“Robert Clive of India.” There has been a wonderful response to Michael van der Galien’s post Britain’s Lost Soul. I must say here that President George W. Bush and his team have done an excellent job of brainwashing people that “evil” nations of Iraq and Iran would swallow the Western nations. And this fear has paralysed public discourse in the USA. (I am surprised that in the comments that followed Michael’s post, Afghanistan and Bin Laden do not figure...

Benazir Bhutto’s supporters protested recently against Gen. Pervez Musharraf, though she has muted her criticisms to ease her path to elections. Photo: Nadeem Khawer/European Pressphoto Agency As the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, wrestles with swelling public disaffection over his rule, one of his key political rivals, Benazir Bhutto, has embarked on an international campaign to revive her political standing, says The New York Times. “In recent weeks, Ms. Bhutto, 53,...

New York artist Leonard Rosenfeld created this portrait of David Petraeus in 2004, inspired by Petraeus’s famous question on Iraq: “Tell me how this ends.â€? Thank you Marc Schulman for the suggestion to read Jim Lehrer’s lengthy interview with the General Petraeus on PBS NewsHour. I have been doing a bit of research on this General, and the Lehrer interview confirms my findings that this Chief of the US army in Iraq is not an ordinary soldier/human being… Well, to...

Each development in the show trials of Guantánamo Bay inmates brings fresh evidence of how urgent it is for the courts to strike down the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and for Congress to rewrite it, says an editorial in The New York Times. “There has been much speculation about the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear an appeal from a group of Guantánamo Bay inmates until they have exhausted their legal options. “Was the court signaling that the appeal had no merit?...

Amy Kellog of Fox News provides an interesting first-person account of how she was caught off guard while listening to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… Read on…

An Iraqi holds a British soldier’s helmet after a road side bomb hit a British patrol in Basra, Iraq. Iraq continues to remain a killer zone for foreign troops stationed there. Not much is known how successful the American army’s ‘surge’ is, or it’s cost in terms of civilian life and property. But the latest reports and pictures are indeed disturbing. “A U.S. Army helicopter went down south of Baghdad Thursday, injuring four of the nine soldiers aboard, while...

Nancy Pelosi, accompanied by Tom Lantos (in red tie), points to dried fruits and herbs during a tour of a central Damascus market in Syria. Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP If you can’t beat them then join them! That’s an old saying which President George W. Bush needs to follow to upstage the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s much-publicised trip to the middle east. Sitting and sulking in the White House will not help much. After her visit to Syria, Ms Pelosi reached Saudi Arabia and...

Simon Massey, right, and Kaye Turney, the only woman amongst the 15 British service personnel released by Iran, smile after arriving at London’s Heathrow Airport, Thursday April 5, 2007. (AP Photo/Tim Ockenden-pa) What really led to the resolving of the Iran-Britain hostage crisis? We would have enough of it in the coming days. But the first story that comes out (from Associated Press) is that Syria played a crucial role in ending the Britain’s standoff with Iran. Indeed strange are...

WORLD PEACE! Courtesy Shanup Gundecha The successful resolution of the British/Iranian naval hostage crisis once again highlights the need for tactful diplomacy to solve problems that may appear intractable. Whatever the provocation, the concerned parties must talk instead of saber-rattling which seems to have become a favourite pastime of the present residents of the White House. One wonders how long the American Congress and the public tolerate this irresponsible and adventurist behaviour that...

The 15 Royal Navy crew, held captive by Iran, left Tehran Airport at about 0800 local time (0530 BST) on a British Airways flight bound for Heathrow… For more click here… Here’s BBC’s “Q&A: Iran’s handling of sailors crisis”. Please click here… Excerpts: How will this go down inside Iran? A lot of Iranians will be relieved that this crisis has come to a peaceful conclusion. The Iranian people are already fearful that the dispute with the West...

And that’s a serious matter, suggests The Christian Science Monitor in an article ‘Is US Army bent to the breaking point?’ “When some 4,500 soldiers heard over the weekend that they’d be deploying to Iraq earlier than expected, many saw it as yet another inconvenience that military personnel must endure. “But to some in Washington, the announcement is a glaring sign that the Army really is straining and that its well of rested, trained, and equipped soldiers...

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on a visit to Syria opposed by the White House, said on Wednesday she conveyed an Israeli message to President Bashar al-Assad that the Jewish state was ready to resume peace talks, says a news report. ” ‘(Our) meeting with the president enabled us to communicate a message from Prime Minister (Ehud) Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks as well,’ Pelosi told reporters in Damascus after talks with Assad. ” ‘We were very...

News regarding Gitmo are getting murkier and murkier. Here’s the latest about the American CIA and the British intelligence MI5… “Two British residents held in Guantanamo Bay for more than four years were detained by the CIA after MI5 failed to recruit them as paid informants, according to documents released in the United States, says The Times. “The extent of MI5’s involvement with Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna — including offers of new lives and new identities...

President Ahmadinejad meets one of the sailors at his presidential office after agreeing to free them. The president of Iran shook hands with the British hostages this afternoon after announcing he was freeing them, says a news report. “Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he had pardoned them as an Easter present for the British people and to mark the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed. “Ahmadinejad smiled as he talked through an interpreter to several of the men held captive for 13 days in the...

What has been particularly frustrating about the debate in Washington over Iraq is that everyone seems to be fighting one another and forgetting the fundamental mission of the war, writes Leon E. Panetta in an Op-Ed piece today in the New York Times. He was a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and a member of the Iraq Study Group. “Whether one is for or against the war, the key to stability is to have an Iraq that, in the words of the president himself, can ‘govern itself,...

I have a fascination for trains and prefer rail travel to flying. Oh!…But now the trains have begun to fly!!! Goodbye to slow and gentle art of travel…? To read the thrilling/’terrifying’ first-person account by a journalist on board the French TGV train that hit 357mph yesterday (and created a world record), please click here… “At 357mph, it was impossible to focus on anything within a mile of the train. Even distant hilltop villages flashed past in a second. “We...

In my last post the news story did not give the exact magnitude of the protest in Pakistan. Here is the latest The Guardian story… “Thousands of boisterous opposition supporters massed outside Pakistan’s supreme court yesterday in the largest show of support yet for the beleaguered Chief Justice, Muhammad Iftikhar Chaudhry. “Activists from across the political spectrum massed outside the imposing marble building as Mr Chaudhry faced disciplinary hearings inside. “The...

New Delhi is the venue of the 14th SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) annual summit. India is chairing the two-day summit where leaders from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Maldives are participating. Officials from the European Union, the United States, China, Japan and South Korea are attending the summit as observers. The eight-member organization was designed for South Asian nations to forge a regional consensus on various issues and establish...

Pakistan’s suspended chief judge has appeared before a judicial panel in the capital, as a political street battle over his fate enters its fourth week. From Islamabad, VOA Correspondent Benjamin Sand reports that lawyers and political activists continue taking to the streets in the thousands, protesting the suspension and calling for the Pakistani president to resign. Read on… “Political analysts here say the current political storm may be the greatest challenge Mr. Musharraf,...

An interesting CNN video…ITN’s Kylie Morris takes a look inside a madarsa for Pakistani girls.