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Interview with India's Environment Minister
Jayshree Bajoria
India and China have long maintained their economic growth will suffer if they accept binding emission targets under an international agreement on climate change. Instead, they have called for mitigation commitments by the developed world and financial support from rich countries to help developing countries adapt to climate change.
Working Together, Brazil, Russia, China and India Increase Leverage
Ian Bremmer
In 2003, a report authored by Goldman Sachs economists popularized the term BRICs -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- to describe a whole new category of emerging-market powerhouse. The report argued that with sound political leadership and relative international stability, the BRIC economies would together outpace the original G6 industrialized nations in dollar terms by 2040 -- a fundamental shift in the global balance of power. Since then, these four countries have assumed ever-greater importance in the international investment community's collective imagination.
Elections Give India's Congress Party Clout to Push Agenda
by Ian Bremmer
For nearly a year, an unmanageable coalition government in India has obstructed the ruling Congress Party's policy agenda and brought the country's economic reform process to a grinding halt. Now that an impressive electoral triumph in national parliamentary elections held in April and May has allowed the party to shed unreliable allies, can its leaders move the country in a more market-friendly direction. There are grounds for both caution and optimism
India's Fortune: Prospects of a Country on the Rise
by Edward Luce
Nandan Nilekani's book, Imagining India, charts how India arrived at the potentially transformative moment it has reached today and describes the gargantuan challenges the country will have to overcome if it is to fulfill that potential
Indian Ocean: Center Stage for 21st Century Struggles Between India & China
by Robert D. Kaplan
Competition between India and China suggests that the Indian Ocean is where global struggles will play out in the twenty-first century. The old borders of the Cold War map are crumbling fast, and Asia is becoming a more integrated unit, from the Middle East to the Pacific.
Brazil, China & India Can Mitigate Global Crisis
Global Economic Viewpoint
Brazil, India and even China will not be able, by themselves, to correct the dysfunctions that produced the global crisis. But it is true that the economic power of these three countries can mitigate its negative consequences. ...
India warns on trade approach to climate
Nitin Desai, a member of Manmohan Singh's council on climate change, says a hard-nosed concession-based negotiation to reach a consensus on how to combat global warming would likely founder
Sri Lanka follows Indian move to buy gold
The Sri Lankan central bank is buying gold to diversify its reserves and smooth out periods of dollar volatility
EU and India to establish free trade by 2010
EU officials said they would push hard for a bilateral free trade agreement with India at the one-day summit in New Delhi but Indian ministers were more cautious
India buy adds to bullion surge
Gold prices extended their record breaking run, pushing towards the $1,100 an ounce level, following the purchase by India of 200 tonnes of bullion from the IMF
India flexes its foreign reserve muscles
India's purchase of 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund displayed the economic strength of the world's two fastest growing large economies, New Delhi said
IMF sells 200 tonnes of gold to India central bank
The International Monetary Fund will use the $6.7bn from the sale to shore up its long-term finances and subsidise loans to poor countries
Capgemini in India milestone
Capgemini will soon have more staff in India than it does in its home market of France – in an indication of the growing power of the subcontinent in the global outsourcing industry
India warned on potential threat from China
Chinese claims to the north-eastern India state of Arunachal Pradesh could add a new territorial threat to the one India already faces from Pakistan, said New Delhi's former national security adviser
Indian stocks remain under pressure
Indian stocks came under severe selling pressure this week as corporate earnings disappointed and the Reserve Bank of India told the market to expect interest rates to rise soon
India keen to restart talks with Pakistan
Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, in a visit to Srinagar urged Pakistan to move forward a dialogue towards a "permanent peace" between the two countries, who have fought three wars since partition 62 years ago
Karzai elected as Afghan poll called off
Afghanistan's president has been declared the winner of the country's presidential elections following the decision of his main rival to withdraw from a planned run-off
FT.com - India
FT.com - India
Maoists' view is outmoded, distorted and warped: Karat
"Centre has not addressed the real issue of displacement of tribals"
Maoists’ view is outmoded: Karat
NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Friday launched an attack on the Maoists stating that their world view was “warped, distorted and outmoded” and which does not take a position on issues affecting the working ...
New Delhi must take concrete steps first, says Mirwaiz
Demands withdrawal of troops, release of detenus
Congress upset with Maoists’ response
NEW DELHI: The Congress on Friday took a grim view of the conditions set by Maoists for accepting the government’s invitation for a dialogue. In a recent statement, the left extremists offered a ceasefire if the Centre gave up its ...
Over 10 lakh bales of cotton ready for exports
Textile associations seek ban
Advani’s last session as Opposition leader
He has conveyed to RSS his decision to step down
Why should Modi apologise, asks Mohan Bhagwat
Says new BJP chief will not be from among four ‘gen next’ leaders
‘Highlight progress in ties with China’
NEDUMBASSERY: India and China shared a complex and multidimensional relationship and the media should focus more on the qualitative improvement in the bilateral ties that the two countries had achieved over the years. Minister of State ...
“Extend SC status to Dalit Christians, Dalit Muslims”
NEW DELHI: Armed with written commitments made by practically every party except the BJP, the National Council of Dalit Christians (NCDC) has demanded that the government extend Scheduled Caste status to Dalit Muslims and Christians. ...
Bomb scare
KOLKATA: The Puri-bound New Delhi-Puri Puroshottam Express was detained at Purulia Station in West Bengal’s Purulia district on Friday evening following a bomb scare in one of its coaches. An unclaimed tiffin box, detected in a ...
Swamy wants Dalai Lama’s visit rescheduled
CHENNAI: Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy has urged the Union government to reschedule the Dalai Lama’s proposed visit to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, as what was a religious trip had assumed political overtones. In a ...
‘China aiming at dominating IT sector’
KOCHI: China is aiming at becoming a world leader in IT and IT-enabled services in the next five years, according to M.P. Sukumaran Nair, Special Secretary to the Chief Minister. Though China was younger by 10 years to India in the IT services ...
Koda’s aide arrested in hawala scam
Ranchi/New Delhi: A close aide of former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda became the first person to be arrested on Friday in the Rs.2,000 crore illegal assets case as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) prepared to arrest Mr. Koda who is ...
Visa process ‘short-circuited’
NEW DELHI: Foreign journalists who obtained inner line permits to be present in Arunachal Pradesh during Dalai Lama’s visit had “short-circuited” the visa process, official sources here said. They said that the ...
M.S. Swaminathan seeks media help for another farm revolution
Power of the media has increased but its credibility has taken a knock: M. Damodaran
Congress, JVM tie up for Jharkhand Assembly polls
Transfer of judge cancelled
NEW DELHI: Now that the elevation of Karnataka High Court Chief Justice P.D. Dinakaran to the Supreme Court has been put on hold, the transfer of Chief Justice Jasti Chelameswar from the Gauhati High Court to the Karnataka High Court has been ...
Contempt notice to Prashant Bhushan
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to advocate Prashant Bhushan on a contempt petition for his interview in Tehelka magazine levelling corruption charges against its sitting judges. A Bench ...
“Disinvestment of PSU shares anti-national”
NEW DELHI: Accusing the Manmohan Singh government move to disinvest shares in all profitable public sector units(PSU) as a “patently anti-national step,” the Left parties on Friday condemned the decision and demanded its ...
India’s stand on Goldstone report shocking, says CPI(M)
NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Friday said it was shocked by India’s stand in the United Nations General Assembly of expressing reservation over endorsing the findings and recommendations of the Goldstone report ...
Colombo wary of Kosovo-type fate: official
Wants to adopt cautious approach to political settlement of Tamils
Prabhash Joshi passes away
He championed the cause of press freedom
“India not delivering on post-partum care”
NEW DELHI: India is falling behind other countries in meeting international commitments to improve obstetric care because it does not adequately monitor deaths and injuries in the critical period following childbirth and fix gaps in its health ...
A guiding force for young journalists
New Delhi: Prabhash Joshi was a revered figure in the press box. He was at his best in the company of youngsters, especially when sharing his vast experience of interaction with cricketers. He always made it a point to make young cricket ...
‘Food security major concern’
COIMBATORE: Agriculture has registered a phenomenal growth during the last four decades, but food security remains a major concern, Union Minister for Agriculture Sharad Pawar said here on Friday. Past achievements were very impressive ...
FIR against Amar Singh
LUCKNOW: An FIR was lodged on Friday against Samajwadi Party national general secretary Amar Singh for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments of Shia Muslims at an election rally here on Wednesday. ADG ( Law and Order ) Brij Lal told ...
Media help sought for another farm revolution
NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha member and noted agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan has urged the media to give more importance to the agriculture sector to help it face another revolution on the lines of “green revolution” in sixties ...
Ban on pre-paid connections temporary: Farooq
SRINAGAR: Defending the Centre’s decision to ban pre-paid mobile connections in Jammu and Kashmir, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah on Friday said the ban was temporary. “The decision was taken ...
Clean chit for Justice Yadav in cash-at-door case
New Delhi: Justice Nirmal Yadav of the Punjab and Haryana High Court has been given a clean chit in the “Rs. 15 lakh cash-at-door scam”, 15 months after she was relieved of judicial work. The Supreme Court collegium headed by ...
The Hindu - National
The Internet edition of The Hindu, India's national newspaper
Yeddyurappa breaks down on TV, confesses to ditching aides
Karnataka CM B S Yeddyurappa confesses to "ditching" confidantes, apologises to flood victims saying he has been distracted from concentrating on their rehabilitation because of the chaos created by Reddy brothers.
Ghaziabad: Trains crush 5 workers to death
5 gang men were repairing a rail track when a mistake in judging the direction of an approaching train cost them their lives. They were run over by two trains, one of which was the Dehradun-Delhi Jan Shatabdi Express.
Upset stomach saves former Jharkhand CM Madhu Koda from arrest
Former Jharkhand CM Madhu Koda got a reprieve from imminent arrest in the Rs2500cr money laundering case as doctors at Ranchi's Apollo Hospital decided to keep him under medical examination for "a day or two".
Muslims told to avoid Ramdev camp over 'Vande..'
"Singing of Vande Mataram is a prayer and against Islamic law as Muslims cannot offer prayers to anyone except Allah. Muslims should not sing Vande Mataram," said deputy-in-charge of Darul Uloom's fatwa dept.
Ashok Chavan sworn in as Maharashtra CM
Ashok Chavan was sworn in as Maharashtra CM and Chhagan Bhujbal as the deputy CM on Saturday. While R R Patil and Rajendra Darda made a comeback a number of cabinet ministers were dropped.
Israel consulate inspects Goa for safety of citizens
The Goa Police said Saturday that it was "natural" for officers from Israel's Mumbai consulate to inspect the North Goa coast as it was frequented by Israeli tourists.
Some US Muslims fear backlash after Texas shooting
Arab and Muslim Americans on Friday braced for the possibility of verbal or physical attacks after an army psychiatrist of Arab descent allegedly killed 13 during a shooting rampage at a military base in Texas.
Maoists strike during Buddhadeb's visit, kill 3
Maoists struck with impunity killing three youths suspecting them to be police informers and shooting at and injuring a ruling CPI(M) leader as West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee began a tour of the district.
Ajab Prem Ki... has edge over Jail on first day
Romantic comedy "Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani", which stars Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif, has sent the box office cash registers ringing, elbowing out Madhur Bhandarkar's "Jail" on the first day Friday.
'Weekend Planner' by Jacqueline Fernandez
s
Return of the sex bomb
My jaw hit the floor when, a couple of weeks ago, I walked into a pub to meet my friend Sam and found her dressed as a tramp...
Revealed: Five rules for better sex, romance
Want to spice things up in the bedroom? Well, then turn your attention to a new book that provides tips on how to turn on your partner. Barbara and Allan Peaseβs new book aims at making love life even sexier, reports a British daily...
Rediscover the magic of 'tulsi'
We give you a lowdown on Tulsi - the queen of all herbs and its healing properties
Now, wrinkle busting bra for crinkle-free breasts!
Review: Thumbs up for Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani
Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani
Idiot is not the same thing as stupid: Aamir
Chetan Bhagat wants to script romcoms!
Author Chetan Bhagat talks about dedicating his latest book 2 States to his in-laws and why Hello, based on his second book, didnβt work.....
Raj will ride a chariot for Shilpa!
The Times of India
Times of India brings the Latest & Top Breaking News on Politics and Current Affairs in India & around the World, Cricket, Sports, Business, Bollywood News and Entertainment, Science, Technology, Health & Fitness news & opinions from leading columnists.
Maoists strike during Buddhadeb's visit, kill 3
Maoists struck with impunity killing three youths suspecting them to be police informers and shooting at and injuring a ruling CPI(M) leader as West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee began a tour of the district.
Three swine flu deaths take India's toll to 484
Three swine flu deaths, including two in Kerala, were reported Saturday, taking the toll due to Influenza A (H1N1) virus in India to 484, health authorities said here.
Controversial portions in textbooks removed in Rajasthan
Parts of textbooks in classes IX and XI of Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education (RBSE) were removed with immediate effect as a committee constituted to look into controversies in content recommended the same.
Moderate to brisk voting in Assam bypolls
Moderate to brisk polling was recorded till Saturday afternoon in two Assam assembly constituencies, officials said.
Moderate turnout in Uttar Pradesh by-polls
An average of 49.37% voting was recorded in by-elections to 11 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh Saturday while the turnout in Firozabad parliamentary seat was over 50%, officials said.
Upset stomach saves Koda from arrest
Former Jharkhand CM Madhu Koda got a reprieve from imminent arrest in the Rs2500cr money laundering case as doctors at Ranchi's Apollo Hospital decided to keep him under medical examination for "a day or two".
Moderate voting across 7 states for assembly by-elections
Tens of thousands voted enthusiastically Saturday in by-elections to one Lok Sabha and 31 assembly constituencies across seven states, with the outcome set to have a bearing on almost all major political parties.
Around 70% polling in Kerala bypolls
Kerala saw heavy polling of around 70% in the three assembly constituencies of Kannur, Ernakulam and Alappuzha in largely peaceful by-polls Saturday.
West Bengal bypolls peaceful, 65% polling
Sixty-five per cent polling was recorded today in the byelections to 10 Assembly seats in West Bengal which passed off, by and large, peacefully.
India has one of the lowest teacher-student ratios: Expert
The number of teachers in India is one of the lowest in the world and is generally a last career resort, an expert said at the sixth Higher Education Summit on Saturday.
Chhattisgarh records 50-55% voting
An estimated 50-55% of the over 200,000 electorate exercised their franchise in Chhattisgarh's Vaishali Nagar assembly seat by-poll Saturday, officials said.
Moderate to heavy polling in Himachal
Moderate to heavy polling was witnessed in the by-elections to Rohru and Jawali assembly constituencies in Himachal Pradesh Saturday, an official said.
Pak releases 8 Indian fishermen suffering from old age
Pakistan Marine Security Agency (PMSA) allowed eight aged Indian fishermen to return home after they were arrested for straying into neighbouring country's waters while fishing Thursday, officials said.
Army help not taken for Dalai Lama's visit
The Arunachal Pradesh government has not taken the help of the army to ensure security during Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama's visit here beginning Saturday.
Koda's wife sacrifices goats for his well-being
Geeta Koda, wife of former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda β who is accused of laundering Rs.2,500 crore β sacrificed 11 goats at a temple here for her husband's well-being.
India News, Latest News in India, Live News India, India Breaking News - Times of India
Get the latest breaking news from India on politics and current affairs.
China, African Nations Meet Sunday to Strenghten Economic Ties
Chinese-made goods are in abundant supply in Africa and Arab world due to strong economic relations
China Looks Forward to Hosting President Obama
Beijing says US president's visit will help push bilateral relations to 'new historical starting point'
Thailand-Cambodia Tensions Rise Over Appointment of Fugitive Thai Official
Regional political analysts say Bangkok, Phnom Penh relations are the worst they have been in several years
Afghan Police: 2 Missing NATO Soldiers Drowned
Both soldiers reportedly swept away into river while trying to save supply boxes that fell into water after being air-dropped
India Buys Gold from International Monetary Fund to Diversify Foreign Exchange Reserves
Deal means that South Asian country's Central bank now has tenth largest gold holdings in world
British PM Calls for Halt to Afghan Corruption
Gordon Brown warns Afghan government to take action against corruption, saying he would not risk more British lives there unless it reforms
UNHCR Steps up Aid to Displaced Pakistanis
Fighting between army and Taliban militants in South Waziristan hit peak in mid-October when army launched air, ground offensive to dislodge Islamic militants from their sanctuary
Afghanistan Rejects UN Criticism of Karzai
Top UN official in Afghanistan warned President Hamid Karzai to combat corruption or risk losing international support
Afghanistan: NATO Strike Kills 7 Afghan Security Members
Afghan Defense Ministry says four Afghan soldiers, three policemen were killed in air strike Friday in Badghis province, some security personnel wounded
Pakistan Army: 12 Militants Killed in Recent Fighting
Accounts of Pakistan army's offensive in tribal region near Afghan border are difficult to verify, as journalists, aid workers are not allowed into battle zone
VOA News: Asia
Up to the minute news from Voice of America
India's wretched state of Manipur: Not free to starve
A poet from Manipur celebrates nine years of trying to kill herself IROM CHANU SHARMILA, 37, a poet and aspirant suicide, was this week unable to attend a cultural festival held in her honour in Imphal, capital of India’s north-eastern state of Manipur. She was in hospital, being force-fed lentil soup through a tube inserted into her nose. The festival and an attendant fast, joined by hundreds of Ms Sharmila’s sympathisers in recent months, were to mark an anniversary. On November 2nd 2000 the poet, known as the “Iron Lady”, embarked on a “fast unto death”—a threat respected as an act of protest in India, often used to great effect by Mohandas Gandhi. Yet Ms Sharmila’s case, like the wretched condition of Manipur, the most violent of seven troubled north-eastern states, is a national embarrassment. ...
Indonesia's anti-corruption commission: The gecko bites back
Yudhoyono: second term, first crisis THIS was to have been Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s second honeymoon. Inaugurated for a second presidential term last month after a landslide election victory in July, he should have been basking in his recent international popularity and preparing for a regional summit in Singapore. Instead, he has been consumed by the fallout from a political scandal. On November 2nd he set up a team to look into an investigation by the police of members of the Corruption Eradication Commission, known as the KPK. The commission’s high-profile prosecutions had helped improve the country’s corrupt image and boosted the president’s standing. Mr Yudhoyono was responding to mounting public pressure and street protests that followed the arrest of two KPK deputy chairmen on dubious charges of abuse of power and extortion. This was the culmination of a months-long feud pitting the KPK against the national police and the attorney-general’s office. The two KPK officials, Chandra Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto, were accused of taking bribes from Anggoro Widjojo, a corruption suspect, so that he could flee abroad. They say their arrests were part of a plot to frame them and weaken the KPK. ...
Financial scandals in Thailand: Getting their man
Market panics, old and new IT TOOK 13 years for Thai justice to catch up with Rakesh Saxena, an Indian-born banker who fled to Canada in 1996. Once there, Mr Saxena (pictured left) dug in his heels during what became Canada’s longest-ever extradition case. Eventually, on October 30th, all his appeals exhausted, Mr Saxena arrived back in Thailand to face criminal charges over his role in the insolvency of Bangkok Bank of Commerce (BBC) in 1996. The sorry tale of BBC, which was milked by bank executives and politicians under the nose of regulators, was, in retrospect, a dry run for the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis that began in Bangkok. For Thailand, putting Mr Saxena on trial provides a bookend of sorts to the crisis. It also threatens to ensnare several politicians aligned to the present government who had dealings with BBC and may prefer Mr Saxena’s silence. Prison officials have made a show of securing his cell to prevent anyone getting to him. Regulators hope to tie up loose ends from BBC’s collapse under the weight of $3 billion in bad loans. Its president was jailed in 2005 for fraud. But many others escaped censure. ...
Banyan: Having it both ways
Despite protestations to the contrary, China needs NATO to fight in Afghanistan ONE day early this summer, when it was still possible to claim progress in Afghanistan, Robert Gates, America’s defence secretary, was at an Asian security gathering, reeling off the names of countries who had contributed to it. The list—Canada, Mongolia, Poland—went on and on, while the harrumphing of a Chinese general in the third row grew ever louder. Eventually, he held back no longer. “Why no China?” he demanded. “Where is China on this list?” Where indeed? The question seemed odd. Unlike the other countries on Mr Gates’s list, China has no military presence in Afghanistan. Though China has peacekeepers as far afield as Haiti and Sudan, it is allergic to sending them to neighbouring countries. Perhaps, this columnist later inquired of the general, he meant the modest intelligence that China shares with the United States on jihadists with connections in Xinjiang, China’s restive, preponderantly Muslim, western region? No, he replied testily. “I mean the mine. Our copper mine.” ...
Bangladesh and Myanmar: Fenced in
More grief for the Rohingyas “WE HAVE an excellent relationship with the soldiers on the other side,” says Khalilar Rahman, a Bangladesh Rifles commander at a remote outpost on a hillock in Ghumdhum, on the border with Myanmar. A Burmese outpost is a stone’s-throw away, across the paddy-field below, where Burmese labourers are frantically working to build a border fence. Concrete pillars stretch as far as the eye can see. The movement of people and goods here—in happier days earmarked as the route for a highway—has stopped completely. As Myanmar prepares for elections next year, tensions along the 320km (200-mile) border with Bangladesh have risen. As usual, that involves more persecution for the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority whom Myanmar refuses to recognise as Burmese. Because of them, though no one says it openly, Bangladesh is probably quite happy with the fast-emerging fence. ...
Afghanistan's “re-elected” president: Karzai's tattered victory
The world agrees to pretend he won; not all Afghans suspend disbelief BRINGING Afghanistan’s disastrous presidential election to a close, ten weeks after the voting, the chairman of the country’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) said he would only accept three questions. Incredulous journalists gathered in a glum conference room in a fortified Kabul compound would have none of it. They mobbed him as he tried to make a quick exit. The announcement that Hamid Karzai had been declared president without a second round of voting raised many more than three questions. Top of the list is whether the next government is legitimate. Afghanistan’s legal experts lined up to say an emphatic no. Under the constitution, the winning candidate needs more than half the available votes cast in a national ballot. It was irrelevant that the second-placed candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, would not take part in a run-off, fearing massive pro-Karzai rigging, as in the first round. It had been assumed that the IEC, which many lawyers say has no right to make such a decision, might seek some legal cover by asking for a Supreme Court opinion. But that was unnecessary, as Western leaders rushed to endorse the IEC’s interpretation. ...
Politics and the war in Sri Lanka: To which victor the spoils?
The mysterious ambitions of Sri Lanka’s victorious army commander NOT even six months has elapsed since the protracted war with Tamil Tiger rebels ended in a bloody climax, leading to the Sri Lankan government’s triumph. But already the leaders of the military campaign are sparring ahead of an election due next year. For weeks the press has been speculating about friction between the administration of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Sarath Fonseka, the hawkish army general who commanded troops in the final assault against the Tigers. Jittery over rumours, spread mostly by opposition parties, that General Fonseka will challenge Mr Rajapaksa in the election, the government in October banned reports about his political ambitions. A communique from the army’s spokesman warned the press that several laws would be used against those who published “false reports” using the names of serving senior army officers. ...
China's navy off Somalia: Cash and carry
A hijack dilemma for China UNACCUSTOMED to operating far from its own shores, China’s navy is even less used to actual fighting. So news on October 19th that Somali pirates had hijacked a Chinese commercial vessel in the Indian Ocean caused a stir at home. With three of its naval ships taking part in anti-piracy operations off Somalia, China for the first time would be in a position to use force to rescue a China-registered boat and its captured Chinese crew. The deployment of the Chinese navy in the Gulf of Aden in January was the fleet’s first operational venture beyond the Pacific region. Coming after several years of rapid growth in the Chinese naval armoury, including the acquisition of new frigates, destroyers and submarines, the foray raised questions about whether China’s armed forces were beginning to go global. The pirate-plagued Gulf of Aden, through which shipments to China of oil and other vital commodities pass, would be an obvious place to become more used to distant security tasks. Several Chinese vessels had already been attacked there. ...
Afghanistan's bloody election: An election under siege
The Taliban campaign with bullets. The candidates bicker. Western doubts deepen JUST ten days before November 7th, when Afghans are due to go back to the polls to decide whether or not to re-elect Hamid Karzai for another five years, the Taliban showed their determination to disrupt the election. In a ruthless onslaught in the heart of Kabul, militants attacked a large guesthouse favoured by United Nations workers. At least five of them were killed by the attackers, who dressed as policemen and carried suicide-bombs. For years the UN has clung to its reputation as a neutral arbiter, and managed to avoid becoming a militant target. But now the Taliban have declared that anyone involved in organising the “soap opera” of an election is a legitimate target. A spokesman for the movement said the carnage in Kabul was just the beginning. ...
Banyan: Himalayan histrionics
Asia's two giants still cannot agree where one stops and the other begins IF THIS is to be Asia’s century, a small prerequisite is that its two rising powers rub along together. Yet recent bonding between China and India has turned to repulsion. Breathless Indian commentary talks of irreconcilable rivalry, even future conflict. As for the Chinese, few had bothered much about India. The superiority of China’s economic and political models was taken as read. That makes an October editorial on the website of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, all the more striking. The editorial cranked out insults not levelled in decades. India’s superpower dreams, it said, might appear to be justified. But they are mingled “with the thought of hegemony”. This was setting India on the road to “repeated failure”. Damnable, too, was India’s policy of “befriending the far and attacking the near”. Indian hegemony, the editorial decided, was “100% the result of British colonialism”, when the Raj ruled from Pakistan to Burma. Now, the victim was trying to out-empire even the British. ...
Japan's samurai culture: They need another hero
Swooning over sword-wielding samurais, not sober-suited salarymen FAT, raccoon-faced, and with the severed head of one of his enemies at his feet, Ieyasu Tokugawa, Japan’s mightiest shogun, hardly looks like a heartthrob. Yet this is the image of him that confronts awestruck young women when they travel to the village of Sekigahara in central Japan. There, in 1600, Tokugawa used brilliant tactics—and treachery—to win the deciding battle in a civil war that enabled him to found a 265-year ruling dynasty. Now young women are turning him, and the warlords who fought against him, into objects of hero worship. “It’s like a samurai boom,” says a curator at the local museum. “The young women seem to adore the codes of loyalty and friendship by which the samurai lived.” ...
Terrorism in Pakistan: A hostile ally
Clinton flies into a war zone A VISIT to Pakistan this week by Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, was greeted in the grimmest possible fashion. A suicide-bomber exploded a car packed with explosives and killed over 100 people in a crowded bazaar in Peshawar, in North-West Frontier Province. The presumed culprits, the Taliban, have also reached the capital, Islamabad. On October 22nd an army brigadier was ambushed outside his house and killed by two gunmen on a motorcycle. In two bloody weeks more than 250 people have died in suicide-attacks in Peshawar, Islamabad and Lahore. Security agencies are warning of more murder to come. Mrs Clinton visited Pakistan for several important reasons. She wanted to assure Pakistanis that America is no longer just a fair-weather friend. Rather, it is here to stay and support Pakistan in its fight against terrorism and poverty. A bill signed by President Barack Obama on October 12th grants Pakistan $7.5 billion in assistance for development and to alleviate poverty in the next five years. ...
South-East Asian summitry: Distant dreams
Vague hopes of integration and messy bilateral squabbles AS USUAL at such shindigs, lofty dreams of pan-Asian economic integration got a good airing at a regional leaders’ summit held in Thailand on October 25th. Buoyed by signs of recovery in recession-bound countries, and unbroken expansion in China, India and Indonesia, leaders spoke glowingly of a free-trade zone that would link the world’s most dynamic economies. Yukio Hatoyama, prime minister of Japan, the region’s largest economy, if one of its worst-performing, said such a zone should have a common currency and aspire to “lead the world”. Not to be outdone, Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, proposed a pan-Pacific economic community that would include America and collaborate on security. Lest anyone get too carried away, officials were on hand to caution that such grand plans would not happen overnight. Mr Hatoyama, who is trying to give Japan a more prominent role in Asia without jeopardising its security guarantee from America, described his proposal as a “medium-term objective”. Indeed, talk of an East Asian community, with perhaps even a single currency, is nothing new. But the chatter has grown louder since America blundered into a financial crisis that sapped its ability to act as the motor for global growth. As Abhisit Vejjajiva, Thailand’s prime minister, put it, the old model of satisfying Western consumers “will no longer serve” the region. ...
Australia's boat people: Stay the bloody hell where you are
The national phobia about boats from the north WHEN Kevin Rudd became Australia’s prime minister almost two years ago, many thought they had heard the last loud discords about asylum-seekers landing on Australia’s northern shores. But a recent increase in numbers of boat people has reignited the issue. This is straining Mr Rudd’s pledge to soften the former conservative government’s hard edge towards asylum-seekers. It is also testing Australia’s relations with Indonesia. In Jakarta this week for the inauguration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Mr Rudd persuaded Indonesia’s president to accept 78 Sri Lankans for processing in the country. Australian authorities had rescued them from a boat between Sumatra and Christmas Island, an Australian territory. A week earlier, to oblige Mr Rudd, Indonesia’s navy intercepted a boat with 250-odd Sri Lankans heading for Australia. Now moored in West Java, its passengers are refusing to disembark. Australia has now offered Indonesia more help to deal with boat people. ...
Indonesia's new cabinet: Like the last lot
More politicians than technocrats OPTIMISM abounded when Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (pictured) was re-elected Indonesian president in July in a landslide. Analysts at home and abroad hoped he would use his strong mandate to appoint a more reform-minded cabinet for his second five-year term. No longer would the former general be beholden to venal political parties. Competent technocrats would take over to drive the nation on, lifting its annual growth rates from an average of 5-6% in his first term to his target of 7%. Boosting optimism, his Democratic Party had soared on his coat-tails to become the biggest party in parliament. Mr Yudhoyono, however, has been reading a different script. Twenty out of the 37 cabinet-level appointments the president announced on October 21st are from parties that have promised support in parliament. Hardly any of these are seen as experienced managers, let alone competent ones. A conspicuous number have no background relevant to their portfolios. ...
Banyan: Hell on Earth
The West still turns a blind eye to the world's most brutal and systematic abuse of human rights A SPRAWLING encampment of think-tankers, academics, hacks and policymakers earns a living outside North Korea’s walls. They pick over its nuclear intentions and the prospects for the diplomatic dance known as the six-party process, which is meant to persuade North Korea to give up its nukes for cash and security guarantees. The encampment needs something to live on. Since North Korea declared the six-party talks dead in the spring, scraps have been meagre. So the North’s recent signals of a readiness to return to the forum, after talking to America first, come as a relief. This week a senior North Korean nuclear negotiator was on his way to America. The dance is starting up again, and the encampment is not short of views about what’s in store. Yet the focus on nukes comes at the cost of other things worth noting about North Korea. Human rights, for instance. In recent years the outlines of daily life, and the state’s miserable part in it, have become plain. First came the horror stories told by refugees in China escaping the famine from 1995-98 that killed 600,000-1m people. A more detailed picture has since emerged from refugees now settled in South Korea, from aid-workers, diplomats and from satellite pictures which, among other things, map another form of encampment—the North’s gulag. ...
South Waziristan: There they go again
War-weary refugees hope that this time the army finishes the job THIS time the signs are that Pakistan’s army means business in South Waziristan. Civilians, who have fled the ground offensive launched on October 17th in their tens of thousands, tell of intense aerial bombardment. Three previous campaigns against the Pakistani Taliban there since 2004 petered out. Either they were carried out half-heartedly, or bafflingly abandoned in the midst of battle. They left the obscurantist thugs in even firmer control of the region. Now the army seems determined to wrench it back. With journalists kept away from the fighting, and the two sides giving differing accounts, the progress of the campaign is not clear. But the size of the exodus from South Waziristan suggests fighting is intense. By the middle of this week over 17,500 now destitute families, an estimated 128,000 individuals, had registered as displaced people with the authorities in the towns of Dera Ismail Khan and Tank. ...
Afghanistan's permanent election: Seconds out, round two
Hamid Karzai is forced kicking and screaming into another electoral shambles RARELY has an announcement by a national leader been as grudging or as awkward as Hamid Karzai’s concession that Afghanistan’s presidential election should go to a second round. It took days of browbeating from Western diplomats—and a last-minute emergency turn round the gardens of the presidential palace with an American senator, John Kerry (in the centre above)—to persuade him to accept this outcome to the disputed first round. Foreign pressure on him became intense after an electoral watchdog ordered his initial vote tally of 55% to be slashed because of massive cheating on his behalf. Almost one-third of Mr Karzai’s 3.1m votes were fraudulent, according to an analysis by Democracy International, an American election-monitoring organisation. But Mr Karzai accepted none of that in front of the television cameras this week. Not only did he fail to acknowledge the scale of the fraud; he also claimed the election had been unfairly “defamed”, and hinted that the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), the United Nations-appointed body responsible for the fraud inquiry, would eventually face investigation itself. ...
Sri Lanka and the EU: Plus and minuses
A blow for garment workers, but not necessarily for the government ONE way Sri Lanka’s government has bolstered its support among the country’s ethnic-Sinhalese majority is by stoking anti-Western feelings. Now it has to try to persuade the European Union to retain a trade concession, while continuing to appear defiant. This week the European Commission adopted a report accusing Sri Lanka of flouting human-rights standards. It was held in breach of commitments made in return for duty-waivers for its exports under the “GSP Plus” scheme. The commission said it would consult member states on suspending the trade benefit, granted in 2005. This was no surprise. The EU has complained of violations, particularly during this year’s final stages of the war with Tamil Tiger rebels. Thousands of Tamils died in indiscriminate shelling. Over 250,000 displaced civilians still languish in camps with inadequate water, housing and sanitation. The EU made it known GSP Plus would not be extended beyond 2009 if its concerns were not addressed. ...
The Economist: Asia
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