Cartoon by Bill Leak in The Australian

First, who are Australian ‘Diggers’? Briefly, the words ‘mateship’ and ‘diggers’ are interchangeable in Australia. See here… To his delight the US army chief in Iraq, General David Petraeus, found them to be different and has a special word of praise for them. The Australian has a story under the heading ‘Give me more Aussies, pleads general’. The report says: “David Petraeus would like more Australians to work alongside him as he assumes...

Well, the media has begun to scream about the mental health of the would-be president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari. We are told that he is not only corrupt but is “mad” too. Pray tell us which leader in the world is sane and not corrupt??? Maybe the “corrupt” and the “mad” are better equipped to rule us all in the present times!!! Here is a sample of the hysteria in The Newsweek…please click here.

I recommend a recent write-up on Barack Obama by Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian. Sheridan writes: “He (Obama) is technically a member of generation X, born just too late to be a baby boomer. Yet his consciousness is quintessentially that of the baby boomer. “The best guide to who Obama is politically comes not from the millions of hagiographic and densely uncritical words penned by adoring media across the world but from Obama’s autobiographies and his legislative...

Nalaka Gunawardene, Sri Lanka’s leading journalist, asks an interesting question: “From Chris Rock to Barack Obama: Will electoral life imitate Hollywood art?” Gunawardene recalls that “while the Democratic Party convention was underway on the other side of the planet, I re-watched the 2003 Chris Rock movie Head of State – and realized how prescient it has been in some respects. “But where life does imitate art is in how the Washington establishment conspires...

Sri Lanka is today known more for the performance of its fine cricket team and the conflict between the government and the LTTE. The passing away of its highly talented and sensitive journalist Mallika Wanigasundra went almost unnoticed. I came to know of her passing away while going through the website of another dedicated and respected Sri Lankan journalist Nalaka Gunawardene. I met Gunawardene in the late 1980s at Vestras, Sweden, where we had gone to attend an international semniar on “Media...

The Economist pays a tribute to Denver’s Jack A. Weil who died on August 13th, aged 107. “Until he created his shirts, there was no distinctively western look in American couture.” “His shirts, sold after 1946 through his company, Rockmount Ranch Wear, became extremely famous. The Premium Blue Flannel Plaid was worn by Ronald Reagan, and the Pink Gabardine by Bob Dylan. “Eric Clapton liked the diamond-snap number; Robert Redford in ‘The Horse Whisperer’...

For the past two or three years that I have been blogging, I had been under the impression that one contributes to the blogs only out of conviction or for personal satisfaction, thrills, kicks, barking or whatever…because there isn’t any money in blogging. There maybe some exceptions…but I would presume that more than 90 per cent bloggers don’t find it monetarily rewarding. However, an NYT story tells us about people who made blogging a financial success…See here.

While it is curtains for the great world event the Beijing Olympics, the sports lovers all over the globe are today celebrating the 100th birth anniversary of the Australian cricketing legend, Sir Donald Bradman (1908-2001). As the ABC News says: “Bradman will always be remembered for his cricket, but as Richie Benaud (another cricket star) said when delivering the eulogy at Bradman’s funeral, he was also a sportsman.” More here… The former Australian prime minister John...

The recent ban on advertisements on “longer lasting sex” is being described as the triumph of public opinion in Australia. And the best part is that the advertiser has accepted the ban in good grace. “Three weeks after billboards advertising ‘longer lasting sex’ were banned in Western Australia, the slogan has been outlawed nationwide,” says a news report. A company representative said “his company would comply with the ruling. He said it was a fair decision,...

The Beijing Olympics is over, and the world seems to have forgotten Tibet and its exiled leader, the Dalai Lama. But not France. It recently witnessed an exotic event — “a mixture of religious service, saffron diplomacy and Woodstock-like happening. The venue: The Lerab Ling sanctuary, home of Europe’s biggest Tibetan temple.” The French president Nicolas Sarkozy sent his supermodel wife, Carla Bruni, to meet the Dalai Lama (photo above) and join the Tibetan spiritual leader...

The aggressive/obscene/trivial performance of the TV channels in India during the past decade created a public disquiet/uproar. Despite government efforts/threats these channels continued to compete in trashing the basic tenets of journalism. Finally, the private television broadcasters have realized the folly inherent in such a strategy and have announced their own code of conduct. India, like elsewhere, has a “toothless” media regulatory authority. India’s leading TV channel...

Pakistan’s democratically-elected government, despite the dire predictions/propaganda in the western world, is functioning no better or worse than under the military dictator Pervez Musharraf’s regime. However, a democratically-elected government has a moral and popular platform to wage a war on terror. “The Election Commission on Friday set September 6 as the date lawmakers will elect a new president, after the resignation earlier this week of President Pervez Musharraf,”...

The Economist pays tribute to Mahmoud Darwish, “the voice of Palestine”, who died on August 9th, aged 67, three days after heart surgery at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas. “In his last poem, Mr Darwish described Palestinians and Israelis as two men trapped in a hole: He said: Will you bargain with me now? I said: For what would you bargain In this grave? He said: Over my share and your share of this common grave I said: Of what use is that? Time has passed us by, Our...

Who has been the greatest prime minister of Australia? An academic who undertook this ambitious exercise says the verdict is: Robert Menzies (20 December 1894 – 15 May 1978). “Australia has had four great prime ministers and four failures. The other 18 have been successful (to a lesser or greater extent) without being great. That adds up to 26, the number of prime ministers we have had so far, including Kevin Rudd. “These are the conclusions to which I have come after studying a great...

With the hormone levels peaking at the Beijing Olympics, what would the young participants from the world be up to when they mingle freely for the last time before heading home? Here is the peep show…

Who in the USA decides whether the country should go to war or not? “In the United States, the decision to go to war rests with the elected representatives of those who will do the fighting and dying. It’s one of the defining – and critical – elements of the republic,” says the Christian Science Monitor. “That constitutional assignment of power to Congress has not always been followed in practice. And it’s in jeopardy now. “Our nation’s founders purposely...

Nepal and Pakistan provide good lessons in foreign policy to both Barack Obama and John McCain. The democratically-elected new Prime Minister of Nepal, Prachanda (photo above) who led a 10-year guerrilla war, now professes that his country’s era of “capitalist democracy” has begun. He was sworn in by Nepal’s first president, Ram Baran Yadav. Lesson No. 1: The president or prime minister of any country must not be sponsored/pushed by the USA to remain friendly. Good diplomacy...

War zone security has arrived in the US as cities are shut down at night by police struggling to control a deadly wave of gun crime, reports The Independent. “The police state has not arrived quite yet but it may feel like it to the residents of some American cities, where a handful of embattled mayors and police chiefs are imposing strict and sometimes sweeping curfews as a last resort to quell new waves of gun violence this summer.” More here… Here is my earlier post about schools...

A blog in Wall Street Journal has interesting subheadings: “Take your gun to school” and “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!” It reports that the trustees of the Harrold Independent School District, a tiny Texas school district, may be the first in the US to allow teachers and staff to pack guns for protection. More here… Some inspiring lessons and trainings for the students and the congregation!!!

The Australian describes Pervez Musharraf as “West’s most disappointing ally in the war on terror. Let’s be clear about this: Musharraf was a catastrophic failure for Pakistan. “He claimed to have turned the country around and to have turned it against the Taliban terrorists it had created and succoured in Afghanistan. In fact, he did nothing of the kind. Or rather, at the same time as he did a bit of that, his military continued to co-operate with the Taliban, which is...

Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation in a live telecast to his countrymen today. He warned that the country was going down the hill. He said would send his formal resignation today itself, thus saving himself from the humiliation of the impeachment proceedings against him. This follows hectic backroom parleys/bargaining between powerful diplomats from US, Britain and Saudi Arabia and the ruling political leaders in Pakistan. Now the question is: Will Musharraf stay...

As the presidential impeachment drama unfolds in Pakistan, the indications are that Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf might resign if he is allowed to stay on in Pakistan and gets immunity from legal action. I recommend three interesting stories as to where Musharraf could find a sanctuary. “The United States and Britain remain top of the list of with Turkey and Saudi Arabia the other options,” says The Times of India. “A wicked idea floated by Musharraf-haters: Send...

The woes of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf seem to be unending. While the Parliament has begun formulating the impeachment proceedings against Musharraf, Al-Qaida’s number two Ayman al-Zawahiri slammed “Pakistan’s embattled President Pervez Musharraf as an enemy of Islam in a first audio message in English posted online on Saturday,” reports NDTV, India’s influential TV channel. “In the message Zawahiri also dismissed the Pakistani army as a ‘band of...

Eight years ago Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, was thrown into prison and tried by the military regime led by General Pervez Musharraf. Sharif was jailed before being forced into exile in Saudi Arabia. On Friday the Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief arrived in Pakistan at a time when impeachment stares Musharraf in the face.The question being asked is whether President Musharraf would find a sanctuary in the desert kingdom. (My earlier post here…) The photo above...