I came across an interesting nonfiction essay “The Pilgrimage” by Susan L. Adkins (sent to me by a young sensitive lady Sucharita Sengupta who now lives in New Delhi). Susan describes her visit to the site of an ancient ruin in Pakistan. The essay was recently published in a Pakistani journal, The Way Ahead. Susan has also published nonfiction in a number of magazines, including the Cousteau Society’s Calypso Log, New Scientist (U.K.), MS., Viewpoint (Pakistan), and others. Excerpts:...

David Hicks at his Adelaide home prior to his incarceration at Gitmo The Australian provides an interesting glimpse into Guantanamo Bay Naval Base prison where Adelaide-resident David Hicks, 31, has been detained for more than six years on charges of alleged terrorist activities. It says: “Detainees are glimpsed pacing manically in their cells. Others look calm – as much as you can tell from a distance. “Guards rove the galley constantly, looking through a sliver of thick glass...

Captured British Navy personnel Faye (Topsy) Turney who may be released soon Some sense seems to have dawned on Iranian leadership. The latest news is that Iran now admits that 15 British Navy personnel may have entered Iranian waters by ‘mistake’. Forbes says that “Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki discounted the possibility of an escalation in the crisis, suggesting the British vessels may have made a mistake. ” ‘This is a violation that just happened....

James Hider, The Times correspondent in Baghdad, says “Tal Afar is quickly becoming a symbol of the failure of US policy in Iraq.” (To read my earlier story on the horrific revenge killings in Iraq please click here…) “The Americans have been in there twice before as part of two huge operations. They pacified the situation, but each time they handed it over to the Iraqi security forces the problems started again. “There are a number of reasons for this. “Tal Afar...

More horror stories are pouring in unabated from Iraq. Gunmen have executed up to 50 Sunnis in an ethnically divided Iraqi town, in what appeared to be a horrific revenge attack for the slaughtering of 75 mainly Shia Muslims in a double-truck bombing only hours before, reports The Times. “In signs that the sectarian conflict in the north-western Iraqi community of Tal Afar is rapidly spiralling out of control, dozens of men were randomly shot in the head by rampaging gunmen in an overnight...

Controversy surrounding this famous film actress refuses to die. Here is the latest… Marilyn Monroe may have been tricked into killing herself as part of a plot hatched with the knowledge of the former US attorney general, Robert Kennedy, according to a secret FBI file, says The Independent. “The document, uncovered by an Australian film director, Philippe Mora, suggests Monroe was ‘induced’ to make a suicide attempt, in the belief she would be found in time, and her stomach...

For history of European Union flag click here… Neither God nor Christianity will feature in a 50th birthday declaration for the European Union which will highlight European values and list key challenges for the future such as climate change, says The Independent. “Five days before the celebrations for the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the statement to be issued by EU leaders is being fine-tuned behind closed doors by officials in Germany, which holds the EU presidency. “Across...

Five more Pakistani judges resigned yesterday and hundreds of lawyers demonstrated against President General Pervez Musharraf’s controversial removal of the country’s chief justice, deepening the political mess now facing the military leader, reports The Independent. “Musharraf suspended Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry on March 9 over unspecified allegations that he had abused his authority and now faces a growing current of public resentment over the army’s...

It is intriguing that a former Prime Minister of Pakistan should be camping in the US at a time when all the eyes in the world are turned towards President Musharraf’s struggling regime, that happens to be America’s (or to be more precise President Bush’s) front line partner in the ‘war against terror’. Some analysts have suggested that Ms Benazir Bhutto (now in New York), long suspected of having behind-the-scenes contacts with General Musharraf, may be emerging in...

Hey, this is a funny story!…It seems that about one-third of the people living in Washington D.C., the US capital, are ‘functionally illiterate’, compared with about one-fifth nationally, according to a report on the District of Columbia. And I once thought that illiteracy was associated with developing countries!!! But wait a minute. What is the definition of illiteracy?…The ‘adults are considered functionally illiterate if they have trouble doing such things as...

Now this is called Full Circle…As India and US struggle to hammer out a civilian nuclear agreement, some heavy water is quietly flowing between the two countries, reports The Times of India. “For the first time, India exported 4.4 metric tonnes of heavy water to an American firm — Spectra Gases, headquartered in New Jersey with branches in the UK, Germany and Singapore. “India is the world’s largest heavy water producer and has exported it to other countries. India...

To view the CNN ad regarding this book please click here… Amazon.com provides the following ‘Book Description’: DIVIDE PAKISTAN TO ELIMINATE TERRORISM is Syed Jamaluddin’s vision to address issues related to combatting terrorism emanating from Pakistan which have dramatically transformed the entire region into a systematically controlled network having vicious effects to the global peace. “This book gives an indepth analysis about the role of Pakistan’s Inter-Services...

That’s the question of the day in the navel-gazing world of the blogosphere. But let me assure you that this question/allegation does not come from the White House/politicians/establishment!!! This question is posed by a fellow blogger, and he answers it himself. Nicholas Carr, who says he ‘scavenges’ at his blog named roughtype, writes: “It is worth remembering that, in a literary context, another word for ‘parasitic’ is ‘critical.’ Blogging is,...

During my college days when I studied political science (and even later in life), what fascinated me most while going through various constitutions in the world, was the US system of ‘checks and balances’ to ensure maximum freedom in all aspects of American life. There have been challenges in the past (and present) but somehow this provision helps the US triumph over odds. Interestingly, ‘Separation of Powers’, a term coined by French political Enlightenment thinker Baron...

This cartoon appeared in Le Monde. There is a lot of speculation as to why President Musharraf sacked Pakistan’s Chief Justice. But it is becoming clear that by taking this harsh step, and brutally suppressing his detractors, his credibility as a somewhat tolerant military dictator has received a serious setback. The General seems to be losing fast his middle-class constituency/supporters and could now hope to remain in his hot seat with the munificence of his friend President Bush and, unfortunately,...

Police in Pakistan’s Lahore city stormed a convention of lawyers on Saturday and arrested several of them, according to latest reports. “Lawyers attending the meet were brutally beaten up and lawyers in the High Court struck back with stones. Lawyers in business suits poured out of the meeting and hurled stones at police who threw them back. Police chasing stone-throwers ransacked nearby offices, witnesses said. “The High Court has now been sealed. The violent standoff began after...

While we are often sucked into endless debate on Iraq, Afghanistan and ‘War on Terror’, we miss out on lot of other exciting things happening in the world. If only we could look beyond the world of our own making… Here’s a fascinating story about a different kind of expedition to the Everest. A British Professor has decided to take his kids to the highest peak in the world to undertake medical tests. Monty Mythen, Smiths Medical Professor of Anaethesia and Critical Care...

Two senators who watched Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confess to planning the Sept. 11 attacks and other plots said Friday that his allegations of mistreatment by U.S. captors should be taken seriously. “To do otherwise would reflect poorly on our nation,” Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a joint statement, reports The Washington Post. “Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that he doesn’t know if Mohammed’s stunning claims were all true...

This is what The Independent says…. “As Congress moved towards a vote on withdrawing US forces next year, the Pentagon issued its latest and bleakest assessment of conditions in Iraq, for the first time acknowledging the country had, in effect, plunged into ‘civil war’. “The report focuses on the final three months of 2006, immediately before President George Bush’s ‘surge’ in US troops that appears to have led to some decline in daily violence in Baghdad. “But...

Here is one of the most unlikely management gurus to embark on a tour of American universities. A federal railway minister in India, (who chews beetle nuts in public and uses a spittoon…and was also involved in a graft case), Lalu Prasad Yadav was until a few years ago regarded as a political clown, a man so comical that a chocolate bar had a caricature of him on its packaging, and comedians made careers out of imitating him, says The Indpendent. “But that was before he took over India’s...

Proposals for a centralised database of fingerprints from across the Continent were revealed yesterday, fuelling fears on all sides of a Big Brother Europe, says The Times report. “The scheme for a computerised collection of personal details drawn from all 27 countries in the EU is the latest in a raft of anticrime measures in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the United States. “The aim is for the database to be up and running by the end of next year. The sensitive information it contains...

Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf personally apologised for a raid by riot police on a private television station on Friday, in a rare live telephone interview with the channel, says DNA. Footage showed police entering the office of Geo Television in Islamabad during violent protests over the sacking of the country’s chief justice and breaking windows and smashing equipment. “The police damaged our infrastructure. This attack on the freedom of the press is unprecedented...

Nearly 50 Indian policemen and local tribal militias were killed yesterday after an attack by Maoist guerrillas on a jungle security camp at Chhattisgarh, nearly 930 miles south-east of New Delhi. The guerrillas set fire to the post before escaping with a substantial arms haul including machine guns and rifles. The Telegraph says: “The Maoists, who launched their ‘people’s war’ three decades ago claim to be fighting for the rights of landless farmers and neglected tribes...

The very mention of the word “madarsa” or Islamic religious school almost creates a hysteria. It was interesting to see this video on “Christian classes” in the US schools. Vittal in his blog writes: “It really scares me to see how people base their moral judgments strictly on their religious beliefs and teachings. Let me make it very clear – I am not against any religion or god. I have drawn tremendous amount of hope and energy from spiritual readings. “But...

Here comes the first signal that there is a serious crisis. Pakistan’s President Musharraf has decided to meet his key army generals for consultation. He is yet to learn the basic lesson…that Pakistan also has civilian Opposition leadership that needs to be consulted. Otherwise the bluff and bluster game would come to an end sooner than later. “A crisis meeting of the Pakistan army’s key corps commanders – the country’s kingmakers and coup-plotters – was...