| pakistani perspective |
|
| San Francisco | London | Karachi |
Welcome to the pakistani perspective. This site covers the international internet media on stories and commentaries relevant to a Pakistani audience. It collects views from a wide variety of sources and presents them Editor Email Syndicate |
| Powered by Bloglet |
|
| Sponsored Ads |
Sunday, November 30, 2003
One in seven arranged marriage victims is male - Independent
"Scores of young British men are being forced into marriage against their will every year, a specialist Foreign Office unit has discovered... Victims have been taken by their families to Pakistan or Bangladesh for a 'holiday' and found themselves attending their own weddings."Related posts:
- Murder feared in arranged marriage - Guardian
- Europe Grapples with 'Honor Killings' - Deutsche Welle
- Online network connects like-minded Muslims - Oakland Tribune
Pakistanis promote boycott of US products - Aljazeera
"While many Pakistanis are embracing the 'war on US products', others believe the movement has a long way to go... 'Though symbolic in nature, our campaign against the US policy of unilateralism turned out to be quite successful,' Sameena Imtiaz said. 'We managed to send at least 50% of people away from these fast food chains when we told them of the US policies in Palestine and Iraq,' she added."
Consumerism plus Islam equals a boomtown - New Zealand Herald
"Dubai is a boomtown. It is Singapore with sand and sheikhs, a 21st-century gold rush... It is one of the most interesting places in the world to be when the President of the United States calls for a democratic Middle East. How far would Dubai have come if it had been democratic? The sheikhs do not rely on the whims of the people. None of this could have happened with bickering political parties, a three-year electoral cycle and special-interest groups."
Imran Khan-Jemima marriage in trouble? - Hindustan Times
"The eight-year-old marriage of Jemima and Imran has run into serious difficulties, The Mail on Sunday said. The paper quoted their friends as saying that Jemima, 29, has moved back to Britain where she is studying for M.A. while Imran is pursuing his political career in Islamabad. The separation is said to have been caused by Jemima's desire to spend more time with her own family in London, where she has bought a £1.5 million house in fashionable Fulham."
[June 22, 2004, Reuters] Imran Khan divorces Jemima.
"Pakistan's celebrity marriage is over -- Imran Khan, cricketing legend and international playboy-turned-political crusader says he has divorced socialite Jemima, ending months of speculation among the chattering classes of London and Lahore."
[June 22, 2004, BBC] A parting of the ways.
"Imran Khan's biographer reflects on the break-up of his marriage to Jemima Goldsmith. From the outset it was a marriage that would face the severest of tests. Their contrasting background, age and upbringing meant that it would always be under pressure." [Good backgrounder, recommended reading]
Two Sentenced for Trying to Join Taliban - Guardian
"Two American Muslims who tried to join the Taliban were sentenced to 18 years in prison Monday during a hearing in which they denounced the Bush administration and pleaded in song for freedom. Patrice Lumumba Ford, 32, and Jeffrey Leon Battle, 33, had pleaded guilty in October to conspiracy to levy war against the United States. Both said that in trying to reach Afghanistan, they were fulfilling their Islamic duty to defend fellow Muslims."
Across the Atlantic in Britain, young Sajid Badat's arrest for alleged links to al-Qaida is raising a lot of eyebrows. Guardian reports: Disbelief and anger greet arrest of devout Muslim.
"Next to the alternatives, Camp Four is paradise. Real, colored prayer rugs, thicker mattresses, pillows even, and soccer shoes. Pure-white clothes instead of glaring catch-me-you-if-you-can orange. A librarian comes around with books, and lunch is on picnic tables, family style. This is where the prisoners get to come if they are good, meaning well behaved and fruitful in their interrogations. 'We try to sell this place,' says an Army Colonel."
Back on mainland, an Algerian air force lieutenant (Benamar Benatta) with an expired visa was held in primarily solitary confinement for 26 months in the aftermath of post-9/11 panic in the US. Washington Post reports on the lieutenant's shattering experience: A Prisoner Of Panic After 9/11.
Friedman: The Chant Not Heard - New York Times
"Nowhere could I find a single sign in London reading, 'Osama, How Many Innocents Did You Kill Today?' or 'Baathists — Hands Off the U.N. and the Red Cross in Iraq.' Hey, I would have settled for 'Bush and Blair Equal Bin Laden and Saddam' — something, anything, that acknowledged that the threats to global peace today weren't just coming from the White House and Downing Street."
Why didn't the Scientific Revolution happen in Islam? - Chowk
"Every great civilization writes its own history, selectively extracts data from the past, and then proves to its satisfaction that its greatness has no peer or rival. The dominant civilization of our times, the West, has also defined a vision of cultural and intellectual history wherein the development of science is presented as the unilinear and inexorable march of Greco-Roman ideas into the European Renaissance period. It is only over the last few decades that there has been some widening of perspective, and beginnings of a realization that the roots of science are to be found in highly diverse cultural and temporal origins."
A classic Hoodbhoy piece. I read it a third time today to reactivate some brain cells.
As Google grows, critics emerge - Boston Globe
"Do you hate Google yet? At first glance, the question seems absurd. What's to hate about an Internet site where you can go and find out about practically anything, free of charge? ... 'Google is about to join, I think, that rarified level enjoyed by Microsoft, the New York Yankees, the United States of America,' said Hayson. 'Too big, too powerful, too successful, too rich. And you're starting to see the rumblings right now.' "
Saturday, November 29, 2003
Matches, hatches and dispatches are made in heaven - Guardian
"The idea of India may be secular, but astrology played a role in the country's birth. The transfer of power from Britain took place in New Delhi in the early hours of August 15 1947, after an inauspicious period had passed. Pakistan took no such precaution and became independent a day earlier. Indian astrologers say it is paying the price. It split into two in 1971, with the creation of Bangladesh, and is destined for further division."
Pakistan: Corruption, United Nations-style - Daily Mirror
"In 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) set up a mission in Karachi to encourage Afghan citizens to return home after the Taliban fell and the Hamid Karzai government took over. But investigations have revealed that due to the large-scale corruption of the NGOs hired to help in the repatriation process and irregularities by senior mission staff, several Afghan citizens were not able to reach home or were cheated on way."
Doctors' sons who became rapists - Sydney Herald
"They are the sons of a medical doctor and they are rapists. Lee Glendinning reports on two of four brothers found guilty of gang rape in attacks that upended the NSW legal system."
The case has received a great deal of publicity in the Australian and Indian press. Bravo - the brothers have brought much-needed glory to Pakistan and must have greatly helped the cause of Australian immigration. Here's a report in the Hindustan Times: Pakistanis brothers raped girls for 'fun'.
Army accelerates border fencing after ceasefire : Hindustan Times
"With the border remaining calm in the wake of the Indo-Pak ceasefire, security forces have intensified border fencing work along the Line of Control and International Border in Jammu and Kashmir... Working without any fear of Pakistani firing for the first time since the start of fencing two years ago, the jawans engaged in the fencing say that their output has increased three to four times now."
In Kabul, Giving Thanks for Small Mercies - Washington Post
"As I shopped and planned for the holiday, I marveled anew at the changes that had transformed the Afghan capital since the collapse of Islamic Taliban rule in late 2001. Store shelves, once half-empty and dust-coated, now brimmed with imported specialty goods, from canned pumpkin to corkscrews. Foreigners, once a rarity on city streets, now chatted in line at crowded Internet cafes."
Friday, November 28, 2003
Cold war at 21,000ft is the ultimate exercise in futility - FT
"More than 95 per cent of troop casualties in Siachen - thought to be in the hundreds, although the number is classified - are caused by the climate rather than enemy fire, according to the Indian army... The financial cost is prohibitive. India spends an estimated $1m-$2m a day maintaining its presence in Siachen. Pakistan spends a bit less. Since 1984, India has spent an estimated $10bn on its Siachen operations. Its annual budget is almost $100bn."
Art, Music Provoke Islamists on Pakistan Campuses - Washington Post
"Pursuing arts at the University of Karachi, the country's largest cosmopolitan city, is a risky business... Murtaza Khaliq, a film student at Pakistan's biggest university in Karachi, produced a music video for his final-year project. But right-wing Islamic students opposed to holding art shows on campus attacked the graduating student's year-end exhibition and smashed the computer he had planned to use to screen it."
Ask President Musharraf in Urdu and Hindi - BBC
"Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf will answer your questions on the current state of politics in Pakistan, the country's relations with India and the Kashmir problem, among other issues, in a live phone-in programme with the BBC's Urdu and Hindi services."
Fill in a short online form with a comment and hopefully your comments will be aired on the December 1 Talking-Point program.
HIV Indian man almost buried live - BBC
"An Indian family attempted to bury a relative who was suffering from Aids just hours before he died. Jaffer Dhari Sadiq, a 32-year old van driver, had slipped into a coma while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Madurai city in Tamilnadu state. As neighbours of the rented house where he lived objected to his return his relatives took him to a graveyard. But a grave digger finding signs of life in him demanded a doctor's certificate and refused to bury him."
Sinha raps up scribes for obsession with Pak : Hindustan Times
"External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha on Friday refused to answer questions by reporters on Pakistan, saying it was 'not proper' to always talk about that country. 'I prefer to talk about anything other than Pakistan,' Sinha told a battery of television cameramen and reporters."
DVD pirates 'fund terror groups' - Femail
"People who buy pirated DVDs of films such as Love Actually could be helping fund terror groups including al Qaeda, the police warned today... A detective warned: 'There's a lot of members of the public out there who don't understand what they may be funding and that's a message that's very important to get across.' "
Smart ploy to piggy-back the piracy cause on the war against terror.
U.N. probes Iran-Pakistan nuclear link - SF Chronicle
"The United Nations' nuclear agency is investigating potential links between the atomic programs of Iran and Pakistan after discovering that Iran's secret uranium-enrichment program used technology identical to Pakistani plans. The most recent IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program said Tehran had started research in 1985 and had gotten the centrifuge designs 'from a foreign intermediary in 1987.' Iran has told the agency that they came from a middleman whose identity remains a mystery."
Plastic promises dense data store - BBC
"A common plastic used to keep monitor screens clear of fluff could soon be used as a high-density computer memory. In the journal Nature, the US researchers say it could let them pack a gigabyte of data into a sugar cube-sized device. The material is also very cheap to manufacture and data can be written down and read back from it quickly. The researchers predict that it could take only a few years to turn their discovery into working devices."
Thursday, November 27, 2003
US Observes Thanksgiving Holiday - Voice of America
"People across the United States are observing the Thanksgiving holiday Thursday, a time for family and friends to reunite and reflect... Thanksgiving is celebrated annually on the last Thursday in November. It dates back to 1621 when European settlers and native American Indians held a feast to celebrate a bountiful harvest."
Happy Thanksgiving to all readers in the US.
India's turn-round queen - Economist
"Ranjana Kumar shows that you can succeed in India even if you are not in information technology. Her remarkable success in bringing Indian Bank back into profit has turned her into an award-winning celebrity of the Indian finance scene, feted for her turn-round expertise. Among her many good qualities are limitless energy, great persuasive power and, above all, common sense."
Corporate history is replete with examples where a single change in leadership has turned large organizations around (Apple, Volkswagen, etc.). With some skill, one human can boil the ocean - he who cries at the debility of an individual is simply ignorant.
Minister barred Muslim juror - Guardian
"France's justice minister said yesterday that he personally had decided to replace a woman juror who wore her Islamic headscarf in court, saying he wanted to ensure a fair trial. The justice minister, Dominique Perben, said on Europe-1 radio: 'When in a court, someone outwardly shows a religious, philosophical or political conviction, that can be a sign that his decision as a juror will be influenced.' "
Putting Polygamy to the Test - Washington Post
"Erlangga said he had never expected to have more than one wife, even though his father had three and his grandfather two. And he truly loved Titin, whom he had met in college and wed in 1983. But 13 years and two children later, he fell in love with Mardiana, now 37, who was a widow. 'It was a mix of passion, love and social responsibility,' he explained. 'She is the type of person who needs protection.' He feels that he is a better Muslim for helping a widow without financial means."
On Kashmir Border, Soldiers Trade Gifts, Not Shots - New York Times
"Children laughed as they played cricket. Men and women worked peacefully in rice fields. Indian and Pakistani border guards exchanged festive gifts and friendly chats instead of gunfire. Two days after India and Pakistan agreed to their first cease-fire in 14 years, the guns remained silent along the 700 miles of volatile border here."
Star journalist embraces the hijab - BBC
"Khadija Ben Ganna said she managed to 'defeat the devil' after three years of mulling over the idea of wearing the veil, adding that she came under no pressure from the channel's management... Ben Ganna said the decisive moment for her came after a one-on-one with Egyptian Islamic preacher Omar Abdul Kafi, who appeared on an al-Jazeera programme called Sharia (Islamic law) and Life."
A related story linked from the above page: Why I decided to wear the veil.
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Permanent membership not for India - Business Standard
"India's aspiration to join the privileged elite in the Security Council is consistent with its conduct as an independent country. Its ruling classes did not demolish the colonial apparatus when the British left, but simply took it over. It condemned the nuclear weapons of bigger powers but strove to acquire them too. So it is but 'natural' that instead of seeking the abolition of permanent membership of the Security Council as a matter of principle, what India really wants is to join privileged few and feel it has 'arrived'."
Murky divorce details put Bush's brother in spotlight - Guardian
"While United States president George Bush and his brother Jeb, the Florida governor, have made it through some tough questioning, the president's younger brother, Neil, may not be so lucky. In a court deposition, taken in March and released this week, Neil claims that attractive women came to his hotel door looking for sex while he was on business trips in Hong Kong in Thailand. And as a big-hearted Texan Neil, the third of five Bush children, merely did as he was asked."
How Asian doctors saved the NHS - BBC
"When Health Minister Enoch Powell, appealed for help to staff his massively expanding health service 40 years ago, more than 18,000 doctors from the Indian Sub Continent answered his call. Today, as the 1960s generation collectively approach retirement, the NHS is facing a crisis once again - and this time the health service may not be so lucky."
Focus on new HIV/AIDS prevention programme - OCHA IRIN
" 'Pakistan is a low-prevalence, high-risk country for HIV infections,' a report, compiled by a special World Bank mission in the spring of 2001 said, adding that the most significant mode of transmission was sexual, identified in about 42 percent of the roughly 1,549 HIV cases and 202 AIDS cases reported by then. 'High priority should be given to interventions that seek to slow the transmission among high-risk groups, especially commercial sex workers and their clients,' it stressed."
Militants say not bound by Kashmir ceasefire - Reuters
"One of the main Islamic separatist groups fighting in Kashmir dismissed a ceasefire between India and Pakistan that began on Wednesday and said it would continue attacks in India's part of the territory.... 'The ceasefire is meaningless unless the Kashmir issue is addressed in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiris,' a spokesman for the pro-Pakistan Hezb-ul Mujahideen said."
The Three-State Solution - New York Times
"President Bush's new strategy of transferring power quickly to Iraqis, and his critics' alternatives, share a fundamental flaw: all commit the United States to a unified Iraq, artificially and fatefully made whole from three distinct ethnic and sectarian communities. That has been possible in the past only by the application of overwhelming and brutal force."
Kashmiri family reunited after decades apart - Reuters
"At the time of partition, Harbans Kore was separated from her husband, who, as a Sikh, was forced to flee from Muslim insurgents in Kashmir. Assuming him lost, she married a Muslim, converted to Islam, and bore two children. But then in the mid-1950s, she had to leave Kashmir and her new family after an agreement between India and Pakistan required women to return to their original husbands. In India, she returned to her Sikh faith and her first husband, with whom she had two daughters and a son."
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
How do we get out of Iraq? - Guardian
"One wishes that the term 'exit strategy' was not bandied about at all. Although the conservatives deny the comparison, it has deep echoes of Vietnam. Exit strategies from a conflict, such as Napoleon's retreat from Moscow or the British army heading towards Dunkirk, are often desperate, hand-to-mouth affairs, and full of Clausewitzian frictions. They smell of defeat, and defeatism. Most importantly, the open discussion by one side of various ways of making an exit gives a tremendous morale and propaganda boost to the opposition."
A historical comparative in Asia Times: Iraq, George Bush and Queen Victoria.
On the job with a Taliban recruiter - Asia Times
"Abdul Zahir is unflagging in his rounds because he has an almost missionary zeal: to find recruits for jihad - or holy war - waged by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Himself blinded in one eye from action in Afghanistan, Abdul tells prospective recruits: 'You might fight at the front line, or you might stand guard at night. You can cook for other Islamic warriors, or you can be a male nurse. Or you can give the fighters money or grain - everything is welcome because the jihad has started.' "
World hunger on the increase - Financial Times
"World hunger is back on the increase, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation has warned, threatening to torpedo international efforts to halve the number of undernourished people by 2015. During the early 1990s, the number of hungry people worldwide fell by 37m. But according to the FAO's annual hunger report, released on Tuesday the second half of the decade saw an increase of 18m."
Christian Science Monitor digs deeper into the numbers in Hunger on the rise, but not everywhere.
The US's new man with a mission in India - Asia Times
"According to analysts in India, Mulford, as chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston International and a former under secretary of Treasury in the first Bush administration, is expected to leverage the political-strategic relationship in key economic terms. They further add that Mulford belongs to Washington's power elite that includes men like Henry Kissinger, James Baker and Frank Carlucci, with his appointment proof that Bush retains a "personal, direct" interest in the US's relationship with India."
Kashmir ceasefire - will it last? - BBC
"The announcement by India on Monday that it too will sign up to a Kashmir ceasefire - and make Pakistan's unilateral offer bilateral - will be greeted with enthusiastic applause by the international community... Despite a change in mood music, though, the ceasefire is still a long way from a real breakthrough. Many analysts question how much of a concession each side is making."
Pakistan's wheat economics - Asia Times
"If there was ever a textbook example on how not to intervene in markets, the Pakistan wheat situation would serve admirably. Although Pakistan is a wheat-growing nation and wheat is a widely used staple, with chapatis turning up on the table three times a day, speculators often manage to tie up the market, drive prices to stratospheric levels and reap huge profits."
Meagre Software Industry yet to take off - PakTribune
"I discovered this myself, at considerable personal financial loss, when, even at the height of the dot com boom in the US, the company that I set up in Karachi to tap the software export potential of the country had to be closed down for lack of business."
Can some 'nation-marketing' help? New York Times on the subject: When Nations Need a Little Marketing. Thanks to Farzal Dojki for the links and for establishing the connection.
The Wal-Mart Effect - Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times' series of 9 articles on Wal-Mart and its impact on the world at large... "Wal-Mart is so powerful that it moves the economies of entire countries, bringing profit and pain. The prices can't be beat, but the wages can... Wal-Mart is growing fast in China, where its stores are local attractions. The firm's overseas empire is changing buying habits in 10 nations."
Monday, November 24, 2003
Eid al-Fitr arrives as Ramadan ends - Aljazeera
"The crescent moon has been sighted across most of the Gulf region, marking the end to Ramadan, the month of fasting and the start of the celebration of the festival of Eid al-Fitr."
Happy Eid Mubarak to all readers from pakistani perspective.
Scouring the Globe for an $8.63 Polo Shirt - LA Times
"Wal-Mart, once a believer in buying American, extracts ever lower prices from 10,000 suppliers worldwide. Workers struggle to keep pace. When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. demands a lower price for the shirts and shorts it sells by the millions, the consequences are felt in a remote Chinese industrial town, at a port in Bangladesh and here in Honduras, under the corrugated metal roof of the Cosmos clothing factory."
Dell closes overseas call centers - Boston Globe
"After an onslaught of complaints, direct sales computer king Dell Inc. has stopped routing corporate customers to a technical support call center in Bangalore, India.... "They're extremely polite, but I call it sponge listening -- they just soak it in and say 'I can understand why you're angry' but nothing happens," an unsatisfied customer said."
Silence on sex selection - Washington Times
"Sex selection is simply choosing a child based upon its sex. It can be done through several different techniques. On average, Mother Nature provides for 105 boys to be born for every 100 girls. However, with those human interventions, that ratio has become skewed in some societies, particularly those in the developing world. The ratio is 108.7 to 100 in Egypt, it is 110.9 in Pakistan and it is 117 to 100 in China. Some nations in the Caucasus region have seen ratios as high as 120 to 100."
"Corruption scandals in India carry the same capacity to shock as revelations of a Mafia presence in Sicily. So when a videotape surfaced last week allegedly showing a government minister holding a fistful of cash to his forehead, uttering "money isn't God, but by God, it's no less than God" and promising his benefactor mining concessions, it created a stir in the press—but nowhere else."
Bollywood's Newest Star - Fortune
"In January 2002 an ethnic Pakistani named Sheeraz Hasan flew from London to the U.S. with no money, no contacts, and no filmmaking experience. Today he is the host of Tinseltown TV, a talk show that broadcasts to 500 million people in India, Iran, and elsewhere in the Middle East. And he has become a Hollywood institution, showing up at virtually every film premiere, chatting regularly with the likes of Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, Meryl Streep, and Steven Spielberg."
India gains new respect in Muslim world - Asia Times
"Muslim diplomatic circles in Delhi are abuzz with new excitement. While breaking their day-long fast at numerous Iftar parties in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Muslim, and particularly Arab diplomats, are privately musing with some surprise that contrary to apprehensions from a Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government, India's relationship with the Muslim world has not only not worsened, it has actually improved."
Housing Squeeze Gets Worse in Pakistan - OneWorld
"The housing problem in Pakistan - the winner of a global award for consistently abusing and defying housing rights laws in 2002 - has further worsened, with the authorities pushing through massive development projects that will leave thousands homeless....Two of the worst cases are the Lyari Expressway project in the southern port city of Karachi and the 160-mile US $55-million Chashma Right Bank Canal in the eastern province of Punjab."
Pakistan leader orders probe of 'honour killing' - Reuters
"Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has ordered police to investigate accusations of the 'honour killing' of a woman...Every year hundreds of women are killed in Pakistan by relatives for offences deemed to have offended the family's honour, including adultery, marrying without family consent and failing to offer an adequate dowry."
Details of the case brought to Musharraf's attention: Afsheen's body may be exhumed today. Electrocution is speculated to be the cause of death in BBC's report Pakistan 'honour killing' probe.
We need to laugh: Cowasjee - Dawn
"We must somehow learn to laugh at ourselves, at our petty foibles, our comic weaknesses, habits and errors. To be able to do so, to shrug off complexes that make us take every single thing so seriously, is one of the first signs of maturity and self-confidence." Cowasjee on how the idiosyncrasies of our ruling generals have evolved with the passage of time.
Sunday, November 23, 2003
China's 'Far West' faces up to Aids - BBC
"One of the fastest growing Aids problems in China is hidden from view in the far north-western province of Xinjiang. Xinjiang sits at the crossroads of ancient trade routes like the old silk road which bore caravans of silk and spices to central Asia. Now juggernauts shuttle across from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and north from the Golden Triangle bearing a modern commodity - heroin, and with it deadly disease - Aids."
Bush's Remark About God Assailed - Washington Post
"Evangelical Christian leaders expressed dismay yesterday over President Bush's statement that Christians and Muslims worship the same god, saying it had caused discomfort within his conservative religious base. But most predicted that the political impact would be short-lived....'We should always remember that he is commander in chief, not theologian in chief,' a church leader said in a telephone interview yesterday."
Sleeping with the Devil - Israel Insider
"France has witnessed the biggest wave of anti-Semitism since the 1930s. Since September 2001, over 1,300 anti-Semitic acts have been accounted for by the Wiesenthal Center: almost two a day. The anti-Semitic wave is very worrisome because France is host to about 8 million Muslims in a country of only 60 million people. Furthermore, with the current demographic trends, the majority of the French population will be Muslim within forty years."
Bank Data For Saudi Embassy Subpoenaed - Washington Post
"The FBI, in an unprecedented move that has strained relations with a close ally in the war on terrorism, has subpoenaed records for dozens of bank accounts belonging to the Saudi Embassy, part of an investigation into whether any of the hundreds of millions of dollars Riyadh spends in the United States each year end up in the hands of Muslim extremists, U.S. and Saudi officials said."
Store owner indicted in sham marriages - Courier
"According to the recently filed charges, Anwar approached six American women and offered to pay them to marry men, including relatives from Pakistan. This scheme ran from 1993 until earlier this year, the government alleges. The marriages, which prosecutors contend were bogus, were meant ot establish residency in the United States and to bypass immigration laws."
China virgin bride ad sparks row - BBC
"There has been a storm of controversy in China over a series of prominent newspaper advertisements for a young virgin bride. The notices were carried by papers in several major cities. The big newspaper advertisements placed by a self-described millionaire sought a woman aged 20-25 without sexual experience."
Slightly dated news, but interesting nevertheless.
Pakistanis dissatisfied with Musharraf: Survey - Sify
"Around 75 per cent of Pakistani people have expressed 'utter dissatisfaction' with the Pervez Musharraf regime, with a major chunk of them saying they would call Allah instead of the police in case they had a problem with their personal safety, according to a survey published in a leading Pakistani daily. The survey covered over 57,000 households spread over 97 districts."
Pak to get $2.4 M from Benazir's Swiss account - Hindustan Times
"Pakistan is to get back $2.4 million that former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto allegedly received in kickbacks for purchasing tractors from Poland and deposited in a Swiss bank account. The money was seized from the account of Dargal Associated SA, a shell company floated by Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari. The kickbacks had been deposited in Cantrade Ormond Burrus Banque Privee SA (now Ferrier Lullin et Cie SA) in Geneva."
Saturday, November 22, 2003
One martyr doesn't make a jihad - Economist
"In comparison to earlier jihads, the British deployment to Iraq has been a bit of a let-down. The growing zeal of the British security forces and waning enthusiasm from British Muslims could be to blame. But jihadis say there is a more important factor: the supply of bombers exceeds demand, and British bombers are too expensive. 'For the cost of equipping and transporting a British fighter into Iraq—about $2,000—we can shift 20 guerrillas into Iraq from neighbouring Arab states and Chechnya,' says a retired jihadi field officer."
A wounded nation asks why - The Age
"The bombers may also end up learning the same lesson that the Bush Administration is being taught in Iraq: the law of unintended consequences. In the West, Thursday's bomb helped to distract attention away from anti-war protesters who were demonstrating in London. And by murdering civilians in Istanbul, the terrorists risk stirring up a new wave of old-fashioned Turkish nationalism - to the detriment of the slowly rising power of Islam."
The loss of human life and mayhem aside, one has to question the intelligence of these bombings. As Telepraph reports, Suicide bombers may be turning Muslim opinion against them.
Muslim rioters burn 13 churches in north Nigeria - Reuters
"Islamic militants burned to the ground thirteen churches and several houses in a remote northern Nigerian town after a Christian student was accused of blasphemy, police said on Thursday....More than 5,000 people have been killed in religious violence in northern Nigeria in the past four years since the introduction of Islamic sharia law in 12 states."
In a related report, Christians rethink stay in Nigerian town after riot.
Muslim SUNY Student's Expulsion Is Protested - New York Times
"The student, Sulaiman Oladokun, 28, has been in a New Jersey jail since March, when agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested him in the college library. About two weeks after his arrest, the college expelled him. It was two months before he was scheduled to graduate. He is being held by immigration authorities on charges that he falsified his Nigerian college records, a charge he denies."