for Karachi that a school becomes a spot that could possibly endanger children's lives - but this city seems to have no limits on reaching new lows.

Five men are dead in Orangi Town, crushed under a boundary wall of a government school that residents had been flagging as dangerous for years. The victims were drug users allegedly prying steel rods from the school's structure. And where one wall has already claimed five lives, another now endangers the lives of those 450 children currently studying in the school. The crux of this matter is not about who lived and who died. It is instead related to a much deeper problem pervading the public education landscape in Pakistan. How did the perimeter of a school become derelict enough to serve as an open-air drug den? And how did they manage to wreck it so much that it collapsed, without any government intervention stopping it in time? Most government schools across Karachi are suffering from equally terrible conditions. They're missing boundary walls, functioning toilets, working fans and operational lights - all absolutely basic infrastructure required for any building, let alone missing from a school.

Orangi Town's tragedy is merely a symptom of a larger, crueller problem. Government schools exist solely for a tick mark on paper, but beyond their name and registration, they serve no student and no family. On top of that, now they're putting the lives of those students who they should be protecting and nurturing at risk. It is nothing but blatant discrimination against lower-income families as the system continues to maim and kill, while still leeching every single penny off them.

Total collapse

Pakistan's collapse to a 3-0 clean sweep at Edgbaston closes one of the bleakest chapters in the team's recent Test history. The manner of the defeat, an eight-wicket loss with England chasing a modest 130, will sting more than the scoreline itself. The win completes a dominant series for England that had already taken the first Test by an innings and 103 runs and the second by 194 runs.

Pakistan have now lost 16 of their past 21 matches and sit at the bottom of the World Test Championship table. They are the record of a team without direction, one that responded to a hammering at Lord's by sending seven players home, sacking head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and assistant Umar Gul, and hoping fresh faces might paper over deeper cracks. Amid that wreckage came a moment worth holding onto. Fast bowler Razaullah, twenty-one years' old and playing his first Test, took four wickets in England's first innings and then walked out at number nine to strike nine sixes and four boundaries in a defiant 81 of just 63 balls, sharing a last wicket stand of 121 with Mohammad Abbas. Razaullah, if groomed properly, can take the place of someone like Abdul Razzaq in this Pakistan side. The raw ingredients are there.

A broader strategy is what's missing, and the bleak state of Test cricket in Pakistan makes that harder to ignore. The PCB has to go back to the drawing board. That means building a domestic structure that produces more players like Razaullah before they arrive at the Test level half-formed, and it means giving those who do break through the room to fail without being discarded after one bad series. Nothing that happened at Edgbaston will matter in the long run if the board's response is another reshuffle rather than a rethink.