Britain is to become the first country in the world to set legally binding targets for cutting its carbon dioxide emissions, says The Independent. The targets will be aimed at cutting emissions of the gas which causes global warming by between 26 per cent and 32 per cent by 2020, and 60 per cent by 2050. In a draft Bill published yesterday, ministers promised to enshrine into law their commitment to cut emissions. Opposition parties and Labour MPs joined forces in calling for an 80 per cent reduction. *New...

Pakistan’s Chief Justice was roughed up by the police. For more photos of violent demonstrations look up BBC. President Pervez Musharraf seems to have disturbed the hornets’ nest by sacking on Friday Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. With pressure mounting from the US to “do more” vis-a-vis the Taliban, this is a dangerous development for General Musharraf at home. In view of the protests and violence spreading in different parts of...

Photo courtesy The Stock Solution. Ms Cherie Booth, the British Prime Minister’s wife, has called for a huge expansion of face-to-face justice, in which offenders meet their victims and apologise for their crimes. She warns that sending people to jail does not alter their long-term attitudes and behaviour. Says The Times: “The jail system is facing an overcrowding crisis and courts in England and Wales are being put on standby to hold prisoners in cells overnight. “A set of emergency...

Today’s Op-Ed Page in The New York Times states that ‘the sound-bite arguments’ are hijacking the debate that the United State’s Congress needs to have about the Iraq war. “Defenders of President Bush concede that Congress has ‘the power of the purse’ and insist it could use it to completely ‘cut off the funds to the troops.’ But that, most of them say, is the only power Congress has to change the course of the war. “They then insinuate...

The Times of India today asked this question. “The writing seems to be on the wall for Pakistan’s military ruler Pervez Musharraf. Uncle Sam, the General’s Patron-in-Chief, is showing signs of cashiering his favoured stooge and preparing grounds for his succession.” While The New York Times says: “For decades, the military has been the most dominant institution in Pakistan. If Mr. Musharraf were to fall to an assassin’s bullet, American diplomatic and intelligence...

This is what Jim Muir of the BBC reports from Baghdad “The one-day conference of Iraq’s neighbours, attended by other interested parties including the Americans and British, seems to have passed off as well as anybody expected. “It was the first formal encounter between the Americans and Iranians – who have no diplomatic relations – for more than two years. US relations with Syria are almost as bad. “Both countries are accused by Washington of fostering terrorism...

According to a poll released Tuesday by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), American women are very, very tired, says The Newsweek magazine. “Sixty percent say they don’t get enough rest most nights of the week while 43 percent report that daytime sleepiness interferes with their regular activities. “Persistent sleep problems are a major public-health issue because inadequate rest puts women at risk for other troubles. The survey found a clear association between poor sleep and...

China is on the verge of guaranteeing its teeming population the right to property. This development has been described as China’s ‘next revolution’. Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, where nearly 3,000 delegates to China’s parliament – the National People’s Congress (NPC) – had assembled this week, was a witness to this historic decision. The Chinese Communist Party decided to give individuals the same legal protection for their property as the...

Here is a US General, who knows the ground reality in Iraq, making very important comments. But will these be able to penetrate the iron walls that now seem to surround the White House and be heard by those who matter? The new U.S. commander in Iraq said on Thursday military force would not end violence unless talks were held with some militant groups and warned of more “sensational attacks” during the current crackdown in Baghdad, says Reuters. “General David Petraeus, at his...

At times it is good to go through the basics all over again. Read on…

Has the US Vice-President’s reported stern warning to Pakistan begun to work? The New York Times says in a report that the former Taliban defense minister, Mullah Obaidullah, was arrested in Pakistan on Monday, the day of Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit, two government officials said Thursday. He is the most important Taliban member to be captured since the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. “He is one of the inner core around Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader....

Under this heading, the Khalid Hasan writes in the Daily Times of Pakistan that today many Pakistani journalists fear their government’s intelligence agencies more than any Islamic militant. “The roughing up of New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall by intelligence hoods in her Quetta hotel room on 19 December and the despicable treatment given her photographer has brought shame to Pakistan. I have been speaking to the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York as to what response...

The number of Americans living in severe poverty has expanded dramatically under the Bush administration, with nearly 16 million people now living on an individual income of less than $5,000 (£2,500) a year or a family income of less than $10,000, according to an analysis of 2005 official census data, says The Independent. “The analysis, by the McClatchy group of newspapers, showed that the number of people living in extreme poverty had grown by 26 per cent since 2000. Poverty as a whole...

Pakistan’s military ruler Pervez Musharraf has fallen from Washington’s good grace, reports The Times of India correspondent from Washington. “President Bush, who called Musharraf his ‘tight buddy’ couple of years ago, has decided to send him an ‘unusually tough message’ over his failure to deliver results in the war on terrorism, the New York Times reported on Monday, quoting unnamed senior administration officials. “Cheney, considered the hardliner...

Yes, says The Times. “Hezbollah, the militant Shia organisation, is building a new line of defences just north of the United Nations-patrolled zone in south Lebanon ahead of a potential resumption of war with Israel. “The military build-up, only six months after the last Lebanon-Israel conflict, is being conducted in valleys and hillsides guarded by uniformed Hezbollah fighters in the rugged mountains north of the Litani river — the limit of the 12,000 strong UN Interim Force...

To read the story on ‘arranged marriages’ in a Saudi paper please click here. We had interesting comments that followed two TMV posts – The Lessons of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ by Shaun Mullen, and my post on Myth of Muslim Support for Terror A few comments came from Laura. In one of those Laura says: “We ought to be prejudice towards our own civilization because it is superior to islam, which is a misogynist culture that brutally oppresses women and is anathema...

On top is the heading of the article Kenneth Ballen wrote in The Christian Science Monitor. “The common enemy is violence and terrorism, not Muslims any more than Christians or Jews. “Those who think that Muslim countries and pro-terrorist attitudes go hand-in-hand might be shocked by new polling research: Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria. “The survey, conducted in December 2006 by the University...

Tony Blair has declared himself at odds with hawks in the US Administration by saying publicly for the first time that it would be wrong to take military action against Iran. The Prime Minister’s comments came hours before the UN’s nuclear watchdog raised the stakes in the West’s showdown with Tehran, says The Times. “…Mr Blair, in a BBC interview yesterday, said: ‘I can’t think that it would be right to take military action against Iran . . . What...

Imagine for a moment sending your kid day after day to school with no guarantee that the child would come back alive. Teachers, heads and school inspectors from Iraq who came for a visit to the U.K. on an invitation from Britain’s National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) provided a first hand account of the daily life experienced by Iraqi school kids, mothers and teachers. The Guardian report states: “An astonishing picture of life inside Baghdad’s...

Another interesting write-up in The Economist is about slave trade that Britain abolished 200 years ago this week…

Amid talk of a merger between Catholicism and Anglicanism, The Economist takes a look at how the two businesses might fit together…

As India hits the high road to global integration and its leaders dream of the country as a potential economic/military super power, its traditional and deep-rooted social unit called the family seems to be undergoing extreme stress and a crisis. This issue has now gained national importance with the Prime Minister of India, Mr Manmohan Singh, convening a Union Cabinet meeting and agreeing to introduce a bill in the Indian Parliament to make neglect of elderly parents (by their children) a serious...

In the backdrop of the horrific bombings on their friendship train, India and Pakistan Wednesday signed an agreement to reduce the risk of nuclear accidents. This is a welcome development in an area described as a nuclear flashpoint by some Western experts. Indian and Pakistani officials signed an agreement on “Reducing the Risk from Accidents Relating to Nuclear Weapons” in the presence of Foreign Ministers Pranab Mukherjee and Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri at Hyderabad House on Wednesday,...

Here is a thought provoking edit in The New York Times: “The Iraq war has plunged the Army into a vicious cycle of declining standards. Multiple, extended tours of duty have sapped morale and blighted recruiting. New plans for a larger overall force could reduce pressures but would also mean that recruiters would have to meet higher quotas. “To keep filling the ranks, the Army has had to keep lowering its expectations. Diluting educational, aptitude and medical standards has not been...

This is the harsh editorial heading in today’s edition of The Independent following a news report based on the findings of leading American scientists. “The madness of the over-fishing of our oceans shows no signs of abating. A research paper presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco yesterday shows that, as fish stocks in coastal waters become more and more depleted, trawlers are moving further out to sea… “What makes this rape...