By a Special Correspondent WASHINGTON – Iran has stuck to the core elements of the controversy over its standoff with the West in delivering its riposte to United Nations sanctions, banning two UN inspectors from visiting nuclear installations. The retaliatory move against the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reflected Tehran’s anger over measures designed to tighten the screws on its economy, diplomats and observers said on Monday, just as the US Congress was putting the finishing touches to a draft of what Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd and Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, termed a … Continue reading Core concerns spark Iran reaction

By Breffni O’Rourke President Aleksandr Lukashenka of Belarus on Tuesday said he has ordered a halt to all transit deliveries of Russian gas to Europe, in the latest move in the worsening energy dispute between Minsk and Moscow. The move comes just one day after Russian state-owned conglomerate Gazprom started to reduce the quantity of gas piped to Belarus for its own domestic use because of what it says are unpaid bills of US$192 million. It further reduced supplies on Tuesday. Lukashenka made his surprise announcement at a meeting in Minsk with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. He said … Continue reading Gas row turns up heat on Lukashenka

By Sami Moubayed DAMASCUS – Weeks ahead of the football World Cup in South Africa, which began on June 11, millions of Syrian football fans began rooting for their favorite teams. Those did not include their national side – Syria have never qualified for the tournament – but flags of Brazil, Germany, Argentina, France, Italy have been draped across cars and balconies. Prominent among are the colors of Algeria – the only Arab country playing in this year’s competition. When the month-long action finally began, giant screens popped up at strategic corners of the Syrian capital of Damascus erected by … Continue reading Syria’s pipe dreams over World Cup

GDF Suez keeps US$25bn gas contract By Syed Fazl-e-Haider KARACHI, Pakistan – Paris-based GDF Suez, which earlier this year faced the loss of a US$25 billion contract to supply Pakistan with liquefied natural gas (LNG), is to be awarded the contract after all. The contract to import 3.5 million tonnes of LNG annually for 20 years was held in abeyance in April when the Pakistan Supreme Court reacted to media allegations that the lowest bidder had been ignored and ordered that the entire bidding process be reviewed. The LNG contract, part of a supply and regasification project known as Mashal, … Continue reading Suez keeps US$25bn gas contract

By Raja Murthy LADAKH, northern India – A booming tourist industry is curiously churning in Ladakh, India’s stunningly beautiful Himalayan Shangri-La in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir. But 21st-century changes are leaving locals like Dorjay torn between celebrating the area’s increasing prosperity and worrying about their austere Tibetan culture being drowned in Mammon’s toys. “People walked or rode horses when I came here over 50 years ago,” Dorjay says from within his tiny Tibetan Friends Corner restaurant off the main market street in Leh, the capital of Ladakh province. “Now there are more cars than people,” he says … Continue reading Trouble in India’s Shangri-La

SINOGRAPH Whatever happened to the anti-heroes? By Francesco Sisci BEIJING – Who made an imprint on the history of China in the past century? Surely, there was Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) chief whom the Americans loved to call generalissimo (super-general) in an ironic Italianizing sobriquet. After him, there was the man who made China stand up and then dropped it into its deepest political and social hell – Mao Zedong, the great helmsman. Then came the one who, after so many twists and turns, pushed China on the path of development – the grand reformer Deng Xiaoping. They … Continue reading Whatever happened to the anti-heroes?