Afghanistan - Miscellaneous

Afghanistan: Rethinking Reconstruction - The Bush administration reportedly is considering major adjustments in its approach on Afghanistan’s reconstruction, a reflection of the surge in Islamic militant activity in the country , Richard Weitz - EurasiaNet

Winning in Afghanistan - A military analyst on what's wrong with U.S. strategy , by Dan Ephron - Newsweek

The ‘kid’ in Kabul - This is Amrullah Saleh, the thirty-six-year-old director of Karzai’s spy agency, known as NDS, who probably became the world’s youngest intelligence chief in 1994, at age 32. Mr Saleh is also a central figure in the undeclared, low-intensity war against Pakistan, although he is more of a good executioner than an original thinker. Since 2005, NDS has emerged as a major source of strategic instability in the region , by Ahmed Quraishi - The News

The Smart Money in Afghanistan - This is the chaos that is foreign aid in Afghanistan, a place where every mistake ever made in an underdeveloped economy is being repeated. This is a country in which all the best people are being hired away from the national government by the alphabet soup of aid agencies , by Anne Applebaum - WP

As Crime Increases in Kabul, So Does Nostalgia for Taliban - While Taliban insurgents stage increasing attacks in the Afghan countryside, equally fast-expanding violent crime -- kidnappings, carjackings, drug-related killings and highway robberies -- is plaguing the capital of 5 million and the vital truck and bus routes that connect the country's major cities. It is making some Afghans nostalgic for the low-crime days before 2001, when the Taliban sternly ruled most of the country , by Pamela Constable - WP

US told it must hold talks with Taliban's Mullah Omar - The US must broker a power-sharing agreement with the head of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, in order to establish peace in the region, the Governor of Pakistan's lawless border areas has said , by Isambard Wilkinson - Telegraph

NATO Hopes to Undercut Taliban With 'Surge' of Projects - NATO alliance troops facing ever more aggressive Taliban insurgents are planning a winter "development surge" of civil works projects in eastern Afghanistan designed to win over tribes in regions near the Pakistan border and to prevent their sons from joining the Taliban's ranks , by Pamela Constable - WP

Revealed: secret Taliban peace bid - Saudis are sponsoring a peace dialogue involving a former senior member of the hardline group , by Jason Burke - Guardian

Why the West thinks it is time to talk to the Taliban - Negotiations have begun in secret with the enemy in Afghanistan. Jason Burke reveals the back channels of diplomacy that led to the controversial talks - Guardian

Interview with Hamid Karzai - With the security situation in his country steadily deteriorating and Taliban attacks on the rise, Afghan President Hamid Karzai sat down in New York last week with Newsweek-Washington Post's Lally Weymouth to discuss the future of Afghanistan - WP

Weak government allows Taleban to prosper in Afghanistan - The collapse of security in Helmand owes as much to government failings as to any military action , by Tom Coghlan - The Times

Trio of warlords blamed for surge in Afghanistan violence - The three men, who sometimes cooperate with one another, work largely unhindered from bases in Pakistan. U.S. strikes against them have proved futile , by Greg Miller - LAT

Afghanistan's Very Careful Tour Guides - The lines between the Afghanistan at war and the Afghanistan at peace alter daily. Cities accessible by road today may only be reached by plane — or not at all — tomorrow. And so follow the boundaries of the nation's tiny tourism industry , by Don Duncan - TIME

A Karzai for Iraq or a Maliki for Afghanistan? - Until a couple of years ago, whenever I discussed Iraq in Washington, I always ended up being asked one question: how to find an Iraqi Karzai? The reference, of course, was to Hamid Karzai who has led the Afghan government since the fall of the Taliban in 2002. More recently, however, that question has been replaced by another. This time, I am asked: How to find a Maliki for Afghanistan? , by Amir Taheri - Asharq Alawsat

British envoy says mission in Afghanistan is doomed, according to leaked memo - Britain’s Ambassador to Afghanistan has stoked opposition to the allied operation there by reportedly saying that the campaign against the Taleban insurgents would fail and that the best hope was to install an acceptable dictator in Kabul , by Charles Bremner and Michael Evans - The Times

Afghan ‘Dictator’ Proposed in Leaked Cable - A coded French diplomatic cable leaked to a French newspaper quotes the British ambassador in Afghanistan as predicting that the NATO-led military campaign against the Taliban will fail. That was not all. The best solution for the country, the ambassador said, would be installing an “acceptable dictator” , Elaine Sciolino - NYT

Pakistan - Miscellaneous

A Pakistani Response to the Marriott Attack - It is an unintended irony but many of the news stories of the horrific bomb blast at Islamabad's Marriott were followed by another headline: "foreign troops must stay out of Pakistan, says government" , by Stephen P. Cohen - Brookings

Casualties of another war - The Marriott bombing is terrible revenge for the Afghan campaign that has gone so badly wrong , by Tariq Ali - Guardian

High stakes in Islamabad and Washington - As Pakistan's situation worsens, Zardari faces paying for the Bush administration's desperation to leave a lasting legacy , by Simon Tisdall - Guardian

A question of trust in Pakistan, the land of the conspiracy theory - But Mr Zardari faces an even greater challenge at home, where many Pakistanis see the rising tide of Islamist violence as part of a foreign conspiracy or, even, something to be supported if it harms America , by Isambard Wilkinson - Telegraph

Pakistan: a country on fire - The rubble of the Islamabad hotel bombing leaves Pakistan with only one option: to escape from the Washington-Taliban vice that traps it , by Ayesha Siddiqa - Open Democracy

Pakistan will prevail against terrorism - There are moments in history that define nations, and also define men. For Pakistan, we have reached a critical crossroad that will determine the nature of our future, or if we will have one , by Asif Ali Zardari - Boston Globe

Pakistan’s Faith in Its New Leader Is Shaken - A week after the bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel here, Pakistan is struggling to deal with a financial meltdown and a terrorism threat that has moved to the nation’s heart and badly shaken confidence in the new government among Pakistanis, diplomats and investors alike , by Jane Parlez - NYT

The Long Road to Chaos in Pakistan - “All roads lead to FATA,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik said. If the past is any guide, Mr. Malik’s statement is almost certainly correct. But what Mr. Malik did not say was that those same roads, if he chose to follow them, would very likely loop back to Islamabad itself , by Dexter Filkins - NYT

Bush's third war - U.S. attacks inside Pakistan mark an escalation that may bedevil the next president , by Andrew J. Bacevich - LAT

Support to Pakistan distorts Asia's balance of power - Giving Pakistan artificially inflated military capabilities that it could not afford on its own poisons US relations with New Delhi. It emboldens Pakistani hawks to support anti-Indian militants in Kashmir, tribal insurgents in northeast India, and jihadi leaders who orchestrate terrorist attacks in India from bases in Bangladesh as well as Pakistan , Selig S. Harrison - Boston Globe

Tribes in Pakistan turn against the Taliban - Intensive Pakistani military action in the border areas has emboldened several tribes to turn against Taliban militants , by Isambard Wilkinson - The National

Terrorist attacks in Pakistan stir anger at U.S. - Nineteen percent of Pakistanis have 'positive' views toward Al Qaeda, according to a BBC poll released Sunday , by Issam Ahmed - CSM

Heeding the lessons of another war - Forty years ago, the United States began to mount raids into Cambodia and to undermine the government of King Sihanouk in order to cut Vietcong supply lines....The U.S. is now making the same mistake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If continued, ground incursions by U.S. troops across the border into Pakistan in search of the Taliban and Al Qaeda risk drastically undermining the Pakistani state, society and army , by Maleeha Lodhi and Anatol Lieven

Next U.S. leader must revamp Pakistan policy-study - Pakistan Policy Working Group, a bipartisan group of a about a dozen experts on U.S.-Pakistan relations, said the nuclear-armed Muslim country of 160 million people could pose the "single greatest challenge" for the next U.S. president , by Paul Eckert - Reuters

Is the U.S-Pakistan Alliance Against Terrorism Coming to an End? - Recent events in Pakistan have raised critical issues concerning the continuation of Pakistan’s support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism in Afghanistan. Commencing with the enormous backlash in Pakistan in the aftermath of the raid by U.S. Special Forces on Angoori Ada in the tribal area of South Waziristan on September 3. , by Tariq Mahmud Ashraf - Jamestown

Marriott bombing: a missed opportunity - The new government has spoken several times of the importance of building a national consensus on Pakistan’s need to battle terrorism for its own survival. The aftermath of the devastating bombing, some observers are saying, was the right time to build such a consensus , by Nirupama Subramanian - The Hindu

Confronting Taliban, Pakistan Finds Itself at War - War has come to Pakistan, not just as terrorist bombings, but as full-scale battles, leaving Pakistanis angry and dismayed as the dead, wounded and displaced turn up right on their doorstep , by Jane Parlez - NYT

The Most Difficult Job in the World - Asif Ali Zardari used to sport a full moustache, jet black and rakish in the style of the avid polo player he once was. But sometime in the past year he trimmed it short and let its salt-and-pepper colors show. It befits the sober role he has now assumed, at 53, as the president of Pakistan, probably the world's most difficult -- and dangerous -- political job , interview by Bret Stephens - WSJ

Is it our war or not? - It is being said that the war Pakistan is fighting is actually America's war and has been thrust on us. Secondly, it is also said that if Pakistan was not advancing US interests there would be peace. This is an absurd type of reasoning based on a partial reading of history. The real cause of instability is the absence of an analysis of the process of identity formation in Pakistani since 1947 , by by Khalid Aziz - The News

From the Council of Foreign Relations

Pakistan Policy Working Group: The Next Chapter: The United States and Pakistan - Pakistan may be the single greatest challenge facing the next American President. The sixth most populous country in the world is suffering its greatest internal crises since partition, with security, economic, and political interests in the balance - CFR

Pakistan's All Weather Ally - As the controversial nuclear deal between India and the United States moves toward a final review in the U.S. Congress, Pakistan appears to be pushing for a similar deal (IANS) with China , by Jayshree Bajoria - CFR

U.S-Pakistan Military Cooperation - ....But U.S. covert military operations inside Pakistan along the Afghan border (including revelations of possible ground raids by U.S. Special Operations Forces), Pakistan's political instability, and Islamabad's questionable record on terrorism have thrown one of America's most important military alliances into disarray , by Greg Bruno and Jayshree Bajoria - CFR

India - Miscellaneous

Opium, Art, Eroticism, Radio, Travel

Inside the world's largest opium factory - It remains the world's biggest legal opium factory, dating back nearly two centuries , by Amarnath Tewary - BBC

Indian Modernism via an Eclectic and Elusive Artist - “Rhythms of India: The Art of Nandalal Bose (1882-1966)” - Word is that contemporary Indian art is the next sensation on the international market. So now’s the time to learn something about where it came from , by Holland Cotter - NYT

Cyber Sutra: India's online eroticism - Now known for strict conservatism, India was the birthplace of erotica, famed for its sensual literature and carvings. Andrew Buncombe looks at a modern expression of an ancient urge - Independent

India Set to Lose Voice of America - After 53 Years, Radio Service Will End , by Rama Lakshmi - WP

Assam: India's little-known land - It’s a part of India not at all well-known, so that travellers here can enjoy a feeling of pioneering. I flew from Calcutta to the tea town of Dibrugarh and stayed nearby at Mancotta, a handsome tea estate house dating from the 1840s when the British were annexing Assam in pursuit of a tea bonanza , by Trevor Fishlock - Telegraph

Floods, Dams

Flooding stirs bad blood in South Asia - Politics, corruption and high water trigger a crisis in India and Nepal leaving over 3 million homeless and dozens dead , by Sudeshna Sarkar - ISN

An Environmental Mistake in India - If ever there was a lesson in the unintended effects of damming rivers, the Farakka Barrage is probably it. A 4.5-kilometer irrigation dam constructed on a tributary of the River Ganges in 1974-75, it is threatening to wreak havoc on a series of downstream villages and ultimately silt up the Kolkata harbor, the condition it was partly designed to fix , by Sankar Ray - Asia Sentinel

Kashmir, Naxals, Terror, Human Rights

Will Kashmir Protests and Terrorism Thwart India’s Global Ambitions? - Politicians and extremists exploiting grievances to instigate violence could drive away foreign investors , by Harsh V. Pant - Yale Global

War in the Heart of India - We were somewhere in the wilds of Chhattisgarh state's Bastar region, the remotest heart of tribal India where Maoist insurgents prowl the mountain jungle. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called them the country's biggest long-term threat , by Jason Motlagh - Digital Journalist

India faced with home-grown terrorism - Police have arrested the head of Indian Mujahideen, which claims responsibility for recent bombings , by Mark Sappenfield - CSM

Warriors against the State - The story of two men charged with the grave crime of treachery , by Harsh Mander - The Hindu

Getting Away With Murder - 50 Years of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act - HRW

Fake Encounter ?

Error tactics - The scourge of terror India is facing is compounded by what seems to have become a persistent policy of error on the part of the law enforcement agencies, from the home ministry down to the policeman on the beat , by Jug Suraiya - TOI

Delhi 'encounter' raises questions - As the Indian government comes in for increasingly neurotic and hysterical attacks by the Bharatiya Janata Party for its "weak-kneed" attitude towards terrorism, it's tempted to display machismo by taking ever-stronger measures against Muslims--to the point of staging fake "encounters" in which suspects are simply bumped off by the police , by Praful Bidwai - The News

Is it really Muslims whose credibility is at stake? - There is nothing more subversive than the alternative narrative. A parallel version of the Godhra incident and riots sabotaged the re-election of the NDA government four years ago. A subaltern variation of the police operation at Batla House, near the Jamia Milia Islamia University on 19 September, is undermining the credibility of the Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi government today , by M J Akbar - TOI

Scandal shrouds police in Delhi - India’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has ordered the Delhi police to provide details of last week’s encounter in the city in which police claimed to have killed two Indian Mujahideen militants , by Shaikh Azizur Rahman - The National

Death in the neighbourhood - Maintaining that they had reliable evidence implicating the young men, police officials called the Jamia Nagar raid a triumph over the shadowy Indian Mujahideen – even if the crowds gathered outside the apartment at the time were already calling the encounter a fake , by Christian Cotroneo - The National

Indians Question Police Response to Recent Bombings - In the last several weeks, under intense popular pressure to show results, the police across India have made about two dozen arrests, killed a man they described as the “mastermind” of several recent blasts in a dramatic shootout in the capital and presented to the public a rare and swiftly assembled portrait of a spectacularly well-oiled, homegrown Islamist terrorism network , by Somini Sengupta - NYT

Christians, Hindutva

Hinduvatna violence threatens India's constitution - P.V. Thomas, one of India's most senior journalists, says that Hinduvatna radical groups' violence emerges from hatred of Christian charitable efforts. Constitutional order is threatened is no action is taken against extremists - UCA News

Bajrang bomb ticking - The ongoing anti-Christian attacks are not isolated. The Bajrang Dal is slowly but surely growing into a deadly, bomb-making radical group - DNA

Anti-Christian attacks flare in India - Some see a government hand in the fanatical Hindu anger against a minority and its converts , by Mian Ridge - CSM

Bishop says the "worm has turned" after Indian Christians attack Hindu - Beleaguered Christians in India have "run out of cheeks to be struck" a senior Anglican bishop declared yesterday, on hearing reports that a Christian mob had hacked a Hindu to death in the troubled state of Orissa , by Bess Twiston Davies - The Times

India's remote faith battleground - Anti-Christian riots have rocked several parts of India over the past month. Soutik Biswas travelled to a remote region in the eastern state of Orissa, where the recent violence broke out, to investigate the complex roots of the conflict - BBC

India's vengeful Christians turn to murder as Hindus step up their killing campaign - In the remote Indian state of Orissa your religion can cost you your life. Now a Christian mob has resorted to murder. Wielding knives and axes they have stabbed a Hindu man to death , by Rhys Blakely - The Times

Hindu fundamentals are under attack - As a believing Hindu, I am ashamed of what is being done by people claiming to be acting in the name of my faith. I have always prided myself on belonging to a religion of astonishing breadth and range of belief; a religion that acknowledges all ways of worshipping God as equally valid - indeed, the only major religion in the world that does not claim to be the only true religion. Hindu fundamentalism is a contradiction in terms, since Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals; there is no such thing as a Hindu heresy , by Shashi Tharoor - TOI

‘We are victims of a political conspiracy’ - BJP Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa completed four months at the helm in Karnataka on September 24. A few days earlier, to mark the completion of 100 days, he released a progress report titled, Bhavya Bhavishyakke Bhadra Bunadi (A strong foundation for a glorious future). But now, Yeddyurappa faces criticism for failing to contain communal violence in Karnataka , interview by Sanjana - Tehelka

Military Power, Strategic Stability

Land of Gandhi Asserts Itself as Global Military Power - In recent years, while world attention has focused on China’s military, India has begun to refashion itself as an armed power with global reach: a power willing and able to dispatch troops thousands of miles from the subcontinent to protect its oil shipments and trade routes, to defend its large expatriate population in the Middle East and to shoulder international peacekeeping duties , by Anand Giridharadas - NYT

U.S. Should Pay Greater Attention to Pakistani-Indian Rift Over Kashmir - Howard B. Schaffer, a former top State Department official on South Asia, says Washington should seek to prevent tensions in Kashmir from complicating U.S. security interests in Pakistan and Afghanistan , interview by Bernard Gwertzman - CFR

Crisis in Kashmir - The ensuing violence, a rise in communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims, and the heavy-handed response of the Indian government have prompted questions about the future stability of the region , by Jayshree Bajoria - CFR

India’s Strategic Challenge in Pakistan’s Afghan Hinterland - “Why did such an attack take so long to happen?” To ask that question would have been to recognize that the United States and NATO have allowed their Kabul surrogate, President Hamid Karzai, and the Indian government to use the supposedly selfless project of Afghan reconstruction as a tool with which to destroy one of the historic tenets of Pakistan’s national security policy , by Michael Scheuer - Jamestown

Burma - an anniversary

Scottish Connection

The Scot who gave hope and help to thousands - Scotsman

Strong and ancient links with Burma - Scotsman

A pioneering Scot who has dedicated his life to Burma - Scotsman

Saffron Revolution - one year after

Burma: sources of political change
What is the prospect for an end to Burma's long dictatorship? Twenty years after the suppression of the democratic movement in 1988, Joakim Kreutz looks at the faultlines and pressure-points of a complex political order - Open Democracy

Burma: Building upon success - Three months after Cyclone Nargis, the world has an outdated image of the situation inside Burma. Although aid agencies delivered assistance within days after the storm and continue to do so, the story of a recalcitrant government that rejects aid from the generous nations of the world has not been updated , by Dawn Calabia and Megan Fowler - UPI Asia

Monks with guns? Burma's younger activists get bolder - Last year's crackdown on Burma's biggest protests in 19 years spurred them to try new tactics, from teaching human rights to stockpiling arms , by Anand Gopal - CSM

Activists put Burma's grim jails on display - A simple museum tucked away on the Thai-Burmese border re-creates the infamous prisons , by Anand Gopal - CSM

Penguins and golf in Burma's hidden capital - Welcome to Naypyidaw, a bizarre, white-elephant place populated only by government employees forced to relocate. Building began after the personal astrologer of Than Shwe, the head of the notorious Burmese junta, prophesied unrest in 2005 , by Helen Beaton - Independent

The Generals Go Cyber? - Burma's military junta has so successfully suppressed the media that Internet sites based outside the country are one of the few remaining sources of reliable news for Burmese people. Now it appears not even those sites are safe , by Aung Zaw - WSJ

Dissident websites crippled by Burma on anniversary of revolt - A year after e-mailed images of its brutal crackdown against democracy demonstrations were transmitted across the world, Burma has launched a ferocious “cyber-war” against dissidents who use the internet , by Kenneth Denby - Times

Burma's secret schools of dissent - Monks teach children critical thinking and human rights, to groom the next generation of activists , by Anand Gopal - CSM

Myanmar junta rules roost 1 year after crackdown - As the crowd marching through the streets of Myanmar's biggest city swelled to 100,000, the question wasn't what did they want, but when would the government crack down - AP

The U.N. Has Failed Burma - The 20-year nonviolent struggle for human rights and democracy in Burma has learned much since 1988. The military regime that rules our country is destroying virtually the entire country, with the exception of the expansive military itself , by Aung Din - FEER

Burma: The revolution that didn't happen - It was dubbed the Saffron Revolution. Last September thousands of monks marched down the streets of Rangoon to call for democratic change , by Kate McGeown - BBC

Tradition and technology - The Saffron Revolution was the first peaceful uprising to be powered by the digital camera. While democracy activists and Buddhist monks marched in their hundreds of thousands against Burma’s military regime, it was the country’s internet enthusiasts who brought images of the movement to the outside world , by Kenneth Denby - Times

In tiny acts of defiance, a revolution still fickers - A bomb exploded in Rangoon yesterday morning, but like most acts of defiance in Burma it was more of a symbol than a serious act of rebellion. It happened in the mid-morning by a bus stop close to the golden spire of the Sule pagoda — a loud bang, a rattling of windows and an immediate influx of police carrying rifles , by Kenneth Denby - Times

Aid and water dry up in Burma's cyclone zone - A gale blew through the village of Ahgnu — and the effect it had was devastating. Not the physical damage, for the winds were no stronger than 40mph and even the feeblest of the palm and bamboo shelters remained intact. The chaos was in the minds of the villagers , by Kenneth Denby - Times

Slow recovery for Burma's cyclone victims - Aid trickles in, but locals struggle to find food before winter's harvest , by Anand Gopal - CSM

China’s Grip on Burma ‘Cause for Concern’ - Having a compliant neighbor rich in gas, oil, minerals and timber is a big plus for China, but Burma’s position on the edge of the Indian Ocean also makes it a “particularly desirable partner in China’s pursuit of energy security” , by William Boot - Irrawaddy

Dissidents reflect on Burma uprising - This week two Burmese dissidents spoke to the BBC about their country and how things have developed since events one year ago, when monks took to the streets to protest against their government - BBC

The Strange World of Burma’s Home Affairs Minister - Is Burma’s Home Affairs Minister Maj Gen Maung Oo paranoid, does he really believe the tall stories he tells to his staff—or is he just making them up to scare nervous officials? , by Aung Zaw - Irrawaddy

Where Would Burma Be without Suu Kyi? - Let's imagine a situation: Burma without Aung San Suu Kyi. Undoubtedly, the ruling generals would see this as a dream come true. But for the majority of Burmese, it would come as a great disappointment to lose the leader of the country’s pro-democracy movement , by Kyaw Zwa Moe - Irrawaddy

In Myanmar crisis, an old dissident sees hope - 'I trust the power of the people,' says Ludu Sein Win, who spent 13 years in jail, but is heartened by the outpouring of help to cyclone victims by young people in defiance of the military regime - LAT

Don't Forget About Burma's Democrats - A year after the Saffron Revolution, world focus has faded , by U Pyinar Zawta - WSJ