Dhaka | Nov 19

DPA - Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the appeals of five men convicted in the assassination of the country's founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, upholding a previous death verdict against 12 former soldiers convicted for the murder.

A five-judge panel headed by Justice Tafazzul Islam delivered the verdict Thursday, after 29 days of hearings, in a crowded court amid heightened security, state attorney Anisul Haq said.

Five of those convicted are on death row in Dhaka Central Jail while the rest have absconded abroad.

Mujibur, one of Bangladesh's independence heroes, was killed along with most of his family on August 15, 1975 by a group of disgruntled army officers in a military putsch which overthrew the South Asian country's elected government.

The verdict of death by hanging will be carried out in a month unless the convicts file a review petition to the court and seek presidential pardon for their convictions, Haq said.

Andrew Buncombe | Nov 19

The Independent - The magician who mesmerised the world has been reduced to performing in a fast-food joint as his country embraces the ways of the West

20 of 50 Greatest Magic Tricks - Indian Rope Trick (Amazing)

Download @ Punjabi Lok Virsa Media Center
By any standard, Ishamuddin Khan is a man of remarkable talents. Back in 1995, this traditional Indian magician or madari, completed the first successful outdoor performance of a trick that had been whispered about for centuries but that no one before had mastered. When, before an amazed audience on the southern edge of Delhi, Ishamuddin managed a convincing rendition of the legendary Indian rope trick, it made headlines around the world that ought to have secured his place in the history of magic and won him lasting recognition at home.

Yet that has not happened. Almost 15 years after he performed a trick that many experts believed to be impossible – in 1934 the Magic Circle in London offered a prize of 500 guineas to anyone who could do it – Ishamuddin is struggling, not only for recognition but simply to get by. While he has toured Britain, Europe and Japan to display his mesmerising skills, he says that India is increasingly turning its back on traditional performers such as himself in its race to become all things modern. To supplement his job devising magic tricks to encourage school children to learn science, he sometimes works as a conjurer at McDonald's.

"Every capital city around the world that I have been in has an area for street performers," said the 42-year-old, who lives in a crowded cluster of tiny homes in west Delhi known as the Kathputli – or puppeteers' – colony: an area rich with the skills of performers, musicians and craftsmen but sorely lacking in facilities. "But rich people in India are offended if you talk about street performing. They are only interested in computers or software. I am poor but I am suffering not so much from poverty as I am from the attitude of the Indian government. I am happy in my poverty but I would like people to respect me as I am. I would like recognition."

For centuries, stories have been told in India and beyond about a magic trick in which an ordinary rope is made to rise upwards before a young boy climbs up and disappears into the sky. The spellbinding story may have been partly inspired by the fairy tales of King Bhoja, who throws a thread into the sky and then ascends. Ibn Battuta, a 14th-century Moroccan explorer and scholar, also wrote of seeing such a trick performed in China, while mention of the deed in India was made by the 17th-century Indian emperor Jahangir, whose memoirs were first translated in 1829.

M K Bhadrakumar | Nov 17

Asia Times - When a tea sapling was brought into Ceylon - present-day Sri Lanka - in 1824 from China and planted in the Royal Botanical Gardens, the British had no commercial interests in mind. It took another 40 years before a plucky Scotsman planted the first seedling, which blossomed into the famous Ceylon Tea and became today's unshakeable pillar of Sri Lanka's economy.

The "Emerald Island" has obscure tales to tell. That is why when a swashbuckling army chief by the improbable name of Gardihewa Sarath Chandralal Fonseka abruptly discards his uniform and plunges into the country's steamy politics, it becomes no simple matter. Sri Lankan democracy may never be the same again.

Bonapartism isn't altogether new to the region. Pakistan's Ayub Khan showed the way, back in the 1950s. Bangladesh followed 20 years later. Now Sri Lanka, an entrenched democracy, seems fatally attracted to it. The presidential election is not due until November 2011, but there are signs it may be held as early as January.

There is nothing necessarily fatal if a soldier develops a passion for politics. An Indian commentator pointed out that, after all, there is the precedent of US president Dwight D Eisenhower, a five-star general. But then, the nagging worry remains whether in the South Asian clime, like the sapling brought in from distant China, Fonseka, a US Green Card holder, may blossom and outgrow the botanical garden that Sri Lankan democracy used to be.

Syed Saleem Shahzad | Islamabad | Nov 17

Asia Times - After a month of operations against militants in the South Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan, Pakistan's military establishment realizes it is chasing shadows; the adversary has simply melted into the vastness of the inhospitable surrounding territory.

Unlike in previous operations in other troubled tribal areas, though, there is unlikely to be any peace agreement. The militants, headed by the Pakistani Taliban - the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) - are bent on a long-term insurgency against the security apparatus, which they now see as heretic as the United States forces in Afghanistan.

In the past, the militants viewed the military as "firing friendly fire" under duress, mostly from the United States. In a fundamental shift, this is no longer the case and the militants will step up their activities.

The implications for Pakistan are profound. The civilian government headed by President Asif Ali Zardari is under relentless pressure from the US to crack down on militants, which includes al-Qaeda. If the militants carry through with their new attitude towards the military, and if the government steps up its efforts, ever-bloodier and broadening clashes are inevitable.

Harmeet Shah Singh | New Delhi | Nov 12

CNN - Indian election authorities Thursday granted what they called an independent identity to intersex and transsexuals in the country's voter lists.Before, members of these groups -- loosely called eunuchs in Indian English -- were referred to as male or female in the voter rolls.

But now, they will have the choice to tick "O" -- for others -- when indicating their gender in voter forms, the Indian election commission said in a statement. "Enumerators and booth-level officers (BLOs) shall be instructed to indicate the sex of eunuchs/transsexuals etc as 'O' if they so desire, while undertaking any house-to-house enumeration/verification of any application," a statement from election authorities said.

Related: New Delhi's 'eunuchs' forge lives in conservative nation

R. Jeffrey Smith & Joby Warrick | Urumqi, China | November 13

WaPo - In 1982, a Pakistani military C-130 left the western Chinese city of Urumqi with a highly unusual cargo: enough weapons-grade uranium for two atomic bombs, according to accounts written by the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and provided to The Washington Post.

The uranium transfer in five stainless-steel boxes was part of a broad-ranging, secret nuclear deal approved years earlier by Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto that culminated in an exceptional, deliberate act of proliferation by a nuclear power, according to the accounts by Khan, who is under house arrest in Pakistan.

Paris | Nov 10

DPA - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is suspected of having received millions of dollars in kickbacks from the 1994 sale of three French submarines to the Pakistani Navy, the daily Liberation reported Tuesday.

In addition, investigators believe that the non-payment of the full amount of the agreed kickbacks may have led to the deaths of 11 French nationals in a 2002 terror attack in the city of Karachi.

In the report, Liberation says it acquired documents that allegedly show that Zardari received 4.3 million dollars in kickbacks from the sale of three Agosta 90 submarines for 825 million euros (currently 1.237 billion dollars).

The documents were sent to the Pakistani National Accountability Bureau (NAB) by British authorities in April 2001 and indicate that Zardari received several large payments into his Swiss bank accounts from a Lebanese businessman, Abdulrahman el-Assir, in 1994 and 1995.

According to a former executive of the French naval defence company DCN, French authorities chose el-Assir to act as intermediary in the deal.

Washington | Nov 10

AFP - The United States said on Monday it would no longer allow its row with Myanmar to hold its ties with Southeast Asia hostage, as President Barack Obama geared up for his debut official visit to the region.

Obama is due to hold the first-ever meeting between a US president and leaders of all 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members, including Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein, on Sunday in Singapore.

"One of the frustrations that we've had with policy toward Burma over recent years has been that the inability to have interaction with Burma has prevented certain kinds of interaction with ASEAN as a whole," said Obama's top Asia policy aide Jeffrey Bader.

"The statement we're trying to make here is that we're not going to let the Burmese tail wag the ASEAN dog."

Seymour Hersh | Nov 16 Issue | New Yorker

Obama did not say so, but current and former officials said in interviews in Washington and Pakistan that his Administration has been negotiating highly sensitive understandings with the Pakistani military. These would allow specially trained American units to provide added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis. At the same time, the Pakistani military would be given money to equip and train Pakistani soldiers and to improve their housing and facilities—goals that General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of the Pakistan Army, has long desired. In June, Congress approved a four-hundred-million-dollar request for what the Administration called the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund, providing immediate assistance to the Pakistan Army for equipment, training, and “renovation and construction.”

The secrecy surrounding the understandings was important because there is growing antipathy toward America in Pakistan, as well as a history of distrust. Many Pakistanis believe that America’s true goal is not to keep their weapons safe but to diminish or destroy the Pakistani nuclear complex. The arsenal is a source of great pride among Pakistanis, who view the weapons as symbols of their nation’s status and as an essential deterrent against an attack by India. (India’s first nuclear test took place in 1974, Pakistan’s in 1998.)

Phnom Penh | Nov 4

AFP - Cambodia said on Wednesday it had appointed fugitive former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra economic adviser to premier Hun Sen in a move that adds to tensions between the countries.

The appointment was announced on state television almost two weeks after Hun Sen first riled Thailand by offering safe haven to Thaksin, who was ousted in a coup in 2006 and is living abroad to avoid a jail term for corruption.

"Thaksin has already been appointed by royal decree... as personal adviser to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and the adviser to the Cambodian government in charge of economy," said a government statement read on television.

"Allowing Thaksin to stay in Cambodia is virtuous behaviour...good friends need to help each other in difficult circumstances," it added.

The statement went on to call charges against Thaksin "politically motivated" and vowed not to extradite him if he "decides to stay in Cambodia or travels in and out of Cambodia in order to fulfill his duties".

WOW

It's obvious by what I've written in the past (here and here as well.) that I don't think highly of India's economic prowess, writ large and I don't believe any of the hype when it comes to India's economic miracle. But Quax makes a point about Kerala that deserves further comment.

Quax brings up the point about the matrifocal ethnicity in Southern India, namely the state of Kerala. And he's right: Kerala is different from the rest of India. I'm not sure what makes Kerala different: the prevalence of Christianity, the relative freedom of women in the state, years of Communist rule, and the forward looking and commercial character of Muslims there? Perhaps it's a combination of all four. Needless to say, Kerala was the cleanest, least intimidating and most upwardly mobile of Indian states, even more so than the miracle city of Bangalore. And I found the Muslims in Calicut to be the most forward looking of any Muslims I've ever encountered, outside of pockets in Turkey and those in North Tehran.

Their daughters were educated, free to pursue a love match--not an arranged marriage and not relegated to a very real purdah extant in many places in India. It's the sort of place where a young Indian woman can have lunch with a strange foreign man and no one raises an eyebrow. I'm not sure how much of this is due to the fact that the area around Calicut has been integral to the global economy for two thousand years--ships have plied the monsoons from East Africa to the Malabar Coast since very early Roman times, bringing pepper an other spices to the West in exchange for gold, or how much of it is due to the tolerance between Hindus, Christians and Muslims. There is much more history to this area than meets the eye.

More after the jump.

People love to talk about how India is a rising power in Asia:

Upshot: America is done. Our once-great empire is cooked. Not only is China (and India, fast behind) about to stomp all over everyone in economic power and resource abuse, they already own a huge chunk of our debt, manufacture most of our holidays and build almost everything we like to buy. And that includes the device you are reading this on right now. Oh well. We'll always have football.

I'd submit to any writer who just looks at the raw statistics on Indian growth rates to actually visit the place. Take a look at the crumbling infrastructure. Reality looks a lot different on the ground.

Yes, I realize it is only a throwaway sentence by the writer, but still, it's propagating a meme that doesn't represent reality.

Now, there is a case to be made about China. I've seen a great deal of the country and there is a very real energy to succeed and get ahead there. And while many Chinese are mired in poverty, it isn't the kind of nasty, pervasive, grinding poverty to be found in India. In India if you are born poor there is virtually no chance you can rise in society. Not so in China. (Not to idealize the life of the poor in China, mind you. It's still extremely difficult to find real upward mobility in China. In India on the other? For all intents and purposes, such a concept doesn't even exist.)

Furthermore, culturally speaking the Chinese are much better when it comes to cultural or societal innovations than India is. For example: arranged marriages are still the norm in India. And the place of woman is rotten. In China? Not likely. Especially as the idea of romantic love spreads among young female factory workers with a disposable income. (Again, not to idealize often gruesome working conditions for these young women, and yet.)

India when it comes to culture, is probably the most extremely conservative place I have ever visited. Indians like to think they can compete with the Chinese, but they cannot. And we shouldn't buy the tripe that India is an emerging economic power. The only reason we do business with India is wage-arbitrage. It's cheaper to pay an Indian twenty five cents an hour for something a well-educated American would ask fifteen dollars or more for.

And yes, I realize I am a white, post-Colonial man of European descent making cultural judgments. Having visited both countries multiple times I am quite comfortable doing so.

Jim Yardley | Barsur, India | October 31

NYT - At the edge of the Indravati River, hundreds of miles from the nearest international border, India effectively ends. Indian paramilitary officers point machine guns across the water. The dense jungles and mountains on the other side belong to Maoist rebels dedicated to overthrowing the government.

“That is their liberated zone,” said P. Bhojak, one of the officers stationed at the river’s edge in this town in the eastern state of Chattisgarh.

Omar Waraich | Sherwangai | Oct 30

The Independent - In the mountains of Waziristan, the army claims to have recovered passports of extremists with links to the September 11 and Madrid attackers. Does this mean they are finally closing in on Osama bin Laden himself?

After a sweep of a militant stronghold in the lawless tribal region of South Waziristan, the Pakistani army has recovered passports purportedly belonging to two leading al-Qa'ida figures, including a member of the notorious Hamburg cell that orchestrated September 11.

Among a pile of documents, photographs, weapons and computers seen by The Independent yesterday in Waziristan, is a German passport belonging to Said Bahaji, the logistical expert of the notorious German terror cell that orchestrated the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

Paul Richter | Washington DC | October 30

LA Times - On a fence-mending visit, the secretary of State turns blunt, saying she finds it 'hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to.'

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, visiting Pakistan on a fence-mending tour, turned unusually blunt Thursday, accusing the government of failing to do all it could to track down Al Qaeda.

Clinton told a group of journalists in Lahore that she found it "hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to." Al Qaeda, she said, "has had a safe haven in Pakistan since 2002."

Clinton's three-day visit is her first to Pakistan since she became secretary of State, and its principal goal is to improve strained relations. On the first day of her visit, in Islamabad, she declared that she wanted to "turn a page" in the U.S.-Pakistani relationship.

But on the second day, frustration seemed to surface as Clinton, a former U.S. senator from New York, confronted the long-standing strains between the countries.

Discussing Al Qaeda, she raised the issue of Pakistan's powerful military intelligence arm, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which has been accused of secretly supporting militant groups in Afghanistan.

"There are issues that, not just the U.S., but others have with your government and with your military security establishment," she said.

Steve Hynd writes on the growing violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, here.

Zahid Hussain/ Islamabad & Nico Hines | Oct 28

Times online - More than 95 people were killed by a car bomb in Pakistan today as Hillary Clinton arrived to offer US support for the Government’s crackdown on militants.

A series of terrorist attacks have shaken the country since Pakistani troops launched an assault against Islamist extremists in the tribal borderlands near Afghanistan.

Eyewitness and police in the north-western city of Peshawar said the bomb struck the area of the Meena market, which is generally visited by woman shoppers. Witnesses said many of the victims were women and children.

The blast set many shops on fire and people were trapped inside a multi-storey building, which collapsed after becoming engulfed by flames. As the wounded tried to flee, they were engulfed in flames and buried alive by falling masonry.

“Most of the bodies are charred beyond recognition,” a doctor told The Times.

”My entire shop fell on me. Smoke filled my face,” said Raza Ali, 30, a grocery store owner whose face was badly burnt.

Shakil Ahmed, another shopkeeper, said: “There was a huge explosion and black smoke covered the area.”

The explosives-packed car was apparently parked outside a shop and was denoted by remote control, police said.

Relief workers said the number of casualties could rise as most of the 200 wounded were in a critical state. Others may still be trapped inside buildings.

Pierre Salignon | Oct 26

Humanitarian Practice Network - In early July 2009, following on from the closing weeks of fighting between the Sri Lankan army and Tamil Tiger rebels (LTTE), a Times journalist raised the alarm on the mortality rate in the internment camps, opened by the Sri Lankan government. The article reported 1,400 deaths a week in Manik Farm camp, which then held around 280,000 people. Presenting no methodology or basis for this figure, and without naming any names, the journalist cited “a humanitarian source” [1]. This was a serious accusation, corresponding to a rate of 7 deaths per 10,000 persons per day. The emergency threshold applied in crises stands at 1 per 10,000 per day. In other words, according to The Times’ survey the internally displaced in Manik Farm were dying en masse, “mainly due to the sanitary conditions", deprivations and a lack of assistance.

Unsurprisingly, the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health’s version of events differed from the British journalist’report. According to a bulletin covering the period 15th June to 15th July 2009, an average of 5 to 6 people died every day in Manik Farm camp - a mortality rate of under 0.25 deaths per 10,000 per day (the official national average in Sri Lanka stands at 0.15 per 10,000 per day)[2]. Despite the ferocity of the fighting during the conflict’s final weeks, the Sri Lankan authorities found no cause for concern in the camps in June and July – when the Times was concluding the opposite.

How can such troubling and contradictory estimates be explained? Given the lack of access to more specific data, we should turn to other sources. What do NGOs and others present in the field have to say?

Kolkata | Oct 27

Reuters - Hundreds of Maoist guerrillas stormed a high-speed train in eastern India on Tuesday and were battling security forces, police said.

The Rajdhani Express, one of the country's most prestigious passenger trains, was stopped by the guerrillas in eastern West Bengal state.

"About 300 Maoists have stopped the Rajdhani Express and have pulled out the driver," Dilip Mitra, a police officer, told Reuters in state capital Kolkata.

The Maoists, who have stepped up violence across eastern and central India, had asked passengers to get off the train, local TV channels said.

"One policemen has been injured and we are currently engaged in a battle with the rebels," Mitra said.

Maoist rebels regularly attack goods trains and have in the past even hijacked a few local passenger trains in remote districts of India before fleeing.

The Maoist rebellion began four decades ago championing the cause of poor peasants in the east, but has now spread to about 20 of India's 29 states, with the rebels targeting police and government property in hit-and-run attacks.

DAWN.Com | Islamabad | Oct 24

DAWN.Com Dawn Media Group -

The figures given by official quarters are impossible to verify, but the army says more than 160 militants and 23 troops have been killed in the week-long South Waziristan offensive. — Photo by AFP

Security officials said the army overran Mehsud’s town of Kotkai overnight after three days of aerial bombardments which had underlined the huge challenge facing the military in taking on the Taliban in their tribal heartland.

And in another part of the northwest tribal belt, a missile fired by an unmanned US drone spy plane killed more than 14 people including three foreign militants, local officials said.

Although figures are impossible to verify, the army says more than 160 militants and 23 troops have been killed in the week-long South Waziristan offensive. Twelve militants and three soldiers died in the final stages of the battle for Kotkai, it added. Snip

The army launched the drive last Saturday, pitting 30,000 troops against estimated 10,000-12,000 Taliban fighters where Al-Qaeda-linked militants are believed to have plotted attacks against the West as well as in Pakistan.

The army had promised to make the Taliban leadership a particular target of their offensive and sealed off the main road into Kotkai last weekend.

More

Hua Hin, Thailand | Oct 24

AFP - Myanmar's prime minister told Asian counterparts on Saturday that the ruling military government could relax the conditions of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's detention, a Japanese official said.

The Nobel Peace laureate had "softened" her attitude towards the military regime since her house arrest was extended in August for a further 18 months, the official quoted Myanmar premier Thein Sein as saying.

But while Thein Sein announced at a regional summit in Thailand that Myanmar also wants elections next year to be "inclusive", he would not say if Suu Kyi would be allowed to participate, the official said.

"(Myanmar's government) believes that Aung San Suu Kyi seems to have softened her attitude towards the authorities," Japanese delegation spokesman Kazuo Kodama quoted Thein Sein as telling leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, Japan and South Korea.

Kodama said that the Myanmar regime "thinks if Aung San Suu Kyi maintains a good attitude it is possible that the Myanmar authorities will relax the current measures.

"The Myanmar government is... making preparations to make (next year's) election (an) inclusive election. The Myanmar government would like to ensure all the stakeholders will take part in such a process."

Colum Lynch | New York | October 23

WaPo - The State Department's top war crimes official called on Sri Lanka on Thursday to conduct a "genuine" investigation into alleged war crimes by Sri Lankan troops and Tamil rebels during the bloody final months of the country's 25-year-long civil war.

The appeal by Stephen Rapp, the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues, came hours after his office presented Congress with a detailed account of alleged atrocities during the conflict that suggests both sides may have violated international law and committed crimes against humanity.

While the Pakistani army is fighting the Taliban in Swat the assault on normal life in the larger cities in the country continues:

The provincial governments on Tuesday ordered the closure of government and private educational institutions across the country following an attack on the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) in which six people, including three female students, were killed and 29 others injured.

Earlier this year while I was in India trying to get a Pak visa I remember thinking that there was a tremendous amount of violence in the country, an almost daily drumbeat of bad news was reported in India about Pakistan. I chalked part of it up to their mutual animosity. But now?

Lahore | October 21

Daily Times - All schools, colleges closed nationwide

* Three women among six killed in first-ever attack on students as twin suicide bombers hit Islamic University Islamabad
* 25 female students among 29 injured
* Punjab closes educational institutions indefinitely while NWFP, Balochistan and Sindh closed till Sunday

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE: The provincial governments on Tuesday ordered the closure of government and private educational institutions across the country following an attack on the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) in which six people, including three female students, were killed and 29 others injured.

Oct 20

Asia Times - China, by issuing residents from Indian-administered Kashmir visas different from those given to Indians from other parts of the country, is treating the disputed area as a sovereign entity. This is a surprising departure from Beijing's traditional policy of leaving the Kashmir issue to India and Pakistan to resolve. Delhi suspects a hidden agenda.