The square around the Cologne Cathedral was plunged into darkness Monday evening after the historical landmark in western Germany shut down its lights in a silent protest of weekly rallies in Dresden against the perceived “Islamization” of Europe. The symbolic act came as thousands of Germans demonstrated in Cologne and several other cities against the ongoing protests by the group calling itself Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA, which attracted its biggest crowd yet in Dresden on Mond...

Japan says its inflation rate eased slightly in November as household spending dropped, hindering the government’s effort to get the world’s third-largest economy out of recession and back to sustainable growth. Government data released Friday showed core consumer prices, excluding food, rose 2.7 percent while the inflation rate excluding food and energy was 2.1 percent. The inflation rate was 2.9 percent in October. Overall incomes fell 1.1 percent in November from a year earlier while household spending was down 2.5 percent. Unemployment ...

The creation of Bangladesh is one of the most sensitive and tragic chapters in the history of Pakistan. While the trauma of partition may now be behind us, stories of 1971 still raise hackles among anyone who lived through that era. While there are two, very forceful narratives on what exactly happened, history is unequivocal. Perhaps this is why journalists who lived through the painful partition of Pakistan are best placed to recall and ruminate on the mistakes that were made in that fateful year. On March 23, 1971, the flag of Bangladesh was put up in East Pakistan. At the time, Ali Ahmed Khan was a journalist in Dhaka. “I worked for a progressive Urdu weekly, Pasban, which promoted the rights of East Pakistan and consistently campaigned for the restoration of democracy unde...