Monday would be a crucial day for President Pervez Musharraf when impeachment proceedings against him begin in the Pakistan Parliament. However, there are reports that all-powerful Pakistan army would like to avoid the public humiliation of Musharraf and ask him to resign within a week. The Telegraph reports: “The claim was supported by a former military aide to the president who said that the army’s leadership wished Mr Musharraf to be spared the humiliation of impeachment. “The...

Well, fight whom? The terrorists or the Pakistani people’s mandate? President Pervez Musharraf, who became a military dictator in a coup in 1999, has become a pathetic figure begging his former generals to come to his rescue to remain in the presidential chair. Obviously, Musharraf has realized that the US might not be able to bail him out this time if the democratically elected government has its way. The present Chief of Army Staff’s decision regarding Musharraf would be crucial....

Yes, says The Economist. It seems that Pakistan’s rival centers of power are converging on one theme. “After showdown talks on August 6th and 7th Mr Nawaz Sharif and the PPP’s leader, Asif Zardari, reached a provisional agreement to impeach the president and restore the judges (sacked by President Musharraf). (Meanwhile in a dramatic development President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday dropped plans to travel to Beijing to witness the Olympics 2008 amid deepening political crisis at...

All nations face challenges that, at times, defy easy solutions. What to do? Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, soon after his victory, invited in April this year 1,000 “brightest” among his countrymen for an “ideas summit” to look at the challenges and develop key goals for Australia. In May a comprehensive report was released. Cynics may view it as a routine popular gesture, but the report is worth a read. More than 1,000 Australians responded to an invitation from the Prime...

Australians are a different pedigree…Mate!!! “Anywhere else it would be a cause of embarassment, if not a modicum of shame,” writes The Times. “But to a country where a convict ancestry gives you aristocratic status, the revelation that the Australian Prime Minister is descended from not just one felon but six is a source of delight. “Kevin Rudd has already boasted of having convicts on both sides of his family – ‘an absolute pedigree’ as he has called...

Let us compare two New York Times reports. First, October 2001 report: “Pakistan’s intelligence service has had a longstanding relationship with Al Qaeda, turning a blind eye to growing ties between Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.” Second, August 2008: “American intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan’s powerful spy service (ISI) helped plan the deadly July 7 bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to United States government...

One of the delights of Paris is a leisurely meal and a glass of wine at a roadside cafe. I was taken aback to read The Times story: “The world economic crisis has hit borrowers in the US, banks in Britain and homeowners in Spain. Now it has claimed perhaps its most startling victim to date: the Gallic gastronome. “Lunches are being skipped, dinners shortened and apéritifs overlooked as the French cut back on their most cherished pleasure in an attempt to save their euros, according...

Israel prime minister, Ehud Olmert’s resignation last night follows months of mounting pressure over allegations of corruption. His successor, apart from managing the ongoing talks with the Palestinians, would have to face another major issue concerning Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The Guardian reports that “Mofaz, a former chief of staff and defence minister, said recently that an Israeli attack on Iran was ‘unavoidable’ because sanctions were not working. “Olmert,...

An important news has come from Pakistan. “Pakistan’s notorious ISI spy agency, a mainstay of the military’s domination of the nation’s politics, was last night placed under civilian control for the first time since it was founded in 1948, reports The Australian. “A brief announcement from the Prime Minister’s office said the ISI and the country’s other principal security agency, the Intelligence Bureau, would immediately be placed under the administrative,...

While Indian leaders have appealed for calm after a series of co-ordinated bombings ripped through the Western Indian city of Ahmedabad on Saturday, leaving at least 45 people dead and more than 100 wounded, some things about the bombings make little sense, says The Independent. “While Gujarat – whose recently re-elected Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, has been accused of allowing the 2002 killings to take place – is the centre of Hindu-nationalist, or so-called ’saffron’ politics,...

The Economist believes that If America can learn from its problems, instead of blaming others, it will come back stronger. “Nations, like people, occasionally get the blues…Eight out of ten Americans think their country is heading in the wrong direction. The hapless George Bush is partly to blame for this: his approval ratings are now sub-Nixonian. But many are concerned not so much about a failed president as about a flailing nation. “Everybody goes through bad times. Some learn...

In an earlier post I had written about European Union’s plans to reduce dependence on oil and to tap the potential of Sahara sun for solar power. Now comes T. Boone Pickens, the 80-year-old founder of one of the largest US oil exploration and production companies, offering alternative energy solutions. ‘The simple truth is that cheap and easy oil is gone,’ reads a line from his new Pickens Plan. With surging global demand pushing crude oil prices to record highs and the US presidential...

In a spirited defence of his stand in the Indian parliament regarding his support to the India-US nuclear deal on Tuesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said: “Our critics falsely accuse us, that in signing these agreements, we have surrendered the independence of foreign policy and made it subservient to US interests. In this context, I wish to point out that the cooperation in civil nuclear matters that we seek is not confined to the USA. “Change in the NSG guidelines would be a passport...

Britain and France are among European Union nations “discussing ambitious plans to harvest the energy of the Saharan sun, connecting a vast network of solar panels to electricity grids across the continent.” According to The Guardian, “the project, estimated to cost up to £35.7 billion, is backed by Gordon Brown and President Sarkozy of France.” More here… In 2006 President Bush famously said: “America is addicted to oil.” The Washington Post wrote then:...

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush have a reason to celebrate. In a way the triumphant nail-biting passage on Tuesday of the India-US Nuclear Deal in the Indian Parliament is their personal victory. “The U.S. will urge other board members of the International Atomic Energy Agency to support an inspection plan tied to the accord during a meeting on Aug. 1,” State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said in Washington. “The 2005 accord signed...

Nepal, world’s youngest Republic, on Monday elected its first president, Dr. Ram Baran Yadav, of the Nepali Congress (NC). Yadav defeated his nearest rival from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). The Constituent Assembly on May 20 abolished the 240-year-old Shah monarchy and decided Nepal would be a federal democratic republic. A medical doctor by profession, Yadav spent more than two decades in hospitals in south Nepal’s Terai region before joining the movement for restoration of...

On Tuesday the crucial vote in the Indian Parliament over the India-US civil nuclear deal would decide the fate of the present coalition government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “The Washington establishment is keeping its fingers crossed and lips sealed before Tuesday’s trust vote,” says The Economic Times. “The White House and the State Department have refrained from offering a comment lest it be taken as interference in another country’s domestic affairs, but officials...

This question was raised by a reader in India who takes an avid interest in the American blogs/media. She marvels at the manner the media/blog pundits cling on to the statements issued by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Who is this chap? Do the pundits need to be reminded that Mr Maliki is the creation of the present Bush administration? The reader then reminds that Mr Maliki would become as irrelevant in a few months time as his mentor and master George W. Bush. Does it really matter whether...

If the arrival of The Beatles in the 1960s helped boost the backpacker traffic to India, it is now the turn of Americans to help in increasing, what is described as, ‘executive tourism’ to India. “India is now nearly as popular a destination for Americans as Spain,” reports The Canadian Press. “Travel to India from the United States increased 10 per cent between 2006 and 2007, on top of an eight per cent rise the year before,according to the most recent data from U.S....

It is celebration time at my in-laws house in the hill State of Himachal Pradesh in India. A century-old Kalka-Shimla rail line that passes through their sprawling ancestral lower Himalayan farmland, has been finally chosen by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) as a world heritage site. More here… During holidays I often walk along part of the rail track which, the Guinness Book of World Records states, offers steepest rise in altitude in the space of 96 kilometers,...

Pakistan has come under a blistering attack from Afghanistan and India. Afghanistan alleges that Pakistan’s intelligence service (ISI) and army are behind the bloody Taliban-led insurgency, calling the security forces the “world’s biggest producers of terrorism and extremism.” While India has blamed Pakistan’s ISI for the suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, and said: “ISI is playing evil. The ISI needs to be destroyed.” (What is ISI?…Click...

] Australian Ms Olive Riley, renowned as the world’s oldest blogger, has died at the age of 108, with her last posting talking about her ailing health but also how she still sings a happy song every day, reports Reuters. “Born in the outback town of Broken Hill on October 20 1899, she lived through two world wars and raised three children while doing various jobs, including ranch cook and barmaid.” More here… And here… How many bloggers in the world sing a happy...

Everything, it is said, is fair in love and war. Let’s admit it, we all are in love with “oil”. In the present long-drawn “war” we have allowed anything and everything to happen. In fact our “love” has turned into a naked “lust” for oil. And when “lust” takes hold of leaders and the public, they lose their sense of proportion and become virtually myopic (or blind) to the consequences of their actions. So what can a Mc Cain or an Obama...

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has emerged as the first leader in the world who seems to have understood the implications of the looming food crisis and taken a practical step. Brown has issued a clarion call to his countrymen to wake up and stop wasting food. Will the G8 leaders support him in making this a worldwide campaign? (More than 1,300,000 tonnes of food grain – worth millions of dollars – went rotten in storage over the past decade in India, officials admit.) (Read...