This question was raised by a reader in India who takes an avid interest in the American blogs/media. She marvels at the manner the media/blog pundits cling on to the statements issued by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Who is this chap? Do the pundits need to be reminded that Mr Maliki is the creation of the present Bush administration?

The reader then reminds that Mr Maliki would become as irrelevant in a few months time as his mentor and master George W. Bush. Does it really matter whether Mr Maliki agrees with the proposed Barack Obama plan for withdrawal from Iraq or not? The reader wonders whether this approach of media/blogs is because of myopia, or ennui, or sheer laziness, or let-the-world-go-to-hell attitude. “Where are the fresh insights into complex issues?”

These remarks were made in the context of the response in Memeorandum to the ABC story “White House Accidentally E-Mails to Reporters Story That Maliki Supports Obama Iraq Withdrawal Plan”.

It also occurred to me that the pundits had already made up their minds that the White House “leaked” this news. No one is asking whether this could be an intentional leak. In any case aren’t there other issues to talk about? Do Mr Maliki’s routine flip-flops on this issue to be taken with such seriousness, and analysed so minutely, as if this was a new development or “Breaking News”? (See here..)

The reader adds: “So one is not sure whether the US presidential candidates’ views on important issues are being properly reported/reflected in the media/blogs. This hysterical approach has become typical of media/blogs trivializing important issues and then forgetting about them. The atmosphere thus created resembles that of a fish/vegetable market in an Asian or an African country.”

But then someone could say that at least those fish and vegetable-sellers are earning their bread by putting in hard work, and in an honest fashion!!! (The NYT opinion here…)

If the arrival of The Beatles in the 1960s helped boost the backpacker traffic to India, it is now the turn of Americans to help in increasing, what is described as, ‘executive tourism’ to India. “India is now nearly as popular a destination for Americans as Spain,” reports The Canadian Press.

“Travel to India from the United States increased 10 per cent between 2006 and 2007, on top of an eight per cent rise the year before,according to the most recent data from U.S. Department of Commerce.

“The upsurge in Americans visiting India is part of broader boom in India’s tourism industry. In 2007, some five million travellers headed to India, nearly double from 2000, according to the Tourism Ministry. Visitors from the U.S. accounted for 15.7 per cent of the total.

“And while there are still plenty of Westerners seeking low-budget Eastern spirituality, India has recently started attracting a different class of visitors…These include a large number of business travellers, wealthy retirees out to explore India from the comfortable confines of an air-conditioned luxury bus or train…”

“More Americans visited India last year than went to Ireland or Thailand, according to the most recent data from U.S. Department of Commerce.” More here…

And here…

It is celebration time at my in-laws house in the hill State of Himachal Pradesh in India. A century-old Kalka-Shimla rail line that passes through their sprawling ancestral lower Himalayan farmland, has been finally chosen by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) as a world heritage site. More here…

During holidays I often walk along part of the rail track which, the Guinness Book of World Records states, offers steepest rise in altitude in the space of 96 kilometers, and whose more than two-thirds of the track is curved, sometimes at angles as sharp as 48 degrees. The picturesque rail journey begins at 640 meters above sea level at Kalka to the lofty heights of Shimla (former summer capital during the British colonial days) at 2,060 meters.

A living example of the extraordinary engineering feat of the early mechanical age, this narrow gauge train track - 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) - climbs steep cliffs and the train huffs and puffs at a leisurely pace of maximum 22-km an hour through deodar, pine, ficus, oak and maple woods and completes its 96-km journey in five hours. (The rail track passes through my in-laws farms where they grow apple, plum, apricot, walnut and cherries.)

The memorabilia of the British Raj in the form of old wall clocks, semi-porcelain hand-painted crockery, vintage communication and track control system, called Neals Token Instrument System, is still in use on the rail stations en route. In 1827, Lord Amherst, the Governor-General of India, spent the summer at Shimla and found the place to his liking. It was under his successor, Lord William Bentinck, that Shimla became the summer headquarters of the government of (British) India.

The Kalka-Shimla rail was formally opened on November 9, 1903. (The same year when Orville Wright flew an aircraft with a petrol engine at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.) Read the rest of this entry »

Pakistan has come under a blistering attack from Afghanistan and India. Afghanistan alleges that Pakistan’s intelligence service (ISI) and army are behind the bloody Taliban-led insurgency, calling the security forces the “world’s biggest producers of terrorism and extremism.” While India has blamed Pakistan’s ISI for the suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, and said: “ISI is playing evil. The ISI needs to be destroyed.” (What is ISI?…Click here…)

Could it be that Pakistan’s ISI believes that Taliban would be the ultimate winner in Afghanistan?

Last year the newly released US official documents stated that the Pakistani government gave substantial military support to the Taliban in the years leading up to the September 11 attacks, sending arms and soldiers to fight alongside the militant Afghan movement. The suspicion has lingered that some elements of Pakistani intelligence are still protecting the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies in the autonomous tribal areas along the Afghan border.

Islamabad has acknowledged diplomatic and economic links with the Taliban but has denied direct military support, The Guardian reported. The US intelligence and state department documents, released under the country’s freedom of information act, show that Washington believed otherwise.

Afghanistan has accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of involvement in a number of recent attacks in the country — an attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai in April, the July 7 suicide bomb attack outside Indian Embassy in Kabul that left over 60 people killed and a spate of suicide bombings and roadside bombs blamed on Taliban militants. More here…

The New York Times says: “Afghanistan is in some ways the test case of the extent to which India is willing to use its hard power to advance its strategic and commercial interests.” The NYT quotes Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, a research fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies: “As India’s influence grows it will become increasingly involved in the local politics of a foreign country. It cannot afford to see itself as an innocent bystander anymore.”

The NYT adds: “C. Raja Mohan, an Indian foreign policy analyst, said the time had come for India and Pakistan to look beyond their traditional rivalries and fuse a joint strategy to confront extremists operating on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Such an initiative, he argued, would be to both countries’ advantage.” More here…

Another Indian expert has this to say: “Neither the Afghans nor the Pakistanis, as distinct from their governments, concede that they and the US-led forces have a common enemy. The ‘war on terror’ is perceived widely as a war on the people, and not only because of allegedly accidental strikes on Pashtun homes and hamlets in the border areas. The fact is that the antiterrorist credentials of ‘the Americans and the agencies’ lack credibility because of a pro-Taliban past.

“Nor do the governments of the triangle see a common enemy in terrorism as such. On paper, New Delhi, Islamabad and Kabul may be allies in a US-headed antiterror front. But, in practice, they have only been busy trying to turn the alliance and its leader against each other. There would seem to be no sound reason to hope for early arrival of a time when the region won’t reverberate with terrorist blasts.” More here…

Meanwhile here is how Taliban recenly breached NATO base in a deadly clash…Please click here.. And here…

Even Pakistan’s capital city Islamabad is under serious militant threat with foreign diplomats making preparations to flee at short notice. Read the full story here…

]

Australian Ms Olive Riley, renowned as the world’s oldest blogger, has died at the age of 108, with her last posting talking about her ailing health but also how she still sings a happy song every day, reports Reuters.

“Born in the outback town of Broken Hill on October 20 1899, she lived through two world wars and raised three children while doing various jobs, including ranch cook and barmaid.” More here… And here…

How many bloggers in the world sing a happy song???

Everything, it is said, is fair in love and war. Let’s admit it, we all are in love with “oil”. In the present long-drawn “war” we have allowed anything and everything to happen. In fact our “love” has turned into a naked “lust” for oil. And when “lust” takes hold of leaders and the public, they lose their sense of proportion and become virtually myopic (or blind) to the consequences of their actions.

So what can a Mc Cain or an Obama do under the circumstances? (Have a look here…) These thoughts occured to me when I recently went through a must-read book “Half Gone” by Jeremy Leggett. A powerful book that provides fascinating insight into the geology and politics of oil…and hope(?).

He writes: “Despite the defectors from the Empire of Oil, the growing dissent within it, little (has) changed. The Great Addiction remained…Barons of the Empire of Oil rode the planet in executive jets, more powerful than any president except perhaps the president of the Number One Nation State. But then he was one of them anyway.

“The most basic foundations of our assumptions of future economic wellbeing are rotten. Our society is in a state of collective denial that has no precendent in history, in terms of its scale and implications.

“Most US presidents since the Second World War have ordered military action of some sort in the Middle East. American leaders may dress their military entanglements east of Suez in the rhetroic of democracy building, but the long-running strategic theme is obvious. It was stated most clearly, paradoxically, by the most liberal of them.

“In 1980 Jimmy Carter declared access to the Persian Gulf a vital national interest to be proteced by ‘any means necessary, including military force.’ This the US has been doing ever since, clocking up a bill measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and counting. With such a strategy comes an increasingly disquieting descent into moral ambiguity, at least in the minds of something approaching half the country.

“The deeper the dependency on oil and oil money becomes, the worse the effects of the unforseen energy crisis will be when it hits, so the more America’s security is undermined, even as its government advances enhanced security as the rationale for the latest actions of the Pentagon’s global oil potection service.

“America is not alone in her addiction and her dilemmas. Read the rest of this entry »

Tim Johnston's Australian company, Firepower, seemed to have found the answer to the global energy crisis. It claimed that their “magic” pill would slash fuel costs by nearly 42 per cent, thus providing a saving of up to (Australian) $20 a tank and cut harmful emissions. The company now seems to be in big trouble with Johnston reportedly on the run.

Investors bought more than Australian $80m worth of shares in Johnston’s company. The Australian businessman enjoyed an opulent lifestyle, and bought himself expensive toys, including the country’s leading basketball team, the Sydney Kings, reports The Independent. “The Australian media, meanwhile, have uncovered documents revealing that the fuel-saving properties of Firepower’s little pill are – perhaps not surprisingly – unproven.

“Yet the company engaged the interest of the likes of John Howard, the former Australian prime minister. Mr Howard witnessed the signing of a deal in Pakistan, where Australia’s High Commissioner, Zorica McCarthy, later bought 200,000 Firepower shares.

“So is Mr Johnston in London, Bali, Singapore or the British Virgin Islands, where various reports have placed him? Among those wanting to know are the Australian Tax Office and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, which are investigating his affairs. The (Sydney) Kings’ liquidator is seeking a warrant for his arrest.”
More here…

Johnston tried to sell his “magic pills” in New Zealand 16 years ago. More here…

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has emerged as the first leader in the world who seems to have understood the implications of the looming food crisis and taken a practical step. Brown has issued a clarion call to his countrymen to wake up and stop wasting food. Will the G8 leaders support him in making this a worldwide campaign?

(More than 1,300,000 tonnes of food grain - worth millions of dollars - went rotten in storage over the past decade in India, officials admit.) (Read the BBC report here…)

The Independent reports: “Supermarkets (in Britain) will be urged to drop ‘three for two’ deals on food that encourage shoppers into bulk-buying more than they need, often leading to the surpluses being thrown away. The scandal of the vast mountains of food that are thrown away in Britain while other parts of the world starve is revealed in a (British) Cabinet Office report today. It calls for a reduction in food waste: up to 40 per cent of groceries can be lost before they are consumed due to poor processing, storage and transport.”

Ironically, a top British leader is now acknowledging the accuracy of the vision of Mahatma Gandhi, the arch foe of the British empire, that mindless consumerism would create a crisis sooner than later. Gandhi’s oft quoted words: “There is enough for everyone’s need…but not enough for everyone’s greed.” (For more on Gandhi pl click here…)

Let’s get back to The Independent story: “The (Cabinet) report says UK households could save an average of £420 per year by not throwing away 4.1 million tonnes of food that could have been eaten. The Government is to launch a campaign to stamp out Britain’s waste food mountains as part of a global effort to curb spiralling food prices.

“Gordon Brown said he would make action to tackle the soaring cost of food a priority at the G8 summit starting today in Japan. At his first G8 summit as Prime Minister, Mr Brown will argue that the world’s richest nations must do more to tackle the food price crisis. He will urge them to halt the decline in funding for agricultural projects in Africa, so the continent can boost farm production by 6 per cent a year.” More here…

And here is the The Times report… And here…

“World leaders are not renowned for their modest wine selections or reticence at the G8 summit’s cheese board. Shortly after calling for us all to waste less food, Gordon Brown joined his fellow G8 premiers and their wives for an eight-course Marie Antoinette-style ‘Blessings of the Earth and the Sea Social Dinner’.” More here…

In India many boys of my generation in school grew up on a staple diet of American/British comic books (to the great annoyance of our parents who felt we were neglecting our textbooks). I was delighted to read The Independent report that comic/graphic books are emerging stronger and gaining popularity in view of the failure of the media to satisfy public thirst for information regarding the raging conflicts, including the Iraq war.

Here is what The Independent writes: “They’re a far cry from Spiderman and the Incredible Hulk. A daring new generation of graphic novelists is using the conflict in Iraq to explore America’s relationship with the rest of the world – and itself.”

But what is this ‘graphic novel’? The term ‘graphic novel’, in the Comic Books genre, was first coined by Richard Kyle in 1964, mainly as an attempt to distinguish the newly translated works from Europe which were then being published from what Kyle perceived as the more juvenile subject matter that was so common in the United States. More here…

The Independent continues:“Today’s broad countercultural coalition in the US is often motivated by frustration at the news coverage of the Iraq conflict and its aftermath from traditional media outlets. In such a climate, comic books thrive by reflecting the public bad mood, and they remain streets ahead of many of their rivals in the creative industries.

“While authors and filmmakers have taken their time preparing fictional responses to the war, comics are a relatively immediate form. In theory…’you can write and draw a comic and see it on the stands three months later. A movie can take years’.”
More here…

Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, a former Chief of Staff of the Indian Army, led India to victory against Pakistan in the 1971 war that resulted in the partition of Pakistan, and the formation of Bangladesh (earlier known as East Pakistan).

The Guardian obituary here…

Manekshaw (April 3, 1914 - June 27, 2008) died aged 94. Silloo, his wife, passed away in 2001. He is survived by his daughters (Sherry and Maja), and was born into a Parsi family.

The Times obituary here…

Senator Barack Obama’s condolence message on his website: “I offer my deep condolences to the people of India, on the passing of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. He was a legendary soldier, a patriot, and an inspiration to his fellow citizens. Field Marshal Manekshaw provided an example of personal bravery, self-sacrifice, and steadfast devotion to duty that began before India’s independence, and will deservedly be remembered far into the future.”

Click here to read what some other bloggers have to say…

Photo (above) of the cover page of a book on Sam Manekshaw. To read a review of the book please click here…

As a young journalist I was once reminded that a journalist could either be a watchdog or a lapdog, can’t be both. Journalism, like other professions, has undergone a visible “change” in the past three decades. There was a time when many considered it a vocation (a calling), but now it is being increasingly treated as a mere job in any other industry.

Shaun Mullen’s earlier post on TV personality Tim Russert evoked interesting comments in TMV. Who is a real journalist? Can he survive in the changed world and the present media industry/culture? I have to battle with these tough questions often during my lectures on media/journalism.

A friend in India, Sanjay Sethi, draws my attention to a piece by Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, who is a Senior Fellow at the Nation Institute. Hedges latest book is Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians.

To take the discussion further, let’s see what Hedges wrote: “The past week was a good one if you were a courtier. We were instructed by the high priests on television over the past few days to mourn a Sunday morning talk show host, who made $5 million a year…No journalist makes $5 million a year.

“No journalist has a comfortable, cozy relationship with the powerful. No journalist believes that acting as a conduit, or a stenographer, for the powerful is a primary part of his or her calling. Those in power fear and dislike real journalists. Ask Seymour Hersh and Amy Goodman how often Bush or Cheney has invited them to dinner at the White House or offered them an interview.

“All governments lie, as I.F. Stone pointed out, and it is the job of the journalist to do the hard, tedious reporting to shine a light on these lies. It is the job of courtiers, those on television playing the role of journalists, to feed off the scraps tossed to them by the powerful and never question the system…” More here…

In keeping with the changing times, who knows journalists may soon be known as media workers (belonging, as they do, to the second oldest profession in the world). This would be in line with the change in name in the oldest profession in the world — from prostitute to sex workers….

The young Corporal Sarah Bryant, a member of the British Intelligence Corps, has become the first female soldier to be killed in Afghanistan. The mortal remains of Sarah and three other soldiers killed on June 17, when a device exploded in Helmand province near their base at Lashkar Gar, have reached Britain. (Photo above of Sarah on her wedding day to her husband Carl Bryant in 2005).

Reports The Telegraph: “The sight of Sarah Bryant’s bare shoulders in her wedding dress is almost unbearably poignant. Two years ago, she was a glowing bride; now the 26-year-old is wearing a body bag, having been blown up when her Land Rover was hit by an explosion on Tuesday afternoon. The grief of the family and friends…

“Her death will naturally revive those old arguments about whether women are suited to the battlefield. It is always so when something happens for the first time and Cpl Bryant is the first woman to die in the British Armed Forces in Afghanistan.” More here…

A floral tribute at the town’s memorial read: “To an English rose and her comrades. Rest in peace.” In what her family described as an ‘amazing life’ she had also served in Iraq and learned Pashtu so she could help train the Afghan security forces.

The Independent reports: “The number of British servicewomen killed in Afghanistan and Iraq now stands at seven. About 700 of the British force of just under 8,000 in Afghanistan are female. A number of those serving in Helmand and Kandahar are members of the Intelligence Corps and fluent in Pashtu, while others are based in Kabul with a proficiency in Dari, the language of the Tajiks and Uzbeks.

“The Defence Secretary Des Browne said: ‘We have now lost nine soldiers in 10 days and every single one of them is a tragedy’.” More here…

The BBC adds: “The death of Cpl Sarah Bryant in Afghanistan has brought the subject of women in the military to the fore.”

John Kenneth Galbraith, a distinguished economist and the popular American ambassador to India in the 1960s, once described the country as a “functioning anarchy”. Please judge for yourself if Galbraith was right or wrong… The drawing (on the left) shows the 27-storey house of Mukesh Ambani, world’s fifth-richest man, being built in Mumbai, home to Asia’s biggest slum. Mukesh’s $ I billion home would be ready in six months. Here is The Independent story… And to read how his brother, Anil Ambani, a business rival, is arranging a marriage between Bollywood and Hollywood, please click here… Now read this: “Wealth distribution in India is fairly uneven, with the top 10% of income groups earning 33% of the income. Despite significant economic progress, 1/4 of the nation’s population earns less than the government-specified poverty threshold of $0.40/day…” More here…

Let me add a bit of nostalgia. As children we used to play in the picturesque Lodi Gardens, New Delhi, where we often saw a tall American (almost 6 feet 9 inches) taking a stroll. At times Ambassador John Galbraith, mentioned above, would stop, watch us play and even talk and laugh with us. I still remember his wonderful and friendly face. The other American whom I met later in life in New Delhi was also an unforgettable personality/human being — Norman Cousins.

The famous editor/writer Cousins’s philosophy toward his work was exemplified by his instructions to his staff “not just to appraise literature, but to try to serve it, nurture it, safeguard it.” Cousins believed that “there is a need for writers who can restore to writing its powerful tradition of leadership in crisis.”
More here…

It is a commentary on our times that any report from Afghanistan and Iraq in the news blogs/media now provokes at best a cynical remark, or worst a yawn. But there are a few indefatigable columnists/journalists whose assessments of the ongoing tragic drama continues to provide fresh insights. Simon Jenkins, a distinguished journalist, is one of them.

In a recent column in The Sunday Times, Jenkins makes interesting observations about Taliban and Al-Qaeda. “In seven years in Afghanistan, America, Britain and their Nato allies have made every mistake in the intervention book…They disobeyed the iron law of postimperial intervention: don’t stay too long. The British ambassador threatens ‘to stay for 30 years’, rallying every nationalist to the insurgents’ cause. The catalogue of western folly in Afghanistan is breathtaking.

“…All hope was buried in a cascade of hypotheticals. Victory would be at hand ‘if only’ the Afghan army were better, if the poppy crop were suppressed, the Pakistan border sealed, the Taliban leadership assassinated, corruption eradicated, hearts and minds won over. None of this is going to happen. The generals know it but the politicians dare not admit it.

“The Taliban’s chief objective is not world domination but a share of power in Afghanistan. While they cannot defeat western troops, they can defeat Nato’s war aim by continuing to build on their marriage of convenience with Al-Qaeda, which supplies them with a devastating arsenal of suicide bombers.

“What is sure is that Al-Qaeda, as a (grossly overrated) ‘threat to the West’, will not be suppressed without Taliban cooperation. This means reversing a policy that naively equates ‘defeating’ the Taliban with ‘winning’ the war on terror. Fighting in Afghanistan is as senseless as trying to suppress the poppy crop. It just costs lives and money.”

More here…

South Australia (SA) is often celebrated as the Down Under’s food and wine centre. Its capital city, the picturesque and laidback Adelaide, and its suburbs have rightly earned a well-deserved sobriquet of being the “cultural capital” of the country (and among the top liveable cities in the world). As a visitor here, I can vouch for the excellence of wine and the enjoyable concerts!

I hope to explore Australia’s extraordinary natural environment, history and indigenous culture…and the great outback. (Meanwhile I learn that “Aussie” Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman are set to star in an “epic” Australian outback movie with the goal of promoting the country’s spirit and luring more tourists Down Under, reports Reuters.)

A memorable Adelaide event that I attended recently was the “Young Accompanists On Show”, where one of the performers was 13-year-old Candy Liang. Her parents arrived from China only three years ago to start a business here, further contributing towards making this city a vibrating multicultural hub.

“Young Accompanists on Show”, which was presented by the Accompanists’ Guild of SA at Pilgrim Church as part of the 25th Anniversary celebrations of the Guild, was supported by the Adelaide City Council. I wonder how many civic councils/bodies in the world encourage young students/musicians in the field of classical music in their cities and suburbs. It was indeed a grand gesture — to offer two concerts by leading musicians, a lunch and a masterclass for young performers.

…All for free with a view to focussing on young accompanists and bringing different groups of people into the City for a cultural event. Having an Adelaide trained pianist (David Barnard — who at just 26 is now working very successfully out of London as a freelance pianist) at the centre of this event was an added bonus. David listened to the concert (mainly secondary school piano/wind duos), performed with three wind soloists from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in the concert, joined approximately 150 for lunch, and then conducted a very stimulating master class with the young performers.

Also, among the audience was the internationally-acclaimed pianist Malcolm Martineau. “I don’t think there has ever been anything quite like this in Adelaide before,” said a delighted Diana Harris, the moving spirit behind the musical event. “There are regular Wednesday lunch-time concerts but never for free and never with lunch and a M class added.” Read the rest of this entry »

The guessing game is becoming intense as to who would be the main players in Barack Obama’s aspiring administration. Obviously, Obama will bring in a new team to run the federal government, the Oval Office and the Democratic Party if he makes it to the White House. So who will run the country if the voters decide that Yes, He Can? The Economist takes a look at the potential candidates.

The article ends with the warning: “The ambition of Mr Obama’s team is exciting, but in office it could be dangerous. In 1993 the clever Clintons tripped up very quickly. What if Congress doesn’t care for the finely-tuned policies of Mr Obama’s top-notch economists? Or if Mr Obama finds he can’t pull out of Iraq as planned?

“Or if Americans tire of his charisma and he stops being able to attract adoring crowds tens of thousands strong? The lynchpin of his campaign has been a faith, almost messianic, in his personal excellence. If that fades, then the whole operation could collapse in frustration and disillusionment.”

More here…

Meanwhile more Americans believed that presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama can better handle economic issue, the current top concern to American voters, according to a poll released on Thursday. The poll conducted by CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation found that 50 percent of registered voters believe Obama, the Illinois Senator, would better handle the economy, while 44 percent prefer McCain in this regard. More here…

Another survey of 47,000 people in 60 languages by the Pew Global Attitudes Project shows that around the world, people who follow the US election view Obama more favourably than Republican nominee John McCain.

“Seventy-four percent of Britons expressed confidence in Obama, while only 44% do in McCain, according to the survey. The survey indicated that a world that has for several years held vehemently anti-American attitudes may be prepared to warm up to the US.”

Click here for more…

We often hear that the world is now a “global village” and “globalization” is inevitable. But there are warning signs we cannot overlook. Two experts point out that “for the first time in more than 200 years we are moving into a world not wholly dominated by the West.

“If we want to influence this environment rather than be held to ransom by it, and if we want to take hold of some of the worrying features of globalisation, then real, practical multilateralism is a strategic necessity, not a liberal nicety…

“Today’s security agenda is often presented as a long list of threats: international terrorism, transnational crime, the threat of a new pandemic, energy insecurity and the dangers of climate change. These are all pressing issues but it is too easy to present them as disparate and unconnected…”

The two experts are Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, a former General-Secretary of Nato, and Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, formerly the High Representative of the International Community in Bosnia & Herzegovina. They are co-chairmen of the IPPR Commission on National Security in the 21st century.

Read their full article here…

What do you think was the cargo in one of the last shipments to a U.S. research base in Antarctica before the onset of winter darkness? See the MSNBC story here…

The media revels in highlighting the debonair French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s romantic links, past and present. If this subject interests you then please click here… to read more about a rising female star who was once linked romantically with Sarkozy.

If Barack Obama’s victory speech was graceful and chivalrous, Hillary Clinton’s clarion call to ensure the triumph of Obama in the race to the White House provided a fitting finale to a well fought out battle between the two Democratic Party rivals.

If Obama’s words were seen as inspiring and forgiving, Clinton’s revealed the deep emotive and sensitive side of her personality which remained her hallmark during the entire campaign. Proving her detractors wrong, Hillary showed that she was capable of leaving the past behind.

I read in the NYT the transcript of Hillary’s speech and was moved. “We may have started on separate journeys, but today our paths have merged. And we’re all heading toward the same destination, united and more ready than ever to win in November and to turn our country around, because so much is at stake.

“…During those 40 years, our country has voted 10 times for president. Democrats won only three of those times…We cannot let this moment slip away. We have come too far and accomplished too much…And that together we will work… That’s why we need to help elect Barack Obama our president.

“I have served in the Senate with him for four years. I have been in this campaign with him for 16 months. I have stood on the stage and gone toe-to-toe with him in 22 debates. I’ve had a front-row seat to his candidacy, and I have seen his strength and determination, his grace and his grit.

“In his own life, Barack Obama has lived the American dream, as a community organizer, in the State Senate, as a United States senator. He has dedicated himself to ensuring the dream is realized. And in this campaign, he has inspired so many to become involved in the democratic process and invested in our common future.”

Full transcript of Hillary’s speech here…

The oratorial skills of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have held their audience in a trance. But it is time to move beyond words…and translate these into action. The sooner this happens the better it would be for the USA and the entire world.

I end with Hillary Clinton’s fervent wish: “Now, when I started this race, I intended to win back the White House and make sure we have a president who puts our country back on the path to peace, prosperity and progress. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do, by ensuring that Barack Obama walks through the doors of the Oval Office on January 20, 2009…”

Amen…