The kingdom has got its knickers in a twist over the delicate question of who should be allowed to sell underwear to women Brian Whitaker guardian.co.uk Selling women’s underwear has always been fertile territory for a certain kind of comedy – the kind we saw in Britain with the long-running department store sitcom, Are You Being Served? Now it’s the turn of the Saudis to get their knickers in a twist (so to speak) over the question of who should serve the customers: a man or a woman? Under the rules established by the Wahhabi sect, unrelated men and women … Continue reading Are Saudis being served?

Henry Adams Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education, but several years of arduous study in the neighbourhood of Westminster led Henry Adams to think that knowledge of English human nature had little or no value outside of England. In Paris, such a habit stood in one’s way; in the US, it roused all the instincts of native jealousy. The English mind was one-sided, eccentric, systematically unsystematic, and logically illogical. The less one knew of it, the better. This heresy, which scarcely would have been allowed to penetrate a Boston mind — it would, indeed, … Continue reading Eccentricity

Shahzad Chaudhry Current American thinking is rather defensive; having blasted the Taliban for all this time, it is only a sheepish return to integrating the same elements into the mainstream Afghan fabric The US, the principal player in Afghanistan today, is stuck with a dilemma. How important is Afghanistan to its security interests? Having spent close to a trillion dollars on this misadventure, is the US any closer to achieving the objectives it must have laid out for itself when venturing into Afghanistan? How does the US satisfy a predominant global curiosity on how a superpower deals with an imbroglio … Continue reading Wages of misconception

Talat Masood The military to military relations between the US and Pakistan seems to be gradually improving. There is a greater level of mutual confidence and less talk of “do more”. This has been achieved by enhanced cooperation at operational and intelligence level and is benefiting both sides. It seems sharing is taking place even at the planning stage to ensure greater synergy and to make sure that the operations undertaken by the US on the Afghan side do not have a negative fallout on Pakistan or vice-versa. The importance the US attaches to Pakistan is demonstrated by the frequency … Continue reading On an upward curve

Sahar Saba In 2001, US First Lady Laura Bush said “the fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.’’ In practice, because of the subsequent US military strategy to bring warlords into power to replace the Taliban has proved to be a negation of this. Women’s rights are regularly traded for political deals. Afghanistan’s most famous woman and youngest MP, Malalai Joya, remains suspended from parliament because of the government’s effort to please the Northern Alliance. Gulbadin Hikmatyar, notorious since the 1970s for his anti-women barbarities, has been accommodated. Now talks with the Taliban … Continue reading Kabul’s women

Charles Ferndale Kamila Hyat, in a typically lucid, well-reasoned article, published in The News on February 11, laments the present ubiquity of intolerance in Pakistan and asks what might be done about it. The rise of extremist, religious intolerance over the last thirty years has not been restricted to Pakistan, nor even to the Muslim communities of the world. It has infested Christian communities (mainly in America) and Jewish communities (mainly in America) as well as others, like Shiv Sena, the Hindu fascists of India. We can say then that not all extremism is caused by poverty. Battles for scarce … Continue reading The path to freedom

By Heidi Blake Telegraph Lord Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society and astronomer to the Queen, said the existence of extra terrestrial life may be beyond human understanding. He made the remarks shortly after hosting the national science academy’s first conference on the possibility of alien life. “They could be staring us in the face and we just don’t recognise them. The problem is that we’re looking for something very much like us, assuming that they at least have something like the same mathematics and technology,” he said. “I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms … Continue reading Royal astronomer: ‘Aliens may be staring us in the face’ Aliens may be “staring us in the face” in a form humans are unable to recognise, the Queen’s astronomer has said.

dawn By Iqbal Akhund The average Pakistani is devout and religious but is not willing to be ruled by clerics. — File Photo In a recent TV debate on this subject, the applause meter would have given the win to Islamism. The debaters, three on each side, faced a small mixed audience — quite a few girls, many wearing hijabs, also young men in jeans and a handful of beards. The ‘secularists’ appealed, in measured tones, to the intellect, made references to European history, called for tolerance, pluralism and progress. The ‘Islamists’ were assertive, emotional and received applause when they … Continue reading Secularism vs Islamism

Jawed Naqvi Amitabh Bachchan is fascism’s newest recruit.—Photo by Reuters An unnerving feature of fascism is that it readily finds a popular base among unsuspecting people. Another feature of fascism is that it can use the pretence of democracy to gain power. Without the Enabling Act passed by parliament Hitler would not have become Fuehrer. It was only then that he acquired mesmeric dimensions that swept the Germans off their feet. Big business idolised him in a big way. Narendra Modi’s charisma has lured India’s biggest business tycoons — powerful tycoons who are invited to attend American presidents’ inaugurations — … Continue reading Why must superstars prostitute themselves to fascists?