Since Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the USA, he has largely remained out of sight, getting high-level government briefings and conferring with his transition team. But he eventually surfaced, alongside his wife Michelle to give 60 Minutes his first post-election interview.
Civilians in Afghanistan have paid the heavist price for the conflict in their country, caught up almost daily in both Taliban attacks and air raids by US force.
Sarah Palin would call this place, and these people, the real America - Joe the Plumber country. But Oxford's plumber, Calvin Colony, keeps pet lions ("You can train 'em, but you can never tame 'em") and makes annual treks to a nudist resort in the Caribbean. The Oxford Project is full of such small, exquisite discoveries - personal stories that defy and debunk the stereotypes of smalltown America.
Via Philadelphia Inquirer
A new approach to the Middle East is necessary, says Dr Claire Spencer of Chatham House. But first, Barack Obama must lower expectations.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh speaks during a press conference in Srinagar. After some years of relative calm in the Kashmir Valley, recent months have seen some of the most intense anti-India feeling for about 20 years.
> AP Photo by Mukhtar Khan
The tensions were sparked by a plan to grant land to a board that oversees the running of a Hindu shrine. The proposal led to serious friction between the Muslims of the valley and their neighbours in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region. More than 30 people have been killed by the police since the protests began.
> Kashmir on Talk-Desi
BBC News Says: Curfew in Kashmir comes to an end
A eighty-four year old man in Northern Nigeria has prompted anger from Muslims, even receiving death threats, for having 86 wives. Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege, reports from Bida, where Mohammed Bello has caused huge controversy.
From deep within the Colombian jungle, this documentary tells the story of three American defense contractors held hostage since their plane crashed in 2003.
Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
“I don’t know … there must be a simple way. The borrower comes back with his or her deposit receipt, presents it to the cashier, and the cashier gives back the money. Whatever accounting the bank does is the bank’s business.”
The manager shook his head but did not answer. “It seems to me your banking system is designed to be anti-illiterate,” I countered.
About the AuthorMuhammad Yunus was born in 1940 in Chittagong, a seaport in Bangladesh. The third of fourteen children, five of whom died in infancy, he was educated at Dhaka University and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University. In 1972 he became the head of the economics department at Chittagong University. He is the founder of the Grameen Bank.
A nation - forced off their land & subjected to military-occupation by Israel.
> "Palestine Is Still The Issue": One - Two - Three - Four
Bangladesh is heading towards the path of becoming the third nuclear nation in South Asia. The topic came in discussion during meetings between the Chinese minister Yang Jiechi and Bangladesh's foreign advisor Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury.
The Chinese minister was on a two-day tour to Bangladesh recently.
The foreign advisor of Bangladesh said, China is a partner and the visit of Chinese minister would further strengthen this relationship.
´Our friendship is rooted in history, but like all relationships, ties between nations also have to be renewed and reinvigorated from time to time, and this visit was an occasion to do just that,´ the foreign adviser stated.
The Chinese foreign minister said, military cooperation is an important part of the overall bilateral relation between Bangladesh and China. Jiechi, who also met the army chief, General Moeen U Ahmed, made the remarks to journalists.
Via American Chronicle
Polar bear cub Flocke jumps in the water at the zoo in Nuremberg. Four-month old Flocke -- German for snowflake -- has until now been kept behind closed doors.
> Reuters Pictures
A nation - forced off their land & subjected to military-occupation by Israel.
> "Palestine Is Still The Issue": One - Two - Three - Five
This film examines the life and death of Steve Biko, following his death in custody.
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." These words testify to the passion, courage, and keen insight that made him one of the most powerful figures in the struggle against apartheid.
This list features the websites for key political party websites based on US Internet usage. This ranking list has been customized to feature only select websites.Note: Hitwise data is based on US market share of visits, which is the percentage of online traffic to the Lifestyle - Politics category, from the Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users. Hitwise measures more than 1 million unique websites on a daily basis, including sub-domains of larger websites.
- The Huffington Post
- BarrackObama.com
- CNN Political Ticker
- Free Republic
- RealClearPolitics
- HilaryClinton.com
- Politico
- Elections: Fox News
- Daily Kos
- Election: MSN
Hitwise categorizes websites into industries on the basis of subject matter and content, as well as market orientation and competitive context.
Source - Hitwise - week ending March 8, 2008 - based on market share of visits.
What do the arch hawks of the Bush administration, such as Paul Wolfowitz, have in common with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard?
Answer: they both fêted Ahmad Chalabi, the former Iraqi banker who put “regime change” in Baghdad at the top of US agenda. Chalabi attracts adoration and enmity in equal measure and has courted controversy through his life.
Chalabi comes across here as a charismatic, Machiavellian individual, fascinated with the world of intelligence from the beginning. He moved the Washington establishment towards the invasion of Iraq but appears to have paid no thought about what to do afterwards, except that he wanted a central role.
There is much detail here about how he took tens of millions of dollars, first from the CIA, with whom he fell out; then from the State department, with whom he fell out; and then from the defence department, with whom he fell out. Government auditors struggled in vain to discover how this money was spent.
Chalabi often promised more than he delivered. He was to provide troops for the Free Iraqi Forces, which the Pentagon would train to enter Iraq.
A training centre was established, where 1,100 US soldiers and trainers waited, but Chalabi sent nobody. The programme cost an estimated $200m and the number of Iraqis trained was, in the words of a general, “teeny-tiny”.
Via FT
There are two distinct versions of the operation mounted by the US Navy to shoot down a crippled military satellite over the Pacific. The official version, expounded in mind-numbing detail by Pentagon officials yesterday, is that the US had no choice but to launch a missile to bring down the satellite.
It had been out of control since its launch 13 months ago.
A supplementary argument, not broached by the Pentagon, was that the military technology loaded on to the satellite was not anything that America wanted another country to find on its territory.
The other interpretation of the mission is not incompatible with the first but far more worrying. While acknowledging that the satellite was in trouble and a missile strike was one way of dealing with it, this version has it that the operation was in fact a covert test of a space weapon.
Such tests were outlawed by the US-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty of 1972. By abrogating the treaty in one of his first acts as President, George Bush opened the way for tests of the "son" of Reagan's "Star Wars".
Since then, the US has conducted a series of experiments in which missiles have been launched to intercept other missiles, with varying degrees of success.
A year ago, China surprised America when it shot down a satellite at a very high altitude. It was the most glaring demonstration yet of China's steady rise as a military power. It is hard not to regard this week's show of missile prowess by the US as directed towards China. Beijing, for one, was in no doubt.
Via The-Independent
Alex-Jones provides evidence pointing towards the involvement of the British government in the 7/7 London Bombings in this extract from Terror-Storm.
Reporter Ramita-Navai travels through India exposing the horrific plight of the country's millions of Dalits: literally "the broken people".
