Month: July 2006

NEW DELHI – As the death toll continues to mount in Mumbai’s ghastly serial bomb attacks, it is becoming clear that India is witnessing a human tragedy of the same dimensions as the Madrid train bombings of March 2004, in which 192 people lost their lives. The bombings were Europe’s worst-ever case of sub-state terrorism. … Continue reading “Gathering the Pieces After the Mumbai Blasts”

Tuesday’s announcement by the administration of President George W. Bush that detainees held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere will be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions has provoked both hope and skepticism from human rights activists. While some rights groups hailed the Pentagon’s decision to apply the protections of … Continue reading “Pentagon Switch on Geneva Elicits Hope, Skepticism”

The upcoming G-8 conference, scheduled for July 15-18 in St. Petersburg, is shaping up as the latest battleground in the developing conflict between Putin’s Russia and the West. This summit is "really about Russia," says the BBC, and as far as the West is concerned, it’s all criticism all the time. The barrage of anti-Russian … Continue reading “Russia’s Fifth Column”

Andrew Sullivan really does have breathtaking cheek. In the Sunday Times [1], he has the brass neck to accuse the Bush administration of “incoherence” because they don’t fancy taking on Kim, when they did take on Saddam (disastrously). Sullivan’s piece is strongly suggestive of a lust for Korean blood. Kim is a “genocidal, certifiably loopy … Continue reading “Andrew Sullivan Wants
Another War”

U.S. and European officials have been saying for years that Iran is using its publicly declared nuclear program as a cover for a clandestine nuclear weapons program, but have never produced concrete evidence to support that argument. Since April, however, Western suspicions of such a secret bomb program have focused on the idea that Iran … Continue reading “No Evidence of Secret Enrichment by Iran”

NEW DELHI – The failure in rapid succession, this week, of a satellite launcher and a new ballistic missile have shown up the technological and budgetary difficulties faced by India’s space establishment – civilian and military. Hours after the $50 million Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with a communications satellite on board was ordered to … Continue reading “India Exposed by Dud Missile, Space Vehicle Crash”

With Ali Fadhil FALLUJAH – It could be called perhaps just another raid. Early in the morning on Sunday, June 18, U.S. military helicopters landed near the home of Sinan Abdul-Ilah al-Mashadani in the al-Jughaifi district of Fallujah. Within two minutes the doors of his home were blasted open and "a strange looking group of … Continue reading “Iraq: Another Face, Another Raid”

"America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof." So spoke U.S. President George W. Bush in his second inaugural address last January, vowing to help build democratic institutions and strengthen civil society in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. Yet today, the Bush administration is … Continue reading “US Democracy Crusade Falls by the Wayside”

The era of “Cowboy Diplomacy” is over, writes Time magazine. The Bush Doctrine – “The world’s worst regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world’s worst weapons” – is being defied by Iran’s Ahmadinejad and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il, with impunity. The White House seems to have lost interest in its democracy crusade, after … Continue reading “The End of the Cowboy Era”

Despite popular support for girls’ education, attacks by a resurgent Taliban and other groups in southern and southeastern Afghanistan are forcing the closure of schools throughout the region and beyond, according to a new report released Monday by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The report, “Lessons in Terror: Attacks on Education in Afghanistan," detailed more than … Continue reading “Afghanistan’s Girls’ Schools Under Siege”