First handshake after Mumbai

Pakistani soil must not be used for terrorism – that’s what the India’s Prime Minster told his Pakistani counterpart on Tuesday in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

President Asif Ali Zardari reports AFP, then asked journalists to be escorted from the room so the meeting could be continued in private.

This is the first meeting between the two leaders after the Mumbai attacks that claimed 166 lives. India blames Pakistan for the attacks.

"The most sensible thing to do now would be to resume dialogue as soon as possible," Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said, according to PTI.

The leaders were attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, a regional security body where both India and Pakistan are observers.

Tune stations

Footsteps and music walk together. Many million people, many tube stations and those familiar tunes thankfully not through your ear plugs.

Everyone seems to be caught in a swirl – like one in a tea cup.

And like powdered sugar, music sweetens the journey.

They’ve been written about to death, but every single time I pass a busker I feel invigorated. It must take real love for music to play at a tube station like this.
If it didn’t the music would never be so enchanting.

To me, these tunes are motifs of struggle in the face of opposition. An ode to playing music with lyrics that announce: If you love to do something you’ll do it anyway.

I think it represents purity amidst the pathos, strength in the middle of disaster and the idea that adversity can be enjoyed.

It announces melodiously that the world is not sold out to greedy businesses and that everyone needn’t be institutionalised.

A penny for their music and a pound for the message.

Have you seen a Prickly lately?

When did you last see a hedgehog? Not in a long time. Well, they are slowly becoming extinct in the UK. Watch this film and tell me what you think about it.

Why is the IMF meeting in Africa important?

African countries have been badly affected by the global financial crisis. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) held a two-day conference in Dar es Salaam to look for solutions.

The task at hand is not an easy one. Bloomberg reports that Twenty-two poor countries, most of them in Africa, may need $25 billion and possibly as much as $140 billion in emergency aid to weather the global crisis, the fund estimates.

Countries like Zambia and Nigeria have suffered. Investments in areas like mining have dried up in recent months.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned yesterday that the threat of political conflict and even war has increased on the continent as incomes decline and job losses increase.

Source: Bloomberg, BBC World Service
*C* ALL PICTURES USED IN THIS BLOG ARE CREATIVE COMMONS. PLEASE CLICK ON THE PHOTO FOR SOURCE.

What is Dakar?

Dakar is the capital city of Senegal and also its largest. It's based on the Cape Verde Peninsula, on the country's Atlantic coast. It buildings, of late, have been reaching for the Senegalese sky with a boom in construction.

Dakar's position, on the western edge of Africa (it is the westernmost African city), is an advantageous departure point for trans-Atlantic and European trade. This has helped Dakar become a major regional port.

According to December 31, 2005 official estimates, the city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the Dakar metropolitan area is estimated at 2.45 million people.

Dakar is a major administrative centre, home to the National Assembly of Senegal and Senegal Presidential Palace.

Construction in and around the city has been booming of late. Much of the 300 million dollars per year that expatriates send home is funnelled towards the construction business.

Sources: Wikipedia, BBC World Service

*C* ALL PICTURES USED ON THIS BLOG ARE CREATIVE COMMONS PICTURES

I poppy the question

Q: Which country is the largest producer of Poppies in the world?

Answer: Afghanistan



Q: Which country is the largest consumer of opium in the world?
Answer: Russia
Source: BBC World Service




Good, now go back to work


ALL PICTURES USED ON THIS BLOG ARE CREATIVE COMMONS PICTURES

what is: SINN FEIN?

• It is a political party in Ireland which stands for Irish republicanism
• Sinn Fein takes its name from the Irish Gaelic expression for ``We Ourselves''
• It is led by Gerry Adams and is the second-largest party in the Northern Ireland assembly
• It is believed to have had strong links with the provisional IRA in the past
• It has condemned the recent attacks on police and military personnel in Ireland

Source: BBC, Wikipedia, Sinn Fein Website

What is the Good Friday agreement?

• Signed on 10 April 1998, put into force in on 2 December 1999.
• It is a major political development in the Northern Ireland Peace Process
• It is also called the Belfast agreement. Among many other provisions it ensures that political parties will use peaceful and democratic means.
• In a nutshell the Northern Ireland problem is this: many Protestant Unionists believe that Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK. Many Catholic Nationalists think it should join the Republic of Ireland.
• ‘The Troubles’ was a period of violence that began in 1969 when the two opposing groups marched in protest. The agreement is largely seen as the endpoint of The Troubles.
• On 10 March 2009, the BBC reported that a policeman was shot dead just 48 hours after the murders of two soldiers.
• A Dublin-based newspaper received a call from a group calling itself the "Real IRA". It claimed to have carried out the attacks on the Army soldiers.
  
  Sources:
  BBC news, Reuters and Wikipedia

Famous Last Words

I grew up listening to news stories of more troops going to Iraq, then even more and then some more. Now, for the first time, they're coming back.

THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE, IN TIMES OF CRISIS

London’s art market has been badly affected by the global financial crisis. But as the art market struggles to survive it could be reinventing itself. Not only is it subtly altering its business model but is also bringing hope to art buyers.

Find out how.

Click on the play button.

22 January 2009

USA: FIRST DAY OF THE FIRST CITIZEN
Arriving on his first day at work at 0835 hrs, Barack Obama, read George Bush’s note.

The author of the note has changed the world forever. The reader plans to do so with a revamp of policy.

The New York Times reported that he plans on freezing salaries of senior White House staff, controlling lobbyists and setting a standard for greater government openness.

VOA reported that he later telephoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan's King Abdullah, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

A BBC report said that he later attended a prayer service at Washington's National Cathedral - a tradition dating to the time of George Washington.

Discussions on a $825bn rescue plan for the economy and the future Guantanamo Bay are expected soon.

ISRAEL: P for Phosphorus

Israeli army began investigations into use of white phosphorus shells in densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip during its offensive against Hamas militants, the Times Newspaper reported.

White phosphorus is legal if fired as a battlefield smokescreen but it is banned in civilian areas, where its use could constitute a war crime.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon demanded for a full explanation of recent "outrageous" attacks on UN facilities in the Gaza Strip, Africasia reported.

Four UN-run schools were hit. The one targeted on Saturday was in Beit Lahiya where some 1,600 people were sheltering, the website said.

GERMANY: Great Expectations?

April could herald positive growth for Germany, reported the Financial Times. The government is hopeful about 2009. Michael Glos, Economics minister was quoted in the paper as saying: “We are foreseeing an improvement by the middle of the year.”

Germany generates a third of Eurozone’s output.

Bad news wasn’t far away though. 500,000 will be jobless in 2009, reported AFP .

Many fear that Germany would suffer its worst recession since World War II this year.