The Londoner

By Sikander Hayat It is now becoming clear that NATO will leave Afghanistan in 2014. The exit strategy was devised in Lisbon over the last week and the main pillar of this strategy is to train a large Afghan army and put it on the streets of Afghanistan while a large American force will stay in the country but won't leave the bases after 2015. To me it looks as if America will stay in Afghanistan for a long time to come albeit in a South Korea/Japan mould . There are many voices in the region who believe that prolonged presence of the foreign troops will only prolong the conflict in Afghanistan by making making recruitment of fighters for Taliban easier. I tend to agree with this view as I see only the immediate neighbours of Afghanistan can stabilise Afghanistan with the help of United States. Among these neighbours, Iran & Pakistan will have to play a major role and America has to recognise this role. Also Iran...

Karim Benzema has scored the opening goal for France against England tonight in the 16 th minute of the match giving france an unlikely lead in the match played at Wembley. He   is a French   football   player of Algerian heritage who currently plays as a   striker   for the La Liga   club   Real Madrid   and internationally represents the   French national football team . Benzema grew up with nine   siblings   and his father Hafid in the district of   Bron . His grandfather, Da Lakehal Benzema, lived in the village of Tighzert, located in the northern town of   Beni Djellil   in   Algeria   before migrating to Lyon, where he eventually settled in the 1950s. In 2006, the Algerian F.A. asked Benzema if he would play for Algeria, qualifying through his parents. Benzema, politely rejected the offer stating that he would prefer to play for French national team. Real Madrid   stars  Lassana...

By Sikander Hayat Well to be honest this case is very interesting as Irish government does not want a bailout but EU ( especially Germany) is insisting that Ireland must ask for help before the contagion spreads to other Euro nations. It must be said that markets will once again burn their hands as they did in the case of Greece by betting that Greece will default and with it the Europe will go down the drain as well. To me, it is impossible that in the presence of Euro stabilisation fund and with IMF virtually backing any bailouts, Ireland will suffer a fate like Greece. Markets will once again lose a lot of money by betting against the Euro. This time around even rumours of a possible bailout of the Irish have calmed the markets right down. In my view Ireland will be OK this time around, given the fact that they don't need any money for another 6 months anyway and also this should a lessen to any currency speculators who are pl...

by  Nancy Franklin When it was announced, in the spring, that Sarah Palin would be making a reality show about Alaska, the state she grew up in and then, last year, blew off, by resigning the governorship, I’m sure I winced and groaned and rolled my eyes, before hanging my head, shaking it, and emitting a deep sigh, and then repeating the sequence several times. For one thing, the show was going to be on TLC, whose initials used to stand for The Learning Channel but which I like to call The Leering Channel. Among its recent and current shows are “Make Room for Multiples,” “The Little Couple,” “Strange Sex,” “Obese and Pregnant,” “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant,” “Mermaid Girl,” and “Paralyzed and Pregnant.” Then, there’s the supersized Duggar family, whose show was first called “17 Kids and Counting,” then “18 Kids and Counting,” and is now idling at “19 Kids and Counting.” (At some point it will probably be called “But Who’s Counting?”) The show that TLC is most famous for is “Jon ...

Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been allowed to walk to freedom from house arrest today amid massive cheers from supporters, Amnesty International said A smiling Suu Kyi, wearing a traditional jacket, appeared at the gate of her compound as the crowd chanted, cheered and sang the national anthem. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate had been detained for 15 of the past 21 years, but her house arrest order ended today. Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty said: "While Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's release is certainly welcome, it only marks the end of an unfair sentence that was illegally extended, and is by no means a concession on the part of the authorities. "The fact remains that authorities should never have arrested her or the many other prisoners of conscience in Burma in the first place, locking them out of the political process." Read the full story here .  Related Posts: 1.  When Kashmiris, Nagas and others sought justice 2. Is Democracy Really ...

By  Jon Bernstein   My cover story from last week's issue --  No loyalty, no citizenship  -- is now available online. It looks at politics, religion and identity in Israel using as a peg a proposed amendment to the country's Citizenship Act which would see newcomers required to swear allegiance to "a Jewish and democratic state". The man behind the proposal is Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party (translation = "Israel is our home"). The amendment has been described variously as "a declaration of purpose", "stupid and needless" and "racist". Opponents fear it will entrench the inequalities already felt by the Arab minority in Israel. Proponents say it merely echoes Israel's declaration of independence in 1948. Read the full article here .  Related Posts: 1.  Why Pakistan Should Accept The State Of Israel? 2. Doomed Israel Palestine Peace Process – There is Only One Possible Solution & That ...

Is China making an unprecedented leap to the top of the global economic hierarchy? Yes, Martin Jacques asserts confidently in his buzz-generating When China Rules the World. He sees the country, which recently passed Japan to become the world's No. 2 economy, rising smoothly to the top spot by continuing to follow a thoroughly distinctive, Confucian-tinged development path. No, say China skeptics like economist John Markin and hedge-fund honcho James Chanos, with equal self-assurance. They predict that bursting bubbles will lead to a Chinese equivalent to Japan's "lost decade" of the 1990s. To them, as George Friedman pithily puts it in his best-selling The Next 100 Years, which is sometimes displayed near Jacques' tome in airport bookstores these days, China is just "Japan on steroids." While we're too aware of how regularly — and speedily — bold forecasts about China are proved wrong to offer one of our own, our research into 19th century America a...