(Click on photo to enlarge) It’s a funny…funny…funny world. On the one hand we are witnessing the mighty United States of America flexing its muscles to go for Iran’s jugular. And, on the other, we have Iraq’s Prime Minsiter Nuri al-Maliki shaking hands vigorously with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran. Maliki is on his first official visit to the Islamic Republic. Iran offered on Tuesday to help establish security and stability in Iraq. I wonder what...

There are certain expressions commonly used in America but their meanings are unknown to non-Americans. One such word is “Neo-Con”. Here is an interesting explanation about this word, and how influential these neo-cons are in the U.S. polity.

(Mukhtar Mai aka Mukhtaran Bibi, who was gang raped in an act of punishment sanctioned by her village elders in Pakistani Punjab in February 2002 because her younger brother was seen with a woman from another tribe, is now writing her own internet diary about her life and her concerns, as an uneducated woman from a remote village.) Pakistan rape reform fails after President Musharraf caves in, says Jerome Taylor in The Independent. “In a setback for women’s rights in Pakistan, the ruling...

Enroute from South Africa Barrister Mohandas K Gandhi (center) meets with a British Colonel during the First World War. Gandhi had volunteered to form an ambulance corps of Volunteers, 1913. As much of the world marked September 11 by commemorating the 2001 attacks on the United States, India celebrated it as a day of peace — the 100th anniversary of Mohandas Gandhi’s philosophy of peaceful resistance, or ‘Satyagraha’, reports the International Herald Tribune. (There is also...

Some of America’s closest Nato allies have abandoned Washington on the key battleground of the War on Terror, the bloody struggle against Islamic militants for control of southern Afghanistan, says The Times. “Five years after the world stood “shoulder to shoulderâ€? with America in the aftermath of 9/11, The Times has learnt that many of the countries that pledged support then have now ignored an urgent request for more help in fighting a resurgent Taleban and its al-Qaeda...

Iran’s former President and controversial cleric bathed in the glow of democratic sunshine/traditions of Harvard where the audience listened to his remarks with extreme politness. Thus the university teachers and students gave yet another shining example of Harvard’s tradition of allowing a person the freedom to express his opinion, howsoever different this may be to their own way of thinking. Encouraging an end to the ‘cycle of violence’ and a development of democracy in...

Today’s edition of The New York Times raises certain vital questions. First, who does one trust. Here is the world’s only superpower whose leaders have been caught with their pants down. And who, on the basis of a web of lies, are hell bent on devastating the nations and the lives of innocent people in different parts of the world. The trusting American people have been taken for a ride. The US administration has been brainwashing them by spreading lies. A section of the media has been...

Today’s edition of The New York Times raises certain vital questions. First, who does one trust. Here is the world’s only superpower whose leaders have been caught with their pants down. And who, on the basis of a web of lies, are hell bent on devastating the nations and the lives of innocent people in different parts of the world. The trusting American people have been taken for a ride. The US administration has been brainwashing them by spreading lies. A section of the media has been...

How many more troops? Will the numbers guarantee any success against what I have been describing as fearless and independent Afghanis? Five years have passed of the occupation of Afghanistan by American troops and we still witness a killer bomb attack in the most protected area of Kabul. So if such a central place like the US Embassy cannot be secured, how would any number of NATO troops do anything in remote and treachrous mountains of south Afghanistan? The Soviets had to pay a heavy price fighting...

Some more good news. Israel ended sea blockade in Lebanon on Friday, says Reuters. Earlier Israel had lifted the aerial blockade.

(Click on photo to enlarge) Whatever be the motives of allowing Iran’s former President Mohammad Khatami to visit five cities of the United States in these unpredictable times – and in the face of opposition from hardliners in both America and Iran – it bodes well for keeping open the door for dialogue/discussion instead of reaching for the trigger in the face of a crisis. Khatami’s unusual appearance at Washington’s National Cathedral on Thursday evening, urging religious...

“Gaza is dying,” reports Patrick Cockburn from Gaza in The Independent. “The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored because the world’s attention has been diverted by wars in Lebanon and Iraq. “A whole society is being destroyed. There are 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in the most heavily populated area in...

Saw this website by chance. Read some poems by Joan Hughes. Haven’t heard her name before. Liked this one… LEAFLETS Handing leaflets out No, don’t shout, don’t shout Press gently into hand They’ll read what it is about Near the Foreign Office each Monday On the dark street corner stand Light a candle in the gloom Put a leaflet into hand Sunset over St. James Park Our work is just about to start On the darkling streets we dance Let the children live – have a heart A...

The relationship between George Bush and Tony Blair will not change despite the British Prime Minister’s announcement he will step down, the White House has said, reports BBC. The US president’s spokesman Tony Snow insisted Mr Blair was “a valuable ally” and said the pair still had “a lot of work to do” on the world stage. “He is somebody whose counsel the President much values,” Mr Snow added. (Click on the photo) British Prime Minister Tony Blair...

It can get quite claustrophobic on long haul flights within the narrow confines of an aircraft. But to have fellow passengers blabbering away in their mobiles hundreds of miles high up in the air, is soemthing I am not really looking forward to. You can’t even walk away! Like it or not, the prospect of being able to use mobile phones on aeroplanes is inching ever closer, says The Economist. Last week Ryanair, a European low-cost carrier, announced that it would equip its entire fleet of Boeing...

In a recent review paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of British and Chinese researchers argue that sex selection in countries like China and India may have already set the stage for national crises by creating a surplus of men and a shortage of women. For more read here. Being born as a male of the species in India, I can vouch for the pampering boys and young men are accustomed to in an average family in India. However, there are few places in India...

In a recent review paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of British and Chinese researchers argue that sex selection in countries like China and India may have already set the stage for national crises by creating a surplus of men and a shortage of women. For more read here. Being born as a male of the species in India, I can vouch for the pampering boys and young men are accustomed to in an average family in India. However, there are few places in India...

Some may wonder why I am writing on this subject when the bloggers and others are more embroiled in issues related to terrorism and such subjects. Let me explain. The issue of serious threat posed by Caesarean delivery has come to haunt the medical fraternity and general public once again…and the issue is no less grave than terrorism. Babies are up to three times more likely to die soon after delivery if their mothers choose a Caesarean section rather than a normal birth, a big American study...

Patrick Cockburn, the award-winning journalist and author, has reported extensively from Iraq, Afghanistan and Jordan. Here, he explains how the ‘war on terror’ has fuelled resentment of the West and brought new levels of death and destruction. “Yesterday was another black day in the “war on terror”. Across the Middle East, wave upon wave of violence engulfed the region and paid testament to the new, bloody reality five years on from 11 September. The focus of some of...

Fear and suspicion has grown like wildfire in the wake of ‘war on terrorism’. Many countries have been engulfed in this brutal fight. It is time for countries to do a bit of introspection – because by promoting hatred, fear and suspicion we may be creating schizophrenia among all which is at present incurable. In TV channels, newspapers and blogs we basically get to read what the Western perception is. But it is important to view the world from other people’s point of view....

An earlier TMV post talked about the Iranian former President Mohammed Khatami, who is currently on a lecture tour of the United States of America. Khatami was given a tourist visa and the Bush administration came under attack from certain quarters in America for extending this facility to Khatami. Now see this news item alongwith this bit of news. The UN chief Kofi Annan, who was on a visit to Iran, “eased the pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme yesterday when he stopped short of...

Qatar became the first Arab country Monday to commit troops to monitor a tense cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah as Pakistan’s prime minister toured devastated south Beirut and considered a similar offer says an AP report. “The planned 15,000-strong U.N. force is meant to secure a buffer zone between Israel and the Hezbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon. The U.N. cease-fire resolution calls for Hezbollah to eventually be disarmed, without specifically directing peacekeepers to take...

The editor of Lancet, 183-year-old renowned medical journal from Britain, is under attack from the Nobel prizewinners in the Royal Society over what is described as ‘publication of flawed research’. The Times reports that “BRITAIN’S premier medical journal is endangering public health by publishing unfounded scare stories, 30 of the country’s leading scientists say today. “Poor editorial judgment at The Lancet has fuelled panic over issues such as the measles,...

(Click on photo to enlarge) “RARELY has a waste-disposal programme been so closely scrutinised or so keenly awaited,” says The Times under the heading ‘One Great Lump for Mankind’. “As a small piece of space-junk was relegated to the great dustbin in the sky yesterday, observatories swivelled their powerful lenses to the heavens and thousands of observers squinted through telescopes to witness its dramatic dispatch. “The operation by the European Space Agency (ESA)...

Let us see what an important Iranian sitting in one of Chicago’s smartest hotels has to say about ‘extremism’. Sounds interesting. What is more interesting is the timing of allowing him to enter the USA when the American administration seems poised to take on Iran on the nuclear issue. “The Iranian might appear an improbable figure in the breakfast room of the hotel, dressed in his black turban and long gown, his spectacles giving him the appearance of a university don –...