Showing posts with label america. Show all posts
Showing posts with label america. Show all posts

Thursday, March 05, 2015

भारत बारे काठमाण्डु ले बुझनै पर्ने कुरा

नागरिक घरबार ठूलो कि दिल्ली दरबार?

भु-राजनीति नबुझ्नेले राजनीति को गफै नगर्नु। भारतको भु-राजनीति नबुझ्नेले नेपालमा राजनीति गर्छु भनेर नसोंचे हुन्छ।

सीके राउतको खुट्टा बामेले भाँच्यो। सीके माओवादी भएको भए बामेको दुईटा खुट्टा भाँचिने। तर सीके पर्यो गांधीवादी। म चाहिँ परें मध्यमार्गी --- माओवाद बुझेको तर माओवादी होइन, गांधी लाई चरम हद सम्म आदर गर्ने तर विशुद्ध गाँधीवादी पनि म होइन, Gandhi for me is more about national pride -- मेरो worldview मा बामेको खुट्टा म भाँच्दिन, तर कसैले भाँचि हालेछ भने मैले दुःख मनाउ पनि गर्ने छैन --- सीके को मानव अधिकार हनन हुँदा पहाड़िया तथाकथित मानव अधिकारवादी लाई कुनै किसिमको डिस्टर्ब भा छैन, त्यस्तै ------ तर बामे लाई नेपालको राजनीति बाट मटियामेट गर्न कुनै पनि कसर बाँकी राख्नु हुन्न भन्ने मेरो मान्यता चाहिं हो फेरि।

भारत बारे काठमाण्डु ले बुझनै पर्ने कुरा के हो भने चन्द्रमा ले चाहेर पृथ्वी हल्लिने होइन, पृथ्वीले चाहेर सुर्य गायब हुने होइन। तर त्यो बुझ्ने सानो अंतरिक्ष यान पनि मंगल ग्रह पुग्न सक्छ। अर्थात नेपाल लाई First World Country बन्न कसैले रोक्दैन --- न भारतले रोक्छ, न चीनले, न अमेरिका ले। नेपाल First World Country नभएको कारण नेपाल भित्र छ। कस्तूरी ले आफ्नो नाइंटो छाम्ने हो। देशले दक्ष राजनीतिक नेतृत्व पाए देश समृद्ध बन्छ। त्यो व्यक्ति शायद बाबुराम हो कि? दिल्ली पढेको मान्छे दिल्ली घुम्न गयो --- केही महिना अगाडि अमरेश पनि अमेरिका घुम्न गएको हो। अनि के त? अमेरिकाले नेपालमा चासो लिन नहुने? चन्द्रमाले सुर्य देख्न नहुने?

अमरेशले नेपाली काँग्रेसको नेतृत्व सम्हाले काँग्रेस पार्टी सही बाटोमा आउँथ्यो कि?

 

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Prithvi Narayan Shah: Villain

पृथ्वी नारायण शाह को पालामा नेपाल को र अमेरिकाको अर्थतंत्र उस्तै उस्तै थियो। अहिले कहाँ अमेरिका कहाँ नेपाल। पृथ्वी नारायण शाह भिलेन भन्ने कुरा त्यसै बाट थाहा हुन्छ।


Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Budhanilkantha School Died For Me On The Kanchenjunga Balcony

English: Pumori House
English: Pumori House (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
One detail I note about Sanjay Dutt and Salman Khan's brushes with the law is both are half Muslim. To be Muslim in India is to be black in America. Every country seems to organize itself around The Other. Maybe in Nepal that has befallen upon the Madhesi. I identify with the blacks in America because I grew up Indian in Nepal.

I started my education at home in my homevillage. I did attend the local village school. Then I shifted to Janakpur where my father had set up shop after his training in Muzaffarpur; his shop years later became the largest radio and electronics shop in town. After trying a few schools, I became part of the first batch of the first English medium school in town. It was launched by a transplant from Kathmandu, a Hemraj Tamrakar. His brother/cousin would be Ratna Tamot, who headed the Nepali Department at Budhanilkantha School. Now deceased. By the time I ended up at Budhanilkantha School I had been part of so many schools. Maybe half a dozen. But my father did not learn about Budhanilkantha from Tamrakar. And years later when I went to see him, he bemoaned the fact that I had moved. He would have liked some good SLC results for his school, he said. 

The only reason I got into Budhanilkantha School is rather tangential. At this Janaki School there was this teacher Durga Chhetri. He was from Nagaland. The credit for my cursive handwriting goes to him. And there was this Mohan Sir. Both of them liked this Miss. But Miss liked Mohan Sir. One day Durga Sir misbehaved. He pushed Miss. Miss was crying. 

Later that day I went to the school's hostel to see Binesh Yadav. I was a day scholar. My house was very close to the school. But Binesh had nobody in town. His father, like my grandfather, were politicians. His father was a Wada Chairperson. My grandfather was the Pradhan Panch. Binesh was from an adjoining village. 

When I went to see Binesh, Mohan Sir saw me. He called me into his room. I must have looked empathetic to him. He told me how wrong it had been of Durga Sir to push Miss, and that I surely agreed with Mohan Sir's assessment. I don't remember saying anything. But he must have been impressed. He took it upon himself to go see my father to tell him that his son was too smart for this school and should be sent to a much better school, maybe some place like Darjeeling. 

Darjeeling was not on our map. People did not go to Darjeeling. It felt too distant. But my father came to know of entrance exams to some school in Kathmandu. He was aware of Sainik Schools in Bihar that also had entrance exams. 

I was not the top student in my class, although I managed to be among the top five. The top guy - "First Boy" - was a Sandip Giri. He has now launched the company Gham Power in Nepal. Before that he was in California. But I don't think I have had any contact with him after the primary school days. I sent him a message on Facebook a few months ago when my primary school best friend Rajesh Gupta (now in Augusta, Georgia, USA) told me about him. I never heard back. 

I was made to sit the entrance exams for Budhanilkantha School multiple times. The papers showed me a student at the primary school in my homevillage to enhance my chances. My father had a Honda motorbike then. He said later the credit goes to the bike. How else would we have gone to all these various exam centers?

Sandip's father was a "Hakim." His family lived in a government quarter. 

I took to Budhanilkantha School like duck to water. I was the top student in class from the get go and I stayed that way year after year. One year in Class 6, I had the highest marks in every single subject. There were very few people who did that. There was a Bishwa Limbu two years senior to me. He was like me. He was top of his class every year. Otherwise it was not true there was that one person in each class. But Bishwa had only one other thing. He would act in plays. Otherwise he did not have anything else. My other big thing was I would take leadership positions. And these were teacher appointed things. I was House Captain in Class 5, again in Class 10. In Class 11 I was unanimously elected by my classmates for the "BOSS" event. I was nominated to be School Captain, although they took it away from me within a month, and very unfairly so, but more on that later. 

I won a best actor award in middle school. I also became the school mental arithmetic champion in middle school. They put you on stage in front of the entire school and they would ask you math questions. You had to calculate in your head and blurt out the answers. It was quite a spectacle. In Class 10 I got a poem published in Nepal's top poetry magazine, Royal Nepal Academy's Kavita. I was what they called an all-rounder. I was not a star athlete, although it was not for lack of participating. I did manage to get on the teams. I remember doing Division A pentathlon in Class 10 and winning something. It will be my eternal regret I was not taught better soccer skills. 

Most important was being top in class academically. Because that is what most mattered to my father. Everything else was bonus. And teachers became happy when you did all that. And the only thing people in my homevillage cared about was that I went to school with the future king. Dipendra was three years Senior. Paras was a classmate. Nirajan was a few years junior. One day I was sick and all alone in the school's clinic. It was in the evening. And Nirajan showed up all by himself. He had not come to see me. He would not have known I was there. He said he just came to see if anyone was sick. 

I was a high energy person, I still am. I lived a full life. But once a year I would fall sick. It would come out of nowhere. It has continued to this day. Once a year I fall sick. I have to sleep and sleep and sleep and then in a few days I am back in business. A long time ago my greatgrandfather said it is good to fall sick one time a year. That is how the body cleanses itself. 

I "get" the Pahadi-Madhesi thing. I "get" the white-nonwhite thing. To some extent I "get" gender. As in, I "get" women's perspectives. But I don't "get" caste. And I sure don't "get" class. At some level I have always been a monk, you could say. After I got out of Budhanilkantha, I went to live in Sanepa, because that is where most people from my homevillage were. After crashing at this guy's place for a few days, I found myself a room. It was hard to find. It was tiny. I think it might have been windowless. A Bhagat from my homevillage remarked "Your family does not even keep its animals in a place like this!" Another guy whose house was adjacent to mine in the homevillage noted, "It is amazing how you can move from a place like Budhanilkantha School to this room and be equally happy!" Monk, I told you. Even today all I seem to care about is having internet access. I have to think of things like global poverty to want to become a successful tech entrepreneur. I can't think of my needs. My needs seem to be already met! They are modest needs!

My greatgrandfather had more land than anyone else in the village. No, he was not a zamindar. He was a self-made man. I would like to at some point have outdone him in wealth creation. I have not done that yet. I feel like I have not even started on the journey of wealth creation. But that's okay. Sam Walton was older than me when he launched Walmart. There are three people from my homevillage in America right now. Me, my sister in Boston, and the third guy just showed up a few months ago. His father had more cash than anyone else in the village, and his family had an elephant. You guessed it, a moneylender. The elephant was business for him. He would buy a baby elephant in Sonpur mela. In the village people did not mind if the elephant ate some of your green. When the elephant grew up, it was sold for a handy profit. This new guy who showed up, one of the first things he told me -- I had seen him when he was a kid, but the first time I ever talked to him was in America - was that I had not yet outdone my greatgrandfather in wealth creation. 

My greatgrandfather was a self-made man. It was a rags to riches story. Other Bhagats were still just getting by when I was growing up in a locally well to do family. But what that meant was we always had plenty to eat. It is not like we had a car or a television set or a phone. We had bullock carts. We had messengers. If a daughter of the family needed to be sent a message, a messenger would be sent to her village. 

Much later when I showed up at Berea College, one day this white guy friend of mine "accused" me of walking around campus "like you own this whole damn college!" I brushed him off. What do you mean, I said. Another student, this cute girl, surmised maybe I was a prince where I came from. I said, not true. But I do know a few princes, I said. That owning the college thing actually flustered me. I was like, how does someone walk if one DOES think like he owns the whole place!? Today I think maybe I picked up a few attitudes the first few years of my life growing up in the household of a guy who owned more land than anyone else in the village. Maybe when you go to school with all three princes in the country and if the princess at one point had a crush on a classmate of yours (Subir Kunwar in Colorado), all that rubs off on you a little bit. 

Budhanilkantha School changed my life. But it also hit me. It threw me off course. 

Class 10 being House Captain was the happiest year of my life to date. But starting from towards the final few months of that year and all through the final three years of school, I was terribly unhappy. I might even have been depressed. It was like towards the end of my Class 10 year someone stabbed me in my thigh and I was limping around for the rest of my time behind those walls. 

As House Captain I performed like no House Captain I had known of to date in that school's history to my knowledge. I did extremely well. One British teacher wrote, "You have raised morale here like I have never seen anywhere at any boarding school." 

We won all competitions, academic, sports and otherwise. Lojak was in Class 9. I guess it is okay to talk about it openly now after so much time has passed. He was the least well performing student in the entire House. The housemaster Narayan Prasad Sharma and I had a meeting about it. I took it upon myself to give total personal attention to Lojak. I think I managed to pull him up by 10-20 points. I don't remember exactly, but I managed to get him out of the danger zone. He was not expelled. 

NP went on to become Headmaster for two decades after the British left, looks like. He was a great Housemaster. The guy was high energy. One story I shared with many was, one day I showed up at his apartment/office to say we needed some paper for a wall magazine. Usually he would have some in the office. He would pick and give. But he found out he had run out. He said he could get some from the staff room. And the guy quite literally ran. Teachers are not supposed to run. They are supposed to walk with dignity. There was this Pant, Math teacher. He walked with the greatest dignity of all. 

It is not like the staff room was next door. It was a good run away. And NP did have a small belly. He was not fat. I would not say. But he did not have a flat stomach either. No six pack there. 

Being the top student year in year out at the top school in Nepal I used to fantasize about coming up with something unique, making some contribution in the field of thoughts. I would read about the major breakthroughs in human thoughts, and I wondered if I could do something along those lines. I was pretty well read in world history. I knew a ton about Gandhi, about Lincoln and slavery, about MLK. I knew. But all that I put in the distant past. The present was different. My British teachers were the ones who showed us the movie Gandhi. How bad could they be!

I almost never used the word Madhesi, to describe either myself or anyone else. Success is a privilege of its own kind. I was not privileged like Paras, sure. But I had a place in my class that Paras did not. And that was a privilege. 

Paras would buy expensive cigarettes and share with his friends on the soccer/football team. One day that was in the bathroom of my house. I was in Class 9. I walked by. He offered me, I said no thanks. We both exchanged mischievous smiles. But Balam dai, the star defender of the school soccer team, he was all too happy to puff it away. 

One day on a walk on the school grounds I spotted Dipendra with a friend of his. They were also sneak smoking. It was against the school rules. I think that is part of the reason why they did it in the first place. It was a way to show you could break the rules a little. He saw that I saw. "Bhanne hoina hai bhai!" He shouted from the distance. "Don't be telling the teachers now!"

I was a good guy. I was no smug. I was popular. My friends liked me. And I had lots of them. I was good at academics. But I was as good at the leadership thing. Subodh was from my homevillage and was a few years senior to me at BNKS. His father was an engineer and Subodh basically did not grow up in the village at all, although he visited here and then. Subodh later went to Oxford. And he was not the top student in his class. He told his father who told my father that I was a "neta." I was in Class 10.

People just assumed I would be Board First. And I would go to Harvard. There were five people from my class on the SLC Board. Dilip was one year junior to me. He succeeded me as House Captain of Kanchenjunga. He was top of his class. Unlike me he was a star athlete. But I would beat him every place else, like leadership and stage performances, and things like that. Dilip went to Harvard. 

I note these details from New York City. Much time has passed. And I don't really get worked up about it all. I remember being very happy my freshman year at Berea College. Although that was it. There also the final years were unhappy just like at Budhanilkantha School. And I decided two such institutions were enough. No further schools for me. At Berea also the racist motherfuckers came after me precisely because I had broken all school records by getting myself elected student body president as a freshaman. Six months after showing up, five months after having lost badly when running for Freshman Class President. 

When I was thinking about colleges in the West, I liked every prospectus I saw. And graduates of many of those schools end up in New York City in large numbers. So I guess I am where I wanted to be, in New York City. But when I visited Boston a few years back, and walked all over Harvard and MIT, I liked MIT much better. The buildings on the MIT campus just feel more open to cutting edge thinking. On the Harvard campus you feel too much the weight of history. And my favorite Harvard grads are all dropouts. 

Towards the end of my Class 10 year my innocence was lost. It all started on the soccer field. Kanchenjunga was playing Nilgiri. A small fight broke out towards the end. No big deal. This was a school where you could get expelled for smoking, you most certainly got expelled for getting into a fight. You got reprimanded for not wearing socks. Everybody wore socks. Everybody got a haircut. And I was a good student. Teachers liked me. I was not exactly someone struggling with the rules. They just made sense to me. Following was not a struggle. The studies were fun. The activities were fun. The friends were fun. The teachers were fun. Who had time to even think of breaking any rules? I did not. I was not rebellious, hardly. 

I heard a fight broke out. Well, there was a follow up. Some of those Nilgiri guys decided to show up at my House. I was upstairs. I heard. I rushed downstairs. And there was Andrew Wild, former Housemaster now at Gaurishankar, pushing back these few Nilgiri guys. I shouted at the guys. How dare you! Wild asked me to go back upstairs. I did. 

And that was that. 

Salim Khan, Housemaster of Pumori, called a meeting in our dayroom. He tried to convince us how fights are not good things. I remember being indignant. Nobody on my side had done anything wrong. I felt like he was lecturing the wrong group of people. 

But things died down. People moved on. Or so I thought. 

The school bus took to you to the city buspark. From there you took the night bus home to your hometown. It was time for the Dashain vacation. Dashain, Tihar. Chhath. I think I would miss Chhath each time by just a day or two. The school vacation would end maybe a day or two before Chhath and my relatives for the life of them could not understand why I could not stay just two more days. 

I knew being late was not an option, as did my father. And I had had a role in the current architecture of the school vacations. Used to be two vacations. Summer and Dashain. Then some of the "Friends Of Budhanilkantha School" -- an officially recognized group, mostly of Kathmandu parents many of whom also had kids in Darjeeling, they decided it was not a good idea that their kids in Darjeeling when they were home for their winter vacations found their siblings were attending school at BNKS. So they architected the vacations. Summer, short Dashain vacation and winter. What that meant was I was stuck at school for Diwali. That did not feel good. A lot of students were unhappy. But what to do? It was not in our realm to decide on such things. I ran a signature campaign across school and submitted it to the headmaster John Tyson, now deceased. The Dashain vacation was subsequently expanded to include Tihar to great relief to us "out of valley" students. 

I would get off the school bus, and head to New Road. I would go to the gundpak shop to get some gundpak for my father who had done a few years of high schooling in Kathmandu. He really liked gundpak. 

King Mahendra had a dentist, I am sure he had more than one. But there was this Basant Bahadur Shrestha. Mahendra ended up giving one third of the land in my homevillage to him. His family and my family became friends, although there was a lot of resistance in the village. Basant Bahadur said to my greatgrandfather, you must let one of your grandsons to come with me to Kathmandu. And so my father studied from Class 8 to Class 10 in Kathmandu. But he sat for his SLC exams from Balwa, near the homevillage. I guess he ended up not getting along with one of Basant Bahadur's sons. 

My father took me to see Basant Bahadur at his clinic when I got admitted to BNKS and again at his home after I got out of BNKS, this time with hopes he might be able to help his son go on some kind of a "plan!"

So I do my usual thing. I go to New Road. I get back to the buspark. It is about 10 minutes and the bus would leave. I get in the bus. It is a cabin seat. I take my seat. I feel this tap on my shoulder. I look around. I had my sweater stylishly resting on my shoulders. There are a few guys. They were asking me to step outside so we can talk. I did not recognize them. Had never seen them before. They were not hostile. One guy was talking, the others were looking. They might have been four. Why, I asked. After that went back and forth a few times, they must have realized I was not moving. Then the guy started talking hostile. He said something like, don't you be bothering our cousin/brother, something like that. I was perplexed. Whose brother? What cousin? There was no context. One of them jumped up and pulled my sweater. At that point I turned around and asked the driver to move the bus. It was five more minutes before departure time. He just looked the other way. The bus moved a few minutes later when it was time. 

I went home. I did not mention the incident to anyone. I was not disturbed or anything. One sweater gone, no big deal. 

When I got back to school six weeks later, I got to know what had happened. 

Jiwan Raj Wagle, the housemaster of Nilgiri, had been instigating his students. "Don't do anything inside the school compounds, but outside the school compounds is a different story!" Things like that. The guys who came to my bus had been cousins of Rajesh Shrestha. Jiwan Raj Wagle, father of Swarnim Wagle, now hobnobbing with Ram Sharan on the Planning Commission dismantled in India but going strong in Nepal, cousin/brother of Chiranjiwi Wagle, the Congressi. Jiwan Raj Wagle, teacher of Nepali at BNKS, ek number ko maranchyase guy. People would laugh when he got on the soccer field. But apparently this guy was talking gangsta. 

Gyaneshwar Mahato was from Siraha. He was my Sports Captain, along with Mohan Karki from Mugu, dear friend then and now, and I believe now head of the Physical Education Department at BNKS. Gyane was another token Madhesi in class. There was me, him and a Krishnanath, also from Janakpur. Of course I was not aware of that phrase token Madhesi back then, or even for years afterwards. 

They chased Gyaneshwar at the buspark. He apparently ran shouting "Guhar! Guhar!" There was Sunil, he was in Class 7, he was in my House. He was a Pahadi. They humiliated Sunil. They made him do "kan samatera uth bas." If there were other details, I don't know. Sunil lost his mind after that bout of humiliation. 

Some of the Nilgiri guys had masterminded this whole thing at the instigation of their housemaster. When I first learned of the whole thing, my first reaction was, how stupid of them! This was a school that would expel you for such a thing, no questions asked!

My Vice Captain (Kathmandu guy) had met up with some of the Nilgiri guys (Shishir and others) and convinced them the only thing that could now save them was if they wrote an apology letter. The apology letter was now proof they indeed had been behind the whole thing It was written admission. 

I had already mentally moved on. Who cares about a sweater! And the facts were at hand. It was now for the school authorities to do what they do, what I had seen them do over the years. I had mentally moved on towards the big exams, the SLC exams a few months away. I really was not too interested in the tantrums of a few average backbenchers. 

But it had been a few weeks, and no disciplinary action was taken. I thought these things sometimes take time. Besides, they already had the facts. I had moved on. 

And then Gyane got suspended! Gyaneshwar Mahato, the guy who had been chased at the buspark, got suspended. He was no longer Sports Captain! What! This was like the apple broke off the tree and flew into the sky instead of falling to the ground. The guys who had masterminded the chasing of Gyane had not been suspended, but Gyane had been suspended! 

Then I got suspended! Really!? 

I was coming downstairs. NP Sharma was coming upstairs. We happened to meet at the balcony. He talked to me about the meeting. He said everyone on the committee had wanted my immediate expulsion. Andrew Wild and NP Sharma opposed that. Then they said, let him finish his SLC exams, then expel him. That too was opposed. Finally they decided they were going to suspend me from my house captaincy. Really? It was not the substance of it. My term was all but over anyways. But why was the apple falling into the sky? 

On that balcony Budhanilkantha School died for me. My grades slided after that. And they nosedived after they took away the school captaincy away from me. There the villain was Sudarshan Risal, brother of the Congressi Basu Risal, one of the very top guys in that party. 

Today - even today - I want every motherfucker who sat on that committee to at least tell me as to what exactly it was that I was accused of! What was the reason for their extreme reaction!? The extreme sensitivity of heart and mind that had made my extreme success thus far possible, also took it full force. It was this non verbal, emotional hit. I did not have the vocabulary. It took me many long years to come up with the vocabulary to come to terms with the experience. But when you do finally come to terms with it, it is not rocket science. Ethnic prejudice is not rocket science. Racism is not rocket science. Brian Garton, motherfucker.

In 2007 I became Barack Obama's first full time volunteer in all of New York City. 

There are times when I have thought maybe NP should have spared me that conversation. But that would have not changed the large social reality out there that people like me faced, Madhesis in Nepal, nonwhites globally. 

I finished my A Levels with EEE, with the worst possible grades, barely passing. It was a long way from being the undisputed top student in class. The number two guy went to Harvard. 

After BNKS I wrote a book on national politics. Based on that book I got accepted into the University of Chicago which had the top Economics department in the world, my new area of interest (I might have met Obama there!) "based not on your numbers but your actions and words." I did have the highest SAT scores in class. But the transcript for the final three years was all over the place. 

Getting accepted by Chicago was a way to wipe out the interim bad years, but even that had to be messed up by another Bahun, a baby Bahun. Five got admitted, two scholships were awarded. Basant took it. Rabin Koirala declined and went to India for medicine. One other guy also did not go for it. Manav Bhattarai, Board First, had plans to go to India for medicine. But he took the Chicago offer, went, spent a few weeks, then came back and went to India for medicine. That slot could have been mine. But you can't trust the Bahuns to do right by you, can you?

How do I feel about it today? I have been fortunate in my life in many ways. And I am in NYC. I can build a major company if I can prove I have what it takes. There are opportunities. But ethnic prejudice was crime then, as it is now, racism was crime then, and it is now. And there are untold millions who still suffer. 

The Madhesi plight is no better. And BNKS has a very similar fabric still. I was a token Madhesi at BNKS. The tokenism continues. 

I learned this morning the Nepal Police made CK Raut do the "kan samatera uth bas" like they once made Sunil do it. Not much has changed. The fight goes on.

I am going to build a company whose market value is going to exceed the total endowment of Berea College. And with some of that money I am going to build in Janakpur a school that is bigger and better than Budhanilkantha. I could use some therapy.

Budhanilkantha School (2)
BNKS' Gift To Me
Family, Internet, New York City
उपेन्द्र महतोका हात पकड़नेमें ५-६ साल

Friday, July 13, 2007

Moriarty Worried So People Like Me Did Not Have To


I feel the need to pay my tribute to Ambassador Moriarty who has finished his three year term. This is a man who is in obvious love with Nepal. He happens to be the top authority in the US foreign policy establishment on ultra left groups. He is on a first name basis with Rice.

When I zeroed in on Nepal after the king's coup in February 2005, I discovered I cared about Nepal more than I had ever known before. When I started "engaging" the Maoists who were in touch with the democrats in exile in Delhi who I was in touch with, and I was aware from firsthand experience the Maoists were the most web savvy of all political parties in Nepal, and so my blog was bound to be read by them at the highest levels, I was aware I was dealing with the top ultra left group on the planet that had waged its "People's War" with the express goal of establishing a one party communist dictatorship in which not even the UML would have any space. The worst case scenario was Cambodia, the best case scenario was Cuba, which is not a democracy and so I don't like it as it is. Multiparty democracy is a must, as far as I am concerned. I feel about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the way Americans feel about their Declaration of Independence.

Since then I have gone through many ups and downs in my thoughts and feelings with the Maoists. And throughout that period, I have seen Moriarty less as a superpower ambassador, although it was reassuring that that he was, and more as a mind who more than other in the picture saw the Maoists for who and what they were. He has never been in denial. He has not been in fantassyland. He has been concrete. He talked with the authority of a doctor who knew his disease. And I listened.

I disagreed with him most in his disagreement with the 12 point agreement. It was that agreement that made the magical April Revolution possible. And I have praised him to the skies on the Bhutani refugee question. What he has proposed and done is cutting edge for global politics. Inform me if you find a parallel anywhere on the planet. There isn't. It was so out of the box, I must admit I was thrown out of balance. I regained my composure faster than the Bahuns in power in Kathmandu, but that is another topic altogether.

Moriarty painted the worst case scenario for Nepal - Pol Pot's Cambodia - and did everything in his considerable powers to prove himself wrong. You can not use it against him he painted the worst case scenario. That was the direction the Maoists were headed. And he never wanted to be proven right. And I am not sure he has been proven completely wrong. Look at the YCL's excesses, look at the breakaway Maoist groups in the Terai. Right now as is, we are somewhere between Cuba and Cambodia in terms of arbitrary physical suffering for the people. We have not crossed the river yet. And you should be glad that although Moriarty will be gone, but his policies will stay.

Moriarty's presence allowed me to do the political work I did. It allowed me to experiment with the idea of a political alliance with the Maoists. I could not have been as experimental in my thoughts as I was if Moriarty was not worrying like he was.

Moriarty is a reasonable man. He really did want to shake Prachanda's hand. That he could not means the Maoists have not become a political party yet. The transformation is still underway.

At This Blog

Bravo Moriarty
Moriarty Should Take His Offer Directly To The Bhutani Refugees
Parallel Governments Of Maoists And Moriarty
Baburam Moriarty Debate
Moriarty Deserves Your Ears
Moriarty Was Wrong On The 12 Point Agreement
Moriarty In The Soup
Moriarty's Irresponsible Mainstream
Maoist, Moriarty, Madhav, Manmohan: Get Behind The 3 Point Program
Moriarty Going The Bloomfield Route

On The Web

Outgoing American Ambassador to Nepal, James Francis Moriarty addressing his...
Moriarty, James F.
Speech by U.S. Ambassador James F. Moriarty To Friends and ...
Remarks by Ambassador James F. Moriarty on the 5th Anniversary of ...
American Chronicle: James F Moriarty: Weapons And Nepali Maoists
Ambassador to Nepal James F. Moriarty's Statement to Media in New ...
EMM News Explorer: James F. Moriarty
Blogdai: Comrade James
Nepal Maoists eye total power, may derail peace: US
Nepalnews.com Mercantile Communications Pvt. Ltd.
Nepalnews.com Mercantile Communications Pvt. Ltd.

EC proposes polls schedule

The Election Commission (EC) has proposed the schedule for the upcoming constituent assembly elections scheduled for November 22.

As per the EC schedule, the commission will publish the election programme on September 22. Parties and individuals will have to file their candidature by September 24 for direct election and by September 26 for election based on proportional representation. The commission will issue the election symbols to candidates and parties by October 10. The commission has set aside 41 days for public campaign for the candidates contesting the election.

The voting will be held on November 22 in one phase from 7 am to 5 pm, the EC has proposed.

The EC held discussion on its proposed schedule with the representatives of political parties, on Friday, at the EC office.

"We have also urged the parties to form joint 8-party mechanism up to the booth level. This will greatly facilitate the mobilisation of our employees," said Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Bhojraj Pokharel.

The proposed schedule will be finalised after discussion with the political parties in the interim parliament. nepalnews.com sd/ia July 13 07

In The News

al-Qaida Ops Show Leadership in Control Forbes, NY "They have studio facilities, they have access to all sorts of communications and news and all the rest of it, so they are not hiding out in some cave," he said. "They are very well settled somewhere." ..... the men are likely to be hiding on the remote Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan ...... While the border is barren and lawless, some of the mud-brick compounds of wealthy tribal elders have the latest in modern amenities and technology. Pakistani forces hold little sway in the region, making the area an ideal refuge. ..... Regardless of where al-Zawahri and bin Laden are holed up, Venzke said the volume of video and audio messages belies the notion — perpetuated by the Bush administration — that al-Qaida's leaders are so busy trying not to get caught that their ability to direct operatives has been substantially degraded. ...... "The operational risks of releasing a video from a covert point to a public point are much greater than communicating from one covert point to another covert point," said Venzke. "If they have the ability to publicly release videos, then they certainly have retained the ability to communicate with their cells and affiliates around the world."
Senate doubles bin Laden bounty to 50 million dollars
Senate votes to double U.S. bounty on bin Laden
Risk of terror strike grows a resurgent Al Qaeda had stepped up training and worldwide operations from safe havens in Pakistan, a development they worry could lead to ambitious new attacks. ....... their planning-to-execution cycle might suggest summer is the window of choice ..... Al Qaeda has rebuilt its headquarters in Pakistan and is more dangerous than at any time since the Sept. 11 attacks .... Bin Laden is being protected by powerful local tribal leaders along the Afghan-Pakistani border and that the safe haven has enabled his network to regroup and rebuild its ability to strike the United States. ...... the premise that the home run hit is the United States ...... U.S. intelligence officials lay most of the blame for Al Qaeda's resurgence on a peace agreement between the Pakistani government and tribal leaders last fall ....... the agreement has given the terrorist network virtually free rein to plan attacks worldwide ..... a more comprehensive and formal National Intelligence Estimate that is scheduled to be released this summer after two years of preparation ...... Al Qaeda seemed "to be fairly well settled into the safe haven in the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan," adding that "we see more training. We see more money, and we see more communications." ....... a wide array of threats, including Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, alleged economic espionage by China and Russia and the destabilization of large swaths of Africa. ....... the network's operations in tribal areas that border Afghanistan .... after much public speculation that he was either in failing health or dead. ...... he "goes into extended periods in which he does not communicate, does not interact with anyone directly." ........ those tribal leaders are the very people who are protecting him ..... "We've had rewards out for Bin Laden for a long period of time, and economic motivation is not a principal driver of how they behave," he added. ....... Nobody knows where he is .... Al Qaeda's command and control in Pakistan has been extremely successful recently both in planning operations and in franchising the Al Qaeda name to affiliates and sympathizers around the world. They cited the case of "Al Qaeda in the Maghreb," a group of Algerian militant organizations that has pledged allegiance to Bin Laden and has become more active in North Africa. ...... active connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders hiding in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North and East Africa, and Europe
How did Al Qaeda emerge in North Africa? eight months ago, Algerian militants declared an alliance with Al Qaeda and have violently announced their resurgence with a wave of spectacular attacks ........ officially joined Al Qaeda with the Sept. 11, 2006, announcement ....... new moniker and broader, global aims ..... In 1993, a top member of Al Qaeda met with Islamist fighters starting to organize in Algeria and Mr. bin Laden gave factions of the GIA $40,000 ....... Adopting the name Al Qaeda brought the GSPC the instant support of tens of thousands of online jihadists ...... the group is "seeking headlines. .... "Al Qaeda remains the most important brand name among the jihadists" ..... Algerian security forces claimed last year to have killed or imprisoned 750 to 800 militants .... the "strength of the group has not diminished." ..... Because they have staying power the battle waged against these groups must be a very long [war] ...... The GSPC has been active in Europe, particularly against its old colonial ruler, France. In September 2005, French police uncovered a group of militants linked to the GSPC that were planning to attack various sites in Paris.
Cheney Sticks to His Delusions Bush made several unsupported assertions about the war in Iraq ......"President Bush always said he would wait to talk about the CIA leak case until after the investigation into his administration's role. On Thursday, he skipped over that step and pronounced the matter old news hardly worth discussing. .......... perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person ..... the two senior White House aides who leaked Plame's identity to reporters -- senior political adviser Karl Rove and former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby ...... the inquisitive chief executive asserts he didn't ask a single question of those involved ..... "The White House press corps should not accept [Bush's] puerile and facetious answer. ...... the judge who sentenced former White House aide I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby to 30 months in jail, only to see the sentence commuted by President Bush, said he was 'perplexed' by the act of clemency. ........ telling lawmakers they had no business trying to manage the war, portraying the conflict as a showdown with Al Qaeda and warning that moving toward withdrawal now would risk 'mass killings on a horrific scale.'" .......... 'There is a war fatigue in America. It's affecting our psychology.' ..... he no longer commands the affection of his nation ...... if you ever come down and visit the old, tired me down there in Crawford, I will be able to say, "I looked in the mirror and made decisions based upon principle, not based upon politics," ' he said. "And that's important to me."'" ....... He is trying to buy time for a surge that is living on borrowed time ...... he is just stalling for time, trying to get every extra moment on the clock he can for the current strategy, in hopes that the Iraqi government will somehow come together ........ "Leading Republicans said they remained skeptical that the buildup of 30,000 troops would work ....... "unless there are significant improvements in Iraq in the next two months, lawmakers say, the president will almost certainly face a mutiny within his party's ranks. . . . ...... "A sense of near-panic has set in among congressional Republicans, who lost their majority in Congress last year in large part because of opposition to the war. They fear further losses next year." ...... "Facing rock-bottom poll numbers and the judgment of history, President Bush has little to lose politically in using the last 18 months of his presidency to try to prove critics of his war policy wrong ..... "The rest of his Republican Party, however, is looking at something entirely different: elections for the House, Senate and the presidency that, absent a miraculous turnaround in Iraq or a suicidal stumble by Democrats, are headed for a debacle. ...... rising outrage and astonishment at what they call Bush's refusal to face reality ..... "'The president has his head in the sand,' said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. 'The Iraqis have not met a single of the 18 benchmarks we laid out, and yet this president has the audacity to ask for more patience while our troops are getting killed every day policing a civil war.'" ...... not long after Bush's press conference, "the House responded by approving legislation requiring U.S. combat forces to start leaving Iraq within 120 days ...... where real political compromise was demanded, results were more disappointing ...... "While the Joint Security Stations have been established there is little to [indicate] that they are having a substantial impact on security and in some cases are actually making Iraqis feel less safe." .... "[h]ad the 18 benchmarks mandated by Congress included more such economic indicators, this week's report card would have been even bleaker" ....... little hope for a reduction in sectarian tensions ........ his references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership ...... Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia did not exist before the Sept. 11 attacks. ...... The American military and American intelligence agencies characterize Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as a ruthless, mostly foreign-led group .... in reality.. "the militant group is in many respects an Iraqi phenomenon. . . . [The] membership of the group is overwhelmingly Iraqi. Its financing is derived largely indigenously from kidnappings and other criminal activities........ What George W. Bush said to the nation yesterday was a lie, and an easily provable one. ..... "George W. Bush has demonstrated only an intermittent relationship with reality about Iraq ..... in his desperation, starting with his speech at the Naval War College on June 28, he has been telling an outright lie, and he repeated it now, awkwardly ....... The group doing the most spectacular bombings in Iraq was named al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia ...... a sliver group, representing no more than 5% of the Sunni insurgency. It shares a philosophy, but not much else, with the real al-Qaeda, which operates out of Pakistan. ...... Saddam's Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, as Bush himself has previously admitted, and Al Qaeda in Iraq didn't even exist before the Iraq invasion, which followed 9/11 by a year and a half. ........THE PRESIDENT: .. obviously, the guys on the airplane are dead ....... America's wartime leadership still believes that candor is the enemy of success -- that message discipline and the will to win can defeat the facts ......... the deadlock between warring Sunni and Shiite factions makes major political progress unlikely ..... Across the country, particularly if you include the figures of U.S. or Iraqi security forces, the deaths remain much the same as they have been. .......... Neighborhoods themselves are much more homogeneous than they were. They have essentially been ethnically cleansed. So, now the neighborhoods are Sunni and are Shia. ...... "Mr. Bush still refuses to talk about what almost everyone else now understands is essential: the need to develop an orderly plan to extricate American troops from a lost cause and reposition them in ways that can genuinely protect our national interests." ...... He persists in portraying the fight largely as freedom lovers on one side and al-Qaeda terrorists on the other. While that is a piece of the struggle, the U.S. troops also find themselves trying to suppress an extraordinarily violent, multi-sided sectarian conflict. ....... "If we're serious about resolving the Iraq crisis, we need to get away from the rhetoric of sacrifice, cost and responsibility and instead ask clear-eyed questions about our capacities and interests. ....... "The press declared war on the war yesterday. ........ 26% .... The rating was the lowest of his presidency and on par with approval ratings President Richard Nixon received in Harris polls taken during the height of the Watergate scandal. ....... a moderate Senate Democrat broke with his party to restore funding for Vice President Dick Cheney's office. ..... 'You have said that you don't base your decisions on politics, then explain why your Political Director, Karl Rove, is involved in all decisions made by your administration.'
Bush and Al QaedaRECENT DESCRIPTIONS by intelligence officials of Al Qaeda's renewed control of terrorist networks and training camps in the tribal areas of Pakistan contrast with previous administration depictions of isolated leaders reduced to acting as little more than a source of ideological inspiration. The new picture seems to belie the triumphalist tone of President Bush, who said a few days before last November's congressional elections: "Absolutely, we're winning. Al Qaeda is on the run." .... Bush has played politics with the Al Qaeda threat. .... his administration's failure to send enough US forces to capture the fugitive Saudi in the caves of Tora Bora five years ago. ..... Al Qaeda has little chance of toppling any government in the Muslim world. It presents instead a threat of episodic terrorism, and it has provoked the security services of many countries to cooperate against that threat.
Tamil Rebels Demonstrate Military Might Forbes, NY the government's announcement Thursday that it had won full control of eastern Sri Lanka for the first time in 13 years. .... The Tigers said they have simply switched from conventional warfare to guerrilla tactics in the east, noting they hold a swath of territory in the north that they run as a virtual state. ...... The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been fighting for an independent homeland since 1983. The 3 million mainly Hindu Tamils have long faced discrimination from the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese majority in the nation of 19 million people. ...... A 2002 truce has all but collapsed because of fighting over the past 20 months that has left 5,000 people dead. ..... The rebel force, a cult-like army whose fighters carry cyanide capsules to swallow in case of capture, is thought to number about 10,000. ...... The Sri Lankan army also sends small units into rebel territory to lay mines and carry out guerrilla attacks ...... said the guerrilla force learned about warfare by studying Napoleon, Clausewitz, Machiavelli, the two world wars and the more recent fighting in Bosnia and East Timor as well as from its fighters' firsthand experiences. ....... Commanders also show their fighters films like "Saving Private Ryan," "Black Hawk Down," and "Finding Nemo," ...... Of the 300 people he first trained with, he knows of only 10 to 15 who are still alive
How the US can recover after losing the war in Iraq - Part II China Post, Taiwan Vietnam, "U.S. credibility was enhanced by ending a war that it could not win -- a war that was costing the country vital resources ..... . U.S.-occupied Iraq is now a wellspring of images that seem to show U.S. weakness and cruelty. The insurgency alone produces more than 900 widely distributed communiques every month, which steadily erode our image in the Muslim world. Even King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, a conservative U.S. ally, has condemned the American occupation and said that he refuses to be President Bush's Arab Tony Blair. ....... the keys to preserving U.S. power and position in a post-Iraq Middle East are the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Progress on those fronts would make it far easier for the United States to leave Iraq and remind Arab rulers and publics that Washington can be engaged, effectual and constructive. ...... the Iraq war has removed Tehran's historical regional counterweight and discredited U.S. power. ...... Through negotiations, trade and compromise, the United States has long sought to tame Chinese and Russian power, with some success. ..... We cannot restore U.S. stature and credibility without easing Israeli-Palestinian tensions. ...... the appealing but naive belief that promoting democracy is a panacea for the Middle East's ills. Washington faces a bleak choice: It can push its values or realize its interests. It cannot do both.

Obama finds his stride at NAACP debate Chicago Sun-Times After looking surprisingly unpolished in a nationally televised forum targeting black audiences nearly two weeks ago, Obama held his own against his closest rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, at the 98th NAACP National Convention at Cobo Hall in Detroit on Thursday morning. .... got off more than a few crisp one-liners while crafting a message that at times elicited thunderous applause that drowned out some of his words, but obviously bolstered his confidence in the debate arena. ..... "If you are poor in this country, it is hazardous to your health. If you are black and poor, that's downright deadly" ....... "We will not close the gap until we create a system of universal health care. The way to do that is to ignore the insurance companies and drug companies. In negotiations, it's OK for them to have a seat at the table, but they can't buy every single chair." ...... has had a difficult time firing off in past debates. On Thursday, Obama seemed to have found his stride. ... "We have to recognize the twin scourges of race and poverty in this country," Obama said during his three-minute remarks. ....... the crowd roared when Obama, No. 6 in line, appeared on stage. ....... Michael Gravel -- who took more than one jab at the other candidates -- and Rep. Dennis Kucinich drew their share of applause for their "Perot-like" let's-just-throw-the-bums-out approach to politics. ....... 34 violent deaths of African-American young people in the Chicago area this past school year. ...... "The massacre that happened at Virginia Tech was a terrible tragedy, and we were grief-stricken and shocked," Obama said. "But in this year alone in Chicago, we have had 34 Chicago Public School students gunned down, and for the most part there has been silence. We have to make sure that we change our politics so that we care just as much about those 34 kids in Chicago as we do about those kids at Virginia Tech." ........ Obama's spirited responses ..... Obama still trails Clinton by nearly 20 points in a head-to-head race, according to a Newsweek poll released July 7. .... On Thursday, Obama was in-your-face.
Obama, Clinton in a tight battle for black vote Boston Globe who's inspiring African-American voters with his strong candidacy. ..... Obama and Clinton are locked in a fierce battle for black support, which could prove more pivotal than ever given next year's front-loaded primary calendar. ..... Black voters say they like Clinton for her work on issues important to minorities, such as universal healthcare, and out of a sense of loyalty to President Clinton. But they say they are also moved by Obama's uplifting message, his life experience, and the prospect of seeing the first African-American president in the White House. ......... In a Gallup survey last month, 43 percent of black Democrats said they preferred Clinton, while 42 percent said they liked Obama. ..... Obama delivered a more forceful performance yesterday, each of his answers bringing crescendoing cheers from the crowd of more than 3,000. He walked on stage to deafening applause, which resumed after he used his opening statement to paint himself as a proud product of the civil rights struggles and the work done by the NAACP. .......... we won't just win the election, we're going to transform the country ...... the "long march" toward true racial equality ..... appealing to black voters without alienating white ones, and appealing to white voters without alienating black ones ..... with South Carolina, Florida, and Michigan -- states boasting sizable African-American populations -- likely to hold some of the earliest primaries, black voters could shape the outcome in 2008 more than ever.
Obama draws loudest cheers at NAACP convention Houston Chronicle Obama drew the loudest cheers of the eight Democratic candidates .... "I know what you know, which is that despite all the progress that has been made we still have more work to do" ..... the first time Obama has managed to outshine Clinton in a candidates forum. .... A vociferous foe of illegal immigration, Tancredo said the wages of black workers suffer because of illegal workers.
Obama's Extra Hurdle? Wall Street Journal More than 40% of the nation's population lives in metropolitan areas that have had a black mayor in the core central city, or lived in states that have had a black governor. ...... In the typical contest when a black candidate challenged to be the first black mayor of a big city, turnout of all voters averaged almost 80%, an unheard-of figure for local elections, and all but 21% of the white vote went to the white candidate. ...... Well over 10,000 African-Americans have been elected to various offices around the country. ..... In almost every case when a black candidate won, there was little or no white flight, little to no movement of blacks into white neighborhoods and certainly no wholesale redistribution of resources from the white to the black community. ...... The world under black leadership was strikingly similar to the world under white leadership. ...... Today, campaigns cannot and do not play on the same racial fears that they did in the '60s and early '70s. ...... in the 1990s more than half of all the African-Americans elected in big cities won in places where the electorate was a majority white. ...... Black Democratic candidates -- and Mr. Obama is increasingly seen as a black candidate by African-American voters -- seeking to become a historic first at any level have typically won close to 90% of the black vote. That black vote, coupled with some Latino support and the growing willingness of white Americans to support black leadership, could certainly be enough to give him the election. ..... most voters are no longer frightened.
Obama on the War, Race and America's Future NPR “[Being 'black enough'] is not something I have to battle when I go into my barbershop or when I’m on the basketball court or when I’m walking down the street and people are honking and waving.” ...... the ongoing war could undermine efforts to combat domestic terrorism, as new threat assessments show al-Qaida restoring its strength to pre-Sept. 11 levels. ...... we've got al-Qaida, as strong as it has been since 9/11, regrouping in Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border. ...... I'm a firm believer in affirmative action. ..... there is a strong and ongoing intersection between race and class in this country — that racism is still an issue that has to battled ...... the black Diaspora. .... black people didn't end up in the Caribbean by taking a yacht there. They came on slave ships. Back in Africa, my grandfather was a cook for the British army and suffered under the colonialism there. ....... it's something that I've had to battle mainly in the press and among talking heads. It's not something I have to battle when I go into my barbershop or when I'm on the basketball court or when I'm walking down the street and people are honking and waving. ..... we are still confused about issues of race in this country. That's true for blacks and whites and Hispanics and Asians and the fact that I'm running for president is obviously going to bring up some of this confusion to the surface. .......... you spent much of your 20s in Chicago as an advocate for the poor in largely black communities ........ as president, you try to fight against being overly cautious or overly scripted ..... we had what she calls the secret people following us ... and she said, "Daddy, did you always want to be president?" And I said, "No, not really, but I think it's important for me to try this now." And she said, "Yeah, I'm not sure I'd want to be president because if I say something wrong in school, you know, I might get in trouble with the teacher. If you say something wrong, the whole world could get shaken up." ........ your words get magnified and count ...... there are other people who are better at saying the conventional political thing than I am. ...... — being away from the kids, not having as much privacy as we once had — .... we've got an opportunity to reshape the political landscape right now in a way that we haven't had maybe since Ronald Reagan did it for conservatives back in 1980. ........ the whole private financing of student loans that has become a big racket. ..... building schools that work, putting people back to work, making sure that we've got a criminal justice system that is just
'Time' Poll: Romney, Obama of Strongest Faith A new Time magazine poll finds that registered voters view Republican Mitt Romney and Democrat Barack Obama as the presidential candidates with the strongest religious faith.
Obama, Clinton decry urban violence Chicago Tribune the occasional second chance after a run-in with the criminal justice system. .... throughout a two-hour forum before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the full field of Democratic presidential candidates spoke about issues of poverty, justice and equality in the clearest terms of the campaign to date. ....... express more moral outrage over social injustice. .... when Scooter Libby gets no prison time and a 21-year-old honor student, who hadn't even committed a felony, gets 10 years in prison ....... Genarlow Wilson, who is serving time in Georgia for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17 years old. ..... society isn't angry enough about urban violence..... "I have a beef to pick with you," Richardson told the group, smiling. "You just invited Tom Tancredo, who I think said he wants to send me back to Mexico."
Obama, Clinton on Iraq report MSNBC the Iraq Initial Benchmark Assessment Report released this morning ..... "This administration fudged the numbers and has formed intelligence to get us into the war and now it appears they are using phony evaluations to keep us in the war" ...... Obama said we need to start focusing on the Al Qaeda gathering strength along the Afghan-Pakistan border. "We've got real enemies out there that we've got to fight. And the problem is that this has been an enormous distraction from a war that needs to be waged." .... Edwards .... "The president's remarks today defending his Iraq policy without regard to actual facts border on the delusional. The president claimed that the same people attacking U.S. troops today are the ones who perpetrated 9/11. It must be nice to live in a world where your actions have no consequences."
AP: Clinton & Edwards overheard talking about excluding some ... USA Today Fox News microphones picked up (Sen. Hillary Rodham) Clinton and (former senator John) Edwards discussing their desire to limit future joint appearances to exclude some rivals lower in the crowded field. "We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group," Edwards said. ..... Clinton agreed. "We've got to cut the number. ... They're not serious," she said, then thanked (Sen. Barack) Obama and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich as they walked by. Turning back to Edwards, she added that she thought their campaigns had already tried to limit the debates and "we've gotta get back to it."

GOP senators seek middle ground on Iraq Los Angeles Times "They are trapped," veteran GOP strategist Frank Luntz said. .... the Iraqi government continues to make little progress in meeting goals Congress outlined two months ago. .... Reid (D-Nev.), a leading congressional war critic, said the Iraq Study Group proposal has "the teeth of a toothless tiger."
Microsoft movie downloads will harm DVD sales Monsters and Critics.com

Nepal government to stop King's annual allowance Times of India
Battle at Mosque in Pakistan Continues
New York Times the Red Mosque, the fiery epicenter of Pakistan’s religious right ...... up to 60 hard-core militants inside, who had surrounded themselves with civilian shields, women and children among them. ...... The clashes also left 10 security forces dead and 33 injured. At least 50 of those inside had been killed, including the leader of the organization ..... Islamic extremists, including Al Qaeda and the Taliban, have widened their influence in the country ...... A network of buildings that took up two city blocks ..... Having set up a sharia court in the compound, the mosque issued a fatwa against a government minister, after she was shown in newspaper photographs embracing a parachuting instructor in France. Students ranged around the capital as vigilante vice squads, warning vendors against selling music and movies, in a crude impersonation of the Taliban. Then, in late June, in what apparently became an embarrassing diplomatic row, seminary students kidnapped six Chinese women and a Chinese man, from an acupuncture clinic, which they claimed was a brothel. ................ what the military called the last bastion of die-hard fighters. ..... “There’s been no attempt to close down jihadi madrassas, no attempt to disband the network of banned jihadi organizations, no attempt made to adopt a comprehensive approach to eradicating militancy”
Bush Is Firm as Criticism Over Iraq Mounts New York Times that he never wanted to be “a war president.” ..... his determination not to allow America to be caught unaware again ..... “The terrorists are in this war to win it,” Mr. McCain said. “The question is, are we?” ..... McCain .. spoke on the Senate floor for more than 30 minutes today, delivering impassioned remarks as he stood before a large map of Iraq. ........ nine Republican senators who have walked away from him
Obama tiptoes through nation's racial minefield Chicago Tribune some people do lie to pollsters, especially about race. We don't want to sound too narrow-minded, even to a pollster .... white voters and others for whom race as an issue falls way behind Iraq, terrorism, jobs, schools, immigration or countless others that I could name....... Hillary Clinton, whose husband was The Great Connector with black folks. ..... he can't risk turning off other voters by sounding too much like the two reverends, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton ..... Obama seemed to be containing himself as an orator during the recent Democratic candidates' forum at historically black Howard University. He seemed deliberately avoiding the soaring oratory, rhythmic cadence or targeted appeals to black grievance that would spark applause from the mostly black audience. ........ "The narrative of black politics is still shaped by the '60s and black power."
Clinton's second book due for sale in September Xinhua almost everyone -- regardless of income, available time, age and skills -- can do something useful for others and, in the process, strengthen the fabric of our shared humanity .... a first print run of 750,000 copies .... Clinton's first book, "My Life," which was published in 2004, has sold more than 2 million copies in the United States.
Obama Echoes Clinton on Iraq War, to a Different End Washington Post
Obama: No more nice on Clinton's war vote
Concord Monitor in May - after former president Bill Clinton said that his wife and Obama have essentially the same positions on the war - Obama began taking a more critical tack
India's Infosys eyes other low-cost centres to tackle rising wages CNNMoney.com Infosys is planning to hire 26,000 employees in fiscal 2008.
US, Iran do Persian Gulf squeeze Los Angeles Times
China's foreign reserves hit $1.33 trillion
Washington Post
Half a million people moved from path of China's swollen Huaihe River
Xinhua
'Untested' WiMAX gets the job
The Age
Nielsen Alters Web Ratings, Favoring AOL Over Google
Washington Post would measure popularity by how long users linger on sites, not by how many pages they view .... Use of programs such as instant messaging and e-mail propelled AOL, Yahoo and MSN/Windows Live to the top three rankings. .... AOL moved to the No. 1 U.S. site, logging 25 billion minutes .. ranked by Web page views, AOL would be No. 6 ...... Google ... 7 billion minutes. ..... a system called Ajax automatically refreshes Web page content without the user clicking to reload the page ...... "You might spend a minute and a half doing a Google search and spend five to 10 minutes on a friend's MySpace page. It'll be interesting to see the shift in advertising dollars." ...... not everyone leaps to the conclusion that the time spent metric is the replacement to page view metric
Google Puts Squeeze on Security-Software Makers
TheStreet.com the search giant's $625 million decision to acquire Postini, a privately held company that offers email filtering and compliance services ..... to bolster confidence of businesses in Google Apps, which brings Gmail, calendar, docs and spreadsheets, and a Web page creator into a single suite. ..... Two months earlier, it acquired GreenBorder, whose software helps create secure Web browsing. .... Stopbadware.org, an organization that indexes Web sites as those containing potential infections. ... a frontal attack on Microsoft's stranglehold on the personal computer.
The Google Office Macworld never having to buy, install, or upgrade office software again ...... your $399 copy of Microsoft Office
Google unites mapping mashups
BusinessWeek turn its online maps into collages of local information .... tools that will stitch together applications from a hodgepodge of Web sites. .... get a glimpse at where homes are being sold in a specific neighborhood while also analyzing the area's recent crime patterns. .... combining chocolate and peanut butter .... users with Google log-ins will be able to pick from more than 100 mapplets to customize and save their own maps
Bear Stearns' Collateral Damage The implosion of a hedge fund often sheds some unwanted attention on the wealthy investors who chose to sink money into the venture. ..... Epstein—once labeled New York's most eligible bachelor by the New York Post—have been good fodder for the New York tabloids and gossipy Wall Street Web sites such as Dealbreaker.com ...... the hedge fund, which raised $642 million from investors last summer ..... ability to borrow billions of dollars from banks such as Barclays (BCS), Goldman Sachs (GS), Deutsche Bank (DB), Citigroup (C), and Bank of America (BAC). ..... Epstein, who splits his time between Manhattan, Palm Beach, and St. Thomas ...... Epstein, once described by New York magazine as an "international money man of mystery," reportedly won't take on any clients who aren't billionaires. ...... Over the years, he has befriended powerful politicians, celebrities, and academics, including former President Bill Clinton ...... Wood River Partners, a onetime $127 million hedge fund that went bust in October, 2005, amid allegations of fraudulent trading ....... pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to charges of carrying out a scheme to defraud investors in the fund. ...... The hedge fund that Epstein and BNP invested in is barely holding on after using billions in borrowed money to buy risky bonds backed by ailing subprime mortgages. ........... both hedge funds used billions in borrowed money to buy sophisticated securities called collateralized debt obligations. Popularly known as CDOs, these bond-like securities are hard-to-value investments that rarely trade. ..... a management shakeup at Bear Stearns' asset management division
"See Mutually Assured Mayhem" other investors were quietly trying to sell their stakes in hedge funds full of subprime securities. ..... The hedge fund blowup has suddenly thrown the world's biggest financial institutions into a game of brinkmanship that will end in one of three ways: a quick, brutal crash of the subprime mortgage market and possibly the broader corporate bond market; a slow, painful meltdown of one or both lasting many months; or a short-term blip that, over time, will be forgotten as conditions return to normal....... One twitchy move by any of them could lead to mutually assured destruction. ..... Ordinarily, rivals wouldn't shed tears if Bear Stearns were suffering—they'd pounce on the weakness. But much of Wall Street is elbow-deep in the same troubled securities, all created during the height of the mortgage boom, that are now coming back to bite Bear. ..... Last year, Wall Street churned out some $550 billion in so-called collateralized debt obligations (CDOs): complex bonds often backed by subprime loans that pay high yields in good times but are dangerous when the market gets rocky, as it is now. ..... "There's a search for contagion going on," says Douglas J. Lucas, a UBS analyst on the call. "I've talked to people from as far away as Australia." Everyone is watching to see who might blink.
" Bear's Big Loss Attracts SEC Attention"
"Bear Stearns to the Rescue—Sort Of"
Google's Latest App: Postini Google's third-largest purchase after YouTube and DoubleClick, Postini is the market leader in its field, with more than 36,000 companies using its products. .... Google Apps Premier Edition, which includes Gmail, Calendar, GoogleTalk, Docs & Spreadsheets, and Personal Start Page. ... adding new users at a rate of 1,000 companies a day ..... Small businesses might appreciate a tool safeguarding them from security breaches and an incessant barrage of spam. ..... In April, Google acquired Tonic System, which offers online presentation software and is being incorporated into Docs & Spreadsheets, to compete mano a mano with PowerPoint. .... on July 2, Google acquired GrandCentral, a company that lets users view and manage phone calls and messages over the Web .... "Now they have all the pieces" ..... a $12 billion market for office applications ..... Google is aiming to offer easier-to-use versions of office tools. "Microsoft offers products that are very feature-rich, and 80% of the people only use 20% of the functionality" of those applications
"Google Steps Into Microsoft's Office"
Asia's Most Admired Companies Toyota, Lenovo, and Infosys .... the companies that have won recognition this year are those that have been pushing to build their businesses globally. ..... committed to building cars where we sell them ... Like Toyota, Nintendo boasts legions of American devotées. ..... now has a bigger market capitalization than Sony (SNE), even though Nintendo's sales are less than 12% those of Sony's. .... Lenovo Group purchased the PC division of IBM (IBM) in 2005 ..... NHN. It's the top portal and search engine in South Korea, far ahead of Google .... Baidu.com (BIDU), the Beijing company that is the top search engine in China ..... Baidu also is crushing Google, with the American search giant a distant No. 2 in the Chinese market ....... Tiger Air, a new, lower-cost carrier. ..... SingTel has a 30.8% stake in Bharti Airtel, one of the world's fastest-growing cellular carriers. .... on June 28 the Singaporean company reached a deal to pay $758 million for a 30% stake in Warid Telecom International, one of Pakistan's top operators. ..... Infosys and Wipro (WIT) in India have well-established reputations as being top innovators in providing IT services for customers.
'Soccer boy' Beckham has got the US covered Daily Mail
Amitabh unsure of Ridley Scott's offer Times of India "The email for this offer came from Mira Nair's office. Someone from Ridley Scott's unit has to come to me and tell me the story. Just an offer on the email from a third party isn't enough," Amitabh said. "Besides they want to shoot in September. It seems impossible for me to leave behind my commitments here to do this film," added the Big B who is currently busy shooting a sequel to Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar. "I've asked for the script. Right now I don't have any idea about my role or the theme. Where's the question of saying yes without getting the details?" Scott's film, which is titled Body Of Lies, is a thriller based on a novel by David Ignatius.
Soccer-LA Galaxy's Latino fans ready to fete Beckham
Reuters.uk
New Dell PCs for small businesses
San Jose Mercury News Vostro PCs will come with a suite of subscription-based services and a dedicated tech-support staff .... Dell's existing product lines, which include Inspiron for consumers, the Latitude and Optiplex for large companies, and the XPS for gamers. ..... The systems include three notebooks with screens ranging from 14 to 17 inches diagonally and starting prices from $449 to $799. A desktop version will be available starting at $319.
Founder of Dell talks of changes
Seattle Post Intelligencer more emphasis on product design ... Vostro that includes PCs and printers designed for small businesses with fewer than 25 employees and no dedicated technical staff. ... When asked if he wants to win back the title of No. 1 PC maker, a position the company held for three years until last year, Dell said, "We first want to be No. 1 in service and support for our customers. And after that, we want to be No. 1 in profitability and I think if you do those two things correctly, you become No. 1 in market share."
Michael Dell: Linux Coming to SMBs, Europe Soon
eWeek its factory-installed Linux PCs .... the company embracing Linux for its PCs, services for its enterprise customers and how the company plans to reinvent itself to compete against rivals such as Hewlett-Packard. ..... SSD (solid state drive) options ..... build factories in Europe and Asia. ..... offer more services to its enterprise customers. .... Dell Data Center Solutions Division, which was created to help companies plan and build data centers, while addressing issues ranging from power and cooling to the center's overall design. ..... creating data centers for Internet and Web 2.0 companies that need to add dozens of new servers each month to keep up with the demands of customers. ..... blades are considered the hottest part of the server market
Apple hits all-time high on 'cheap iPhone' prediction Times Online Apple would convert its iPod Nano into a phone because it was "probably the only way for Apple to launch a lower end phone without severely cannibalising iPod Nano". ..... Apple shares rose to an all-time high, eclipsing an earlier peak of $133.24 set the previous Friday. ..... the next model of the iPhone was instead likely to be a "high-priced, non-subsidized model" with 3G capabilities .... "We express our view through research documents, and the way the market reacts to them is a function of the market." ..... the voracious appetite of the online community for news about Apple ..... a $300 iPhone - the current models cost $499 and $599 — was based on an unnamed source in the supply chain, as well as a patent application filed by Apple this month for a "multi-functional handheld device" with a circular control, similar to the Nano's scroll wheel.
Microsoft sees strong growth in Xbox online MSNBC Microsoft expects growth of more than 40 per cent for its Xbox Live online gaming service over the next year to 10m members, boosted by a "perfect storm" of game releases in the coming months. ..... Halo 3, Microsoft's biggest franchise