While an opinion poll in Britain shows that 80 per cent of citizens want the monarchy to continue in their country, Nepal’s parliament voted Friday in favor of abolishing the centuries-old monarchy and turning this Himalayan nation into a republic. The BBC reports: “Some 78% of respondents agreed that Britain should still have a royal family and 19% disagreed. The Gfk NOP survey of 1,000 people aged 16 and over was commissioned by historian Prof Peter Hennessy, guest editor of Radio...

We all know how powerful and influential the pharmaceutical companies are worldwide. Often the question is asked whether enough research is being conducted to find out whether the drugs worth billions of rupees being consumed by the trusting public are safe and effective. The recent findings by government officials and a top medical institution has raised serious doubts on this score. Allergy to medicines ‘is killing thousands’, is the heading of a news story in The Times of London....

It is a sad day in the history of Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister and the opposition leader, was assassinated Thursday in a suicide bombing that also killed at least 20 others at a campaign rally, reports AP and BBC. Bhutto is survived by her husband Asif Ali Zardari and their three children: Bilawal, Bakhtwar, and Aseefa. Benazir Bhutto was born in Karachi, Dominion of Pakistan on June 21, 1953. She attended the Lady Jennings Nursery School and then the Convent of Jesus and Mary...

Thousands of pilgrims joined local Palestinians in celebrating Christmas Eve in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, and the observances were more cheerful than in previous years, reports VOA. “It’s a more joyful Christmas. We have more tourists, we have more pilgrims coming to the city of Bethlehem, twice as much as last year,” said Bethleham Mayor Victor Batarseh. “All the hotels are booked. I think this Christmas brings more joy to all the citizens of Bethlehem.” The...

At a time when Britain celebrates the reign of its longest serving monarch Queen Elizabeth II, Nepal has decided to bid adieu to its centuries old royal institution. “Nepal’s government has agreed to abolish the monarchy as part of a deal to persuade Maoist former rebels to rejoin the interim administration,” reports the BBC. “Under the deal, Nepal will be declared a republic after a general election has been held next year and a new constituent assembly established. The...

The cryptic comment above comes from a European diplomat based in Islamabad. This was his reply when the New York Times reporter asked the diplomat his reaction to the serious allegations by senior US officials that billions of dollars in American aid given to the Pervez Musharraf regime for anti-terrorism efforts have been wasted, and much of it was diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India rather than fight al-Qaeda and Taliban. India has been protesting to the US administration...

In the dark of a one-room shack, a new-born baby sleeps in the arms of a young mother. It could be a biblical scene. The glow from a kerosene lamp gives the mother a halo. Add an ox, a lamb and a manger, and this could be the story of Christmas, a painting of the Madonna and Child from the Middle Ages, or the living crib assembled by St Francis in the 13th century. Sierra Leone should be a scandal, a scar on the conscience of a world which, seven years ago, promised to eradicate extreme poverty,...

A grey-bearded, bespectacled, fiery orator ‘who has come close to becoming the rock star of right-wing politics in India’, Narendra Modi has won a dramatic victory in a regional election in India’s Western state of Gujarat. Modi was barred from entering America in March 2005 when his visa was revoked by the US administration for “violations of religious freedom” despite his party (Bharatiya Janata Party) being known to promote closer ties with Washington. Narendra Modi...

Close on the heels of signing the Kyoto Protocol, the newly-formed Labour Government in Australia is sending out a clear message about its priorities with regard to environment conservation worldwide. Australia and some 30 other countries lodged a diplomatic protest to send ‘very powerful signal’ of international displeasure over Japan’s whaling program, despite Tokyo’s suspension of its plans to kill humpbacks, reports IHT. Late Friday, Australia led a group of nations in...

People living outside America find it difficult to get a clear picture of the issues and candidates in the US presidential election 2008 as a majority of the US media and the blogs seem to have become rather emotive (and partisan?), and the verbiage in the news reports and commentary is not of much help to non-Americans. Perhaps this is understandable owing to the unenviable situation the USA finds itself today…but isn’t the media supposed to uphold the basic tenets of journalism by...

America’s Time magazine recently crowned Russian President Vladimir Putin as ‘Man of the Year’ and carried an article “A Tzar is Born”. But Russian Tsars of yore were always rich…so how can Putin lag behind? The Guardian reports: “The claims over the president’s assets surfaced last month when the Russian political expert Stanislav Belkovsky gave an interview to the German newspaper Die Welt. They have since been repeated in the Washington Post and...

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II crosses another significant milestone in her life that has been marked by highs and lows…On Thursday she is set “to become Britain’s oldest monarch, overtaking her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria amid signs the royal family is preparing for life after 81-year-old ‘Lillibet’, reports AFP (the photograph above is also courtesy AFP). It is reported that the monarch, who was born on 21 April 1926, will spend the day on her normal...

Indian and Chinese soldiers are at present playing war games in the Yunnan Province in the most southwest region of China (bordering the countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Burma), a first-ever such military exercise. Heralding a dramatic reversal in diplomatic relationship between the emerging two super powers that had fought a bloody war in 1962. This joint military exercise has a great symbolic value in the context of the improving Indo-Chinese relationship which have thawed considerably since 1993....

While the world media may be in a tizzy speculating about the recently-divorced French President’s new love affair, it should not surprise anyone if the French treat this development with a traditional Gallic shrug…as they did when President Francois Mitterrand had an affair with a young lover who had to be packed off to England when she became pregnant three decades ago. President Nicolas Sarkozy, 52, and Miss Carla Bruni, 39, who is Italian, appeared happy to be photographed together...

Britain bows out of a five-year war it could never have won, reads The Independent headline. This major story is unlikely to make it to the headlines in many of the US newspapers and American blogs. The grave implications of this development are either lost or are being intentionally underplayed. “Britain handed over security in Basra province yesterday, bringing a formal end to its ill-starred attempt over almost five years to control southern Iraq. The great majority of people in Basra were...

I lived in Paris for a few months in the mid-1970s. One of my favourite haunts was Bibliothèque Nationale. I had heard in whispers about its ambitious and controversial official project then on to collect France’s erotica and pornography. So I was not surprised by the latest news report that “France’s official hoard of erotica and pornography, lovingly assembled by the Bibliothèque Nationale over a period of 170 years, will be thrown open to the startled eyes of the public for...

Venue: Annapolis, Maryland. Subject: Middle East Peace Conference. Major Participants: The USA, the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Syrians, and the Saudis. This week, beginning Tuesday, will see President George Bush make his first, and almost certainly his only, major attempt to bring an end to the world’s most intractable conflict, reports The Independent. How will President Bush fare in a belated attempt to play peacemaker? “The reasons propelling the various parties to attend the...

On landing in Lahore after a long and forced exile in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif proclaimed that his objectives were to “rid the country of military rule and to strengthen democracy”. But how? General Musharraf continues to have the full backing of the US administration…But Sharif may like to cash on the friendship he may have developed with the Saudi King and others while enjoying the Arabian hospitality during his eight-year-long exile in...

Nawaz Sharif, the exiled former prime minister of Pakistan, has boarded the plane in Saudi Arabia and should reach his country at 5.25 pm (about 1200 GMT), his nephew told news agencies. Meanwhile Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz has gifted to Sharif two bulletproof Mercedes cars and also lent a helicopter for use during the elections from his personal fleet. Well if George Bush can gift so much to his protege General Musharraf for years, why not the Saudi King who hosted Sharif in Saudi Arabia...

When the Archbishop of Canterbury says that “the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday”, let us pause and see who is this man and why is he saying that. There is no point in getting into a hysterical “for” or “against” mode about what Dr Rowan Williams stated in a magazine interview recently. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, as well as the symbolic...