There was a near violent and undignified spat between President Hamid Karzai and President General Parvez Musharraf at President Bush’s recent White House dinner over the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. Now back in Kabul, President Karzai is still forcefully insisting that President Musharraf is hiding the truth and Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan. This report is published in a leading Pakistani paper The Dawn. India has been warning the USA for more than a decade that Pakistan is a training...

Our world leaders’ use of the Brechtian suspension of belief is admirable, but it’s really no way to run a war on terror, says Marina Hyde in The Guardian…Worth a read.

“There shall be wings! If the accomplishment be not for me, ’tis for some other. The spirit cannot die; and man, who shall know all and shall have wings…â€? - Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) ————————— “It is wonderfully appropriate that an Iranian-American woman is the first non-NASA based American woman to go into space. First of all, my experience as a vistor to Iran showed me how strong Iranian...

When many thought that the greying Robert Upshur “Bob” Woodward, one of the best-known investigative journalists in the United States, was leading a comfy life away from the harsh realities of the world, here comes his new book State of Denial. His ‘investigative’ spirit is probably still alive. Thanks largely to Woodward’s work (in a historical partnership with Carl Bernstein while working as a reporter for The Washington Post) in helping uncover the Watergate scandal,...

In the Associated Press photograph above President Bush seems to be saying to Musharraf and Karzai: “OK guys! Enough is enough. Now like good boys shake hands…Come on…” But the media tells us that President Parvez Musharraf of Pakistan and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan not only refused to kiss and make up but also did not speak to each other. Here is the AP report: “President Bush appealed to the bickering presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan on Wednesday...

More calls for dialogue in a Muslim world angered by Pope, says Asia News. “The Holy See’s diplomatic offensive seems to be working. Iran’s parliament hopes the Pope won’t fall ‘in the trap’ set by those seeking a clash of civilisations. More and more Islamic media detail the Pope’s full speech, demand greater knowledge of each other’s religion. “As some pour over Benedict XVI’s entire Regensburg speech instead of focusing on a single...

President George W. Bush and President Jacques Chirac of France said they agree on the strategy for pressing ahead in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear development program, it is reported. ” ‘The EU-3 will continue to dialog with the Iranians with the goal of getting Iran to suspend enrichment of uranium,’ Bush said of a European Union initiative after meeting with Chirac at the United Nations in New York. If that effort succeeds, he said, the U.S. ‘will come to the...

I may not agree with what President George Bush and his administration has been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the simple reason that this is going to hurt the USA in the long run. But what he is doing in the Indian subcontinent is unbelievable. Perhaps that’s why Bush has a large following in India. India and Pakistan are like small kids hell bent on bickering. I welcome when President Bush tells them to behave themselves. And they are obeying him!!! Here’s the Reuters story: ”...

This is the heading of the editorial in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Here is the Haaretz editorial: “During the final days of the war, when it became clear that the Israel Defense Forces had no solution to the ongoing launchings of Katyusha rockets, a decision was made to “flood” the area with cluster bombs, delivered by artillery shells and rockets. This was non-target specific shooting, based on the assumption that the bomblets would cover a large area, possibly destroy Hezbollah...

The war in Lebanon has not ended. Every day, some of the million bomblets which were fired by Israeli artillery during the last three days of the conflict kill four people in southern Lebanon and wound many more, reports The Indepedent. “The casualty figures will rise sharply in the next month as villagers begin the harvest, picking olives from trees whose leaves and branches hide bombs that explode at the smallest movement. Lebanon’s farmers are caught in a deadly dilemma: to risk the...

Pope Benedict XVI has apologised in person for causing offence to Muslims in a speech in Bavaria last week. He said the medieval text which he quoted did not express in any way his personal opinion, adding the speech was an invitation to respectful dialogue. The Pope has been under intense scrutiny amid angry reactions from throughout the Muslim world. Read on…

While the USA and Iran continue their war of words on this planet earth, here is an Iranian-born American citizen ready to touch the skies in a spacecraft on Monday. On September 18, Ansari and two astronauts are scheduled to blast off in a Russian Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Their space flight is scheduled to begin at 8:09 a.m. Moscow time. Anousheh Ansari, a United States citizen of Iranian origin, will become the world’s first woman space tourist....

(Lebanon Becharri Cathedral) Lebanon was again in the limelight only because of Israeli attack. Bloggers and others who wrote a great deal then are now not even concerned as to what is going on in Lebanon. Why is Lebanon important? This and other thoughts were sent to me by a friend in New York. He shares some interesting information too. 1. Lebanon has 18 religious communities. 2. It has 40 daily newspapers. 3. It has 42 universities. 4. It has over 100 banks (that is banks and not branches...

“It is the biggest contributor to climate change. Now chemists are hoping to convert carbon dioxide into a useful fuel, with a little help from the sun. If they succeed, it will be possible to recycle the greenhouse gas produced by burning fossil fuels. The work could also lead to a way for future Mars missions to generate fuel for their return journey from carbon dioxide in the planet’s atmosphere. Chemists have long hoped to find a method of bringing the combustion of fuel full circle...

Claudia Mitchell, a former US Marine, who lost an arm in a motorcycle accident, is the first woman to be fitted with a new prosthetic arm controlled by her own nerves, says The Times. “The night before she showed off the left arm at a news conference, she used it to cut a steak — the first she had been able to eat in a conventional way since her accident more than two years ago. ‘That was a very big thing for me,’ she said. “High-tech prosthetic limbs have a chequered...

When a British (Yorkshire) woman died in Baghdad in 1926, it was reported that the whole city, together with Islamic leaders and desert sheikhs, turned out to follow her coffin. Who was this woman? And what is her relevance today? An excellent biography of Gertrude Bell, the woman behind the creation of modern Iraq, goes far towards making her a true heroine, a Gertrude of Arabia to match her friend, T.E. Lawrence, says The Economist. “By all accounts Gertrude Bell was a phenomenon. Plus...

Nothing seems to be going well for the Iraqi and the U.S administration…Even the facade of democracy keeps coming apart in that country…But this is funny… Both the administrations are in a bind and facing an extremely embarrassing situation. What to do with the Chief Judge Abdullah al-Amiri, the Shiite judge presiding over the second Saddam Hussein trial, who has declared that “Saddam Hussein is not a dictator”. Despite the howls of protests from the prosecutors,...

It is going to appear like a real medieval war in Iraq with trenches being dug around the capital city of Baghdad, a city with a circumference of 60 miles!!! This is what the ancient kings and war lords used to do (but in a much limited way)…to secure the main city by building forts, moats and trenches and let the rest of the country go to the dogs. Shows that those who control Iraq/Baghdad may now be going bonkers. Or are they feeling that they have lost control? And now resorting to the...

Muslim leaders have accused the Pope of attacking the Islamic faith after a speech earlier this week in which Benedict XVI referred to the concept of jihad, or holy war, says The Times. A statement issued by the Vatican last night to clarify what was meant and to apologise for causing offence appears only to have made things worse. Religious and political leaders from Turkey to Pakistan, and organisations ranging from international Islamic bodies to militant websites, have accused Pope Benedict...

(Click on the map to enlarge.) My post Iran, Iraq and the USA : A Big Question Mark? has received interesting comments that need to be tackled in a separate post for the simple reason that many people who read the posts do not bother to read the comments. These comments discuss the possibility of splitting up Iraq on ethnic basis, and so deserve serious notice. Let me give you a few samples: First Comment: “I think the breakup of the country (Iraq) is inevitable at this point. The questions...

Many newspapers (especially in India) have been reeling under the post-globalization developments — advertorials, crass commercialization, embedded journalism, the vanishing line between the news and the advertisements, etc. — And almost reconciling to the fact that the power centre has shifted from the Editor’s office to the Management. Here comes a refreshing news that one of India’s largest-selling newspapers, The Hindustan Times, has appointed a former top Reuters journalist...

Here is the full transcript of the discussion on “Iran urges US to withdraw from Iraq” in The World Today (Thursday, 14 September, 2006) Reporter: Kim Landers ELEANOR HALL: Iran and Iraq have wrapped up two days of talks aimed at developing closer ties. The United States has frequently accused the Iranian regime of interfering in Iraqi politics and of fostering violence by allowing insurgents to cross the border. But Iran says it’s the presence of US troops in Iraq that’s...

It is difficult to exaggerate the economic collapse of Gaza, with the Palestinian Authority cut off from funds by Israel, the United States and the European Union after Hamas won the legislative elections on Jan. 25, says STEVEN ERLANGER in The New York Times. “Since then, the authority has paid most of its 73,000 employees here, nearly 40 percent of Gaza’s work force, only 1.5 months’ salary, resulting in a severe economic depression and growing signs of malnutrition, especially...

The UK’s Foreign Office minister Kim Howells has conceded that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s refusal to call for a ceasefire during 34 days of slaughter in Lebanon may have been a mistake. “The war lasted 34 days. It left 1,393 people dead. Another 5,350 injured. And more than 1,150,000 displaced, of whom 215,413 are still homeless. The damage amounts to more than £2.6bn. Exactly one month after it ended, Kim Howells admits that Tony Blair should have called for a ceasefire, says...

So it seems… MEN have royally messed up everything…Iraq, Afghanistan, the media world and so on. It is time MEN took a backseat and let WOMEN be in the driver’s seat. If I was an American I would vote for any WOMAN candidate belonging to any party in the next elections!!! And the WOMEN POWER is surely emerging! In the classes where I teach journalism in India the ratio between young men and women is nearly 30:70. Now we have news from the UK where it is the same story. WOMEN...