As 2015 comes to a close, we review the highs and lows, hits and misses in the world of politics, sports, business and entertainment.
The year 2015 was a mixed bag in terms of security and crime for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Although the number of terrorist attacks saw a decline, durable peace remained a distant dream for the province.
The start of 2015 was a time for reflection for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). The ruling party assessing the financial and political losses caused by the 126-day-long sit-in by the Pakistan Thereek-e-Insaf (PTI) in front of the parliament. The PTI ended its sit-in after the December 16 massacre in Peshawar. It then appeared that the PML-N was struggling to keep things under control.
By the end of the year, the PML-N appears more comfortable with the political situation.
Read the full story here.
And so it is for us as we bid adieu to this year and ready ourselves to welcome 2016. The best of times and the worst of times seem to be embedded within our fabric as we struggle to battle the demons within. Dickens wrote about the French Revolution — an epochal event triggered by the collision between the forces of change and the forces of continuity — and such is the epic conflict that defines us today.
Read Fahd Hussain’s ‘Who’s afraid of 2016?‘
The year 2015 was a mixed bag for Pakistan. Of same olds and brand news, of strange events and usual happenings, of great highs and shocking lows. And as the year comes to a close, let’s take a look at the images that defined 2015 for the country.
Several people, incidents, tragedies and breakthroughs made headlines this year on whose brink we stand today. However, 2015 also saw happenings reported by The Express Tribune that might have been buried in the storm of information. But each one of them was historic in its own right, rejuvenating a necessity for living on.
Read the full story here.
There is no single measure of a news story’s success, but if we were to gauge how much our readers on Twitter liked certain stories, we’d have to settle on one metric – the number of retweets.
Here are 9 of the most retweeted stories in 2015.
The year 2015 was all about brawls, accusations, hilarity, disappointments and internet memes. The Express Tribune counts down some of the ideal ‘facepalm’ moments from the past 12 months.
She. She has worked for one of the world’s leading Formula 1 team. She is a fighter pilot. She is UN’s goodwill ambassador to advance gender equality. She’s changing the contours of this country. And she is not a man.
In recent years, Pakistan has seen a lot of “firsts” owing to women.
Read the full story here.
3 Bahadur, Karachi Say Lahore, Wrong Number, Manto, Bin Roye and JPNA performed brilliantly at the box office. For the first time, it makes sense to invest in this new-age paradox of Pakistani films.
Read Vasay Chaudhary’s ‘The year that saw Pakistani cinema surge ahead.‘
With countless posts going viral by the day on social media, it’s hard to keep up with what is authentic and what isn’t. Sometimes, even the biggest publishers, including us, get outsmarted.
New Year resolution: Next time a post becomes viral, let’s just remember to view it with a pinch of salt.
Here are the top 12 internet hoaxes that fooled the world this year.
2015 has been a roller coaster ride, packed with some of the juiciest gossip and entertainment news. And while incidents such as the Miss Universe gaffe have turned heads across the world, nothing has been much more fun than to watch the hilarious memes that surfaced in the aftermath of these events.
Here are our top 10 celeb-inspired memes that took the internet by storm this year.
As another year comes to a close, they continue to spend their days and nights on the streets; scavenging, stalking, chasing cars and passersby in hope of some form of charity; at times, their only means of a livelihood. Days, months, years go by, but their circumstances remain untouched. They are the street children of Karachi.
Read the full story here.
The world shifted massive paradigms in 2015 and every real-life event had an equally strong online counterpart. From pouring your heart out on social media to celebrate or using hashtags to mobilise support or express solidarity in catastrophic times was the new normal this year.
Here is a list of the top trends that sparked the biggest conversations on social media in 2015.
2015 has been an exemplary year for women. Not only have several women’s issues come to the forefront during the year but women have also proved their mettle and risen to fight for equal rights. So, before you bid farewell to these last few, power-packed months, let us take a trip down memory lane and rejoice in the many developments they offered.
Read the full story here.
Pakistan football’s otherwise bleak 2015 saw Chaman-based striker Kaleemullah move to third-division US League’s club Sacramento Republic in June, becoming the first Pakistani footballer to sign a contract with a US club after making waves in the Kyrgyzstan Premier League in 2014.
Read the full story here.
As the year 2015 comes to a close, we look back at some of the standout performances in the sporting world.
Here’s a list of emerging superstars who managed to surprise us throughout the year, with some great pull shots, great finishing touches, knockout punches and backhands, all of which will make us remember this sporting year for some time to come.
Usually, Zimbabwe touring a fellow cricket-playing nation is hardly a historic matter. In fact, the only kind of history that Zimbabwean cricketers are known for making on their travels is when home teams pummel them to enter the record books. This is why the Chevrons’ tour of Pakistan in the summer of 2015 was unique.
Read the full story here.
It was a spectacular collapse from Pakistan while playing in Bangladesh in April that saw its people come out roaring in anger, fuelled with passion.
Read the full story here.
The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF), which is responsible for facilitating and promoting football in the country, has been giving the sport constant trouble throughout 2015.
Read the full story here.
2015 started with reports of a divided Camp Nou as manager Luis Enrique and talisman Lionel Messi were allegedly at loggerheads over the Basque’s decision to rest the Argentina skipper.
2015 ended with Barcelona winning five trophies — being crowned champions of Spain, Europe and then the world — and with Messi being almost certain to win the Ballon d’Or.
They say a year is a long time in football and 2015 has proven as such for the Catalans.
Read the full story here.
Just as witnessed before the start of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the same question lingered in the media circles ahead of the 2015 Copa America: Can Lionel Messi finally get his hands on a major trophy with his national side?
Read the full story here.
If there could be one thing that perfectly sums up the dominance of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi in the current era of football, the FIFA Ballon d’Or awards would fit that criterion like a hand in glove. Since 2008, either the diminutive Argentine or the hunky Portuguese has won what is the most prestigious individual award in all of football —possibly all of sports — and the 2014 version was no different.
Read the full story here.
Enter 2015. Australia lifted their fifth ICC World Cup trophy, Bangladesh shocked the world of cricket by first whitewashing Pakistan and then beating India, Mohammad Amir returned to competitive cricket after his ban ended, South Africa suffered their first away Test series defeat in nine years and the first day-night Test match made its debut in an effort to revive faltering interest in the longest format of the game.
Read the full story here.
The six inches that Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif deliberately overstepped set Pakistan cricket miles back; miles that the country’s most popular sport is yet to recover.
2015 saw the end of the bans of the fast-bowling duo, along with then skipper Salman Butt, yet events of five years past continue to haunt the hallways of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).
Read the full story here.
For someone termed as ‘tuk tuk’ and accused of being too defensive throughout his career, Misbahul Haq’s attacking leadership abilities were on full display at the 2015 World Cup, which won the hearts of his critics and fans alike.
Read the full story here.
The PM appears to be completing 2015 unscathed politically and more confident, despite the fact that during the year the economy remained in doldrums.
Read M Ziauddin’s ‘A year of political balancing acts‘.
The regime of the financialisation of the economy has been presided over by a munshi-turned-financial wizard aka Ishaq Dar, blindfolded by self-serving international financial institutions
