The Times January 25, 2010 Mono Lake, California: ‘home to arsenic-loving beings’ It is the classic sci-fi scenario: discovering aliens, not in outer space, but right here on Earth, sitting next to you in the workplace, serving food in your local restaurant, or, scariest of all, in your own home. The premise might sound like the film Men in Black, but this week it will consume the great minds of science at a meeting of Britain’s most venerable institution, the Royal Society. Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona State University, will suggest tomorrow that the search for extra-terrestrial life should … Continue reading Royal Society meet to discuss if extra-terrestrials are here on Earth

Leading up to the general election, we’ll be bombarded with political rhetoric. Here’s what our leaders really mean Rafael Behr The Observer, Politics is often conducted in code and never more so than in an election campaign. To help decrypt some of the phrases we’ll be hearing over the next few months, I offer the following print-out-and-keep election 2010 glossary. It is by no means exhaustive – contributions welcome. Antisocial behaviour Public-order offences that defied policing for so long they had to be rebranded as something other than crime. Apathy An explanation for low turnout that is more palatable to … Continue reading An insider’s guide to politicospeak

An ad campaign calls on Egyptians to use family planning more diligently – by trying to make larger families feel guilty Mohamed El Dahshan guardian.co.uk, A remarkably clumsy government-sponsored television campaign has recently hit the Egyptian airwaves. It encourages people to cap their offspring to two children, but only by making those with larger families feel bad about their choices. The string of ads features a second-tier actor unconvincingly playing a farmer interacting with fellow exhausted and demoralised villagers suffering from the consequences of having large families (rural areas have a significantly higher birth rate than urban zones, with 5.0 … Continue reading A bitter pill to swallow

The Legatum Institute, a London-based think tank, has taken a look at our possible futures and presents us with a picture of a state which is Islamist but not Talibanised, and increasingly anti-American. The timeframe that is being considered is relatively short – one to three years – and the report talks of a subtle power shift from a secular pro-western society to one that is Islamist and anti-American. The predicate that this was ever a truly a secular society in anything other than an educated minority is almost certainly flawed — and has more to do with western wishful … Continue reading Crystal gazing – A powershift from ProWest to ProMullahs in Pakistan?

Srinivasan Ramani Pakistan’s interior minister made a statement that “India was not serious about the peace process” by the manner in which the cricketers were excluded. Such a conclusion is unwarranted as it does not understand the way the league functions The decision by franchise owning businessmen to not to pick any of the Pakistani players available in the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction for its third season was unfortunate. The IPL franchisee owners clearly did not think much of the feelings of the cricketers who entered the auction process through a circuitous route, after having invited them to the … Continue reading An unfortunate exclusion

Smokers’ Corner: The minor majority By Nadeem F. Paracha Why do many Pakistanis spend more time celebrating Islamic history of regions outside India (especially Arabian), the ummah, and seem to show more concern in what is happening to their brethren in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kashmir. The Mughals and the Muslim population of the subcontinent weren’t all that bothered by the whole concept of the caliphate. As rulers they did not, or only superficially, recognised the Ottoman caliph. The Mughals, though Central Asian by decent, were deeply entrenched in the political and social traditions of the subcontinent and so was … Continue reading The minor majority – Loud Fanatics

By Aamna Haider Isani Meera has an answer for everything and one by one she dispels all the stories that have been doing the rounds. — File photo Meera talks in a language better known as scandal. Almost everything she says turns into controversy and it’s one of those controversies that she’s been embroiled in recently that has her emphasising the word Miss. In plain words, she insists she was never married to the man called Ateequr Rahman and the allegations that he slapped upon her were false and baseless. It’s still Miss as far as Meera is concerned though … Continue reading The curious case of Pakistans sex-siren Meera

By Huma Yusuf China’s Premier Wen Jiabao (R) shakes hands with President Asif Ali Zardari. Having China on board would give Pakistan the confidence that a long-time ally with a transparent regional agenda is looking out for Islamabad’s interests. – Photo by Reuters. Although think tanks in the United States are working overtime to solve the Pakistan ‘problem’, their final reports are drawing rather obvious conclusions: choking terror funding and promoting economic development. However, a new think tank report suggesting that the US and China put the stabilisation of Pakistan on top of their bilateral agenda raises an interesting prospect … Continue reading A role for China

By Anwar Syed Ajmal sits next to the body of his brother, who was killed in a bomb blast in Rawalpindi, at the morgue in a hospital in the outskirts of Islamabad, November 2, 2009. — Reuters A man amongst the many who had assembled to mourn Benazir Bhutto’s death yelled out that Pakistan would not last. And then Asif Ali Zardari shouted “Pakistan khappay”, meaning it would. Since that day in December 2007 — Zardari has projected himself as the protector of Pakistan, democracy, the PPP, and the many legacies of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto. More recently he … Continue reading Unseemly claims