• New Nepal PM
to be Sworn in Monday
• Zardari for Pak-Af-Iran Front
to Ensure Regional Stability
Even the
Mighty Suffer
as Economic Crisis Gets to F1 in Monaco
by Sebastian Fest
Silvery, shiny, really expensive, the bottle of Remy Martin
Louis XIII Black Pearl Magnum hurts one's eyes and one's pocket with
its mere presence. It costs 50,000 euros ($70,000), and one could
say that it is a sign that the crisis has reached Monaco.
Read On
Talk as
Powerful Neighbor, Not Hegemon:
Dhaka Media tells India
Congratulating Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh and his Congress-led alliance on winning a
second term in office, sections of Bangladesh media have said this
is a good augury for development of positive relations within South
Asia. Read On
Malaysian
Tamils Demand War Tribunal
against Sri Lankan Leaders
Tamils in Malaysia, who form
a bulk of the ethnic Indian population, have demanded a war tribunal
against Sri Lankan leaders, even as the government has sought to
dissuade them from staging protest rallies against what they call
the "genocide" against Tamils in the island nation.
Read On
Taliban Lying Low to Fight Another Day
in Pakistan by Nadeem Sarwar
Dressed in worn grey-colored traditional shalwar kameez and
carrying no belongings, Ghazan Khan (a fictitious name) was sitting
on a small rock just a few metres from an unmanned post at
Pakistan's remote Ambela Pass, and he was not looking at all like a
Taliban fighter. Despite the long black beard, he looked little
different from the rest of the refugees, who were either returning
home briefly to harvest the wheat crop or to see how much damage to
their houses or shops the fighting between government troops and the
Taliban had done. Read On
Madhav
Nepal is Nepal's New Premier,
Maoists Bow Out by Sudeshna
Sarkar
A 56-year-old former student
of Bihar's Goenka College became Nepal's new prime minister Saturday
after an election on the floor of the interim parliament had no
challengers though the Maoists boycotted the exercise and announced
they would not join the new government. Madhav Kumar Nepal, former
chief of the Communist Party of Nepal, will now lead the republic's
second communist-led government after a brief nine-month communist
rule in the 1990s. Read On
•
India Asks Sri Lanka to Address 'Root Causes'
Islamabad Will Give Up Nukes, If India Does Too, says Pakistani
Diplomat
Stating that Pakistan's
nuclear weapon is a "deterrent" against India, the country's top
diplomat to the US Saturday expressed willingness to enter into an
agreement with New Delhi to phase out all nuclear arms possessed by
the two countries. Appearing on US television to make a public
appeal to donate aid for the displaced people in the Swat valley,
Pakistan's ambassador to the US Hussein Haqqani insisted that the
nuclear weapons of his country are safe and there should be no
concern about their security. Read On
GM in
Last-Ditch Talks to Avoid Bankruptcy
as Deadline Looms
General Motors (GM) has reached a tentative labor agreement with
the United Auto Workers (UAW) union in a bid to remove one of the
major obstacles in its restructuring. According to Detroit News, GM
autoworkers are to vote soon on the deal, as the company moves
toward a government-imposed June 1 deadline to restructure or file
for bankruptcy Read On
GM
Borrows $4 Billion More from US Government
Ailing automotive giant General Motors Corp on Friday borrowed
another $4 billion from the US Treasury Department, boosting its
total government aid to $19.4 billion. GM had earlier forecast it
would need an additional $2.6 billion of government loans before
June 1, but said in a filing that it now needed $1.4 billion more
beyond that initial estimate. Read On
Indian
Diplomacy in Washington Presents
a New Elegant Face by Arun Kumar
The face of Indian diplomacy in Washington underwent a change
this week as Meera Shankar, the second Indian woman envoy to the US,
presented her credentials to the first black American President
Barack Obama. Following a three and a half year stint as Indian
envoy in Germany, career diplomat Shankar follows in the footsteps
of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (1949-1952), sister of India's first prime
minister Jawaharlal Nehru. In between, there have been 60 long years
of a succession of politicians and pin-striped bureaucrats.
Read On
