News Around the Globe

[Fazal]

Indian suspect in banana ordeal - BBC

An Indian suspect was forced by police to eat 50 bananas as a laxative, to retrieve a necklace he was accused of stealing and swallowing.

When the bananas failed to produce the desired effect, police fed Sheikh Mohsin rice, chicken and local bread. Finally the necklace, which appeared on an X-ray taken on the suspect, was excreted and retrieved.

.... details

Bananas NO good as laxative

[Tigers_eye]

So if some one is really hungry and do not have money please steal and eat necklace.

[AsifTheManRahman]

They do this to smugglers in the airports in Bangladesh, except that they use kacchi biriyani from the local biriyani ghor instead of bananas.

[ammark]

Originally Posted by Fazal
...
Bananas NO good as laxative

Hehe. my friend was telling me about this yesterday. Reminds me of the natok "Tothapi" on BTV back in the days

On a side note. Khalamma bekub'er moto $1100'er goyna pore khelna kinte ber hoise ki korte? Uchit shikkha howa uchit. Kolkatar gorib'era bhikka kore khay, ar ei mohila emne ortho-shompod dekhaye beray!

my generalised comment of the day: The Bollywood glamour promotion on Star, Zee, B4U, emptyV, V channel and Sony TV really seems to be drawing away people into a shallow materialistic and exhibitionist mindset all over the subcontinent!

[Puck]

Originally Posted by ammark

my generalised comment of the day: The Bollywood glamour promotion on Star, Zee, B4U, emptyV, V channel and Sony TV really seems to be drawing away people into a shallow materialistic and exhibitionist mindset all over the subcontinent!

i am afraid that this mentality had prevailed for many years now and is nothing new.

[Sohel]

Link:http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...C0F34A530A.htm

Turkey sees growth in AKP
By Jonathan Gorvett in Istanbul

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK party) went into the elections having presided over an unprecedented period of economic growth and stability which helped swing the election in their favour.

Emre Yigit, an analyst at the Istanbul-based brokerage Global Securities, believes the AK party's election win was due to voters effectively rewarding the government's economic performance during the past few years.

He said: "Inflation has dramatically dropped, there's been four years of strong growth, the government almost balanced the budget last year and there's been a major surge in investment."

Turkey's economy has come a long way in the last few years. When the AK party first took office in 2002, Turkey was still reeling from a huge financial crisis.

In 2001, the currency had halved in value, mass lay-offs had hit many businesses and a string of high street banks had gone under.

Inflation had been running in high double digits, while periodically passing over 100 per cent. In 2001, the economy actually shrank too, by around 7.4 per cent.

Inflation

Now, however, inflation is running at 6.9 per cent, according to figures released in late July, the lowest such number since 1970.

Economic growth has been around seven per cent a year for the last four years while the Turkish currency, the lira, has been revamped, surging to a six-year high against the US dollar after the AK party swept back to power on July 22.

Omer Vardan, vice president of the Muslim businessmen and industrialists' association, MUSIAD told Al Jazeera that improvements in economic growth have been visible since the AK party took office some five years ago.

He said: "You see more roads, more housing and office complexes – from east to west and north to south across the country, you can see the effect."

Under-pining much of this economic turnaround, many analysts argue, is a combination of good fortune, the right policies and some fundamental shifts in the way the country does business.

Volkan Aytar, programme officer for the Istanbul-based Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), told Al Jazeera the AK party shifted away from the old, state dominated economic structure, which depended on nationalised industries and a social welfare system.

He said: "The government – the AKP – would like to take the country further into the free market. Yet elements of the state – the bureaucracy, the military, the high courts and many public sector groups – are quite opposed to this. They want to continue a national economy."

"The AKP comes from a different tradition than that, one that came out of ideas about Islamic businesses and free enterprise."

Anatolian Tigers

Many of the Islamic businesses Aytar is referring to are known as "the Anatolian Tigers".

These are small-to-medium sized enterprises from cities in Turkey's Asian heartland – places such as Konya and Kayseri – mostly run by devout Muslims.

Many of these businesses have strengthened their international links to Turkish populations in Germany, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East over the past few years, creating more trade opportunities.

Vardan, whose organisation represents many of these enterprises, said: "With the fall in exchange rates, these companies could benefit from their goods being cheaper abroad. There was a real potential for expansion."

At the same time, the old state sector was under increasing pressure. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) offered Turkey a bale out package from the 2001 crisis that helped balance the books, yet also demanded the economy be further opened to private business and foreign investors.

This was not popular with the old state elite, with the weak coalition government of the day unable to implement the bale out package.

Investment

The AK party's pro-business policies is also encouraging foreign investors to look on Turkey more favourably.

Aytar told Al Jazeera: "The AK party have managed to combine a social conservatism – as a party of Islam – with an economic policy that fully supports globalisation, membership of the European Union, integration with other global economic structures such as the IMF and World Bank."

"It's been a winning combination."

The evidence is in the level of foreign direct investment in the country. Before the AK party took office, this ran at a few million dollars a year – a level often despairingly compared with a tiny country such as Andorra.

Turkish economic analysts believe the country is now drawing around $20bn a year in foreign investment.

But many analysts also agree that the AK party's policies had luck on their side, there was a great growth in global liquidity, thanks to the US deficit and Chinese economic growth.

Yigit says Turkey's economy would have come under more pressure had these global conditions not existed.

He hopes Turkey will now move beyond the stage where it is vulnerable to such factors.

EU membership

The AK party have also begun EU membership talks, a process that is fraught with difficulty, yet which many see as worthwhile whatever the outcome.

Yigit says: "The membership talks mean the country has to adopt international best practices in all areas of its economic and financial life. This is good for everyone."

This has also helped boost confidence across the board in Turkish business, particularly in consumer spending, and encouraged local investments.

Yet the liberalisation of the Turkish market has also meant selling off many traditional state enterprises – often leading to lay-offs – and a shrinking role for the state itself.

Unemployment is still high in Turkey, running at around 10 per cent.

"There has been a wealth gap between rich and poor," says Yigit, "but there is some evidence this is narrowing now. As inflation falls, naturally those who have an income benefit. However, those without income – the unemployed – are still a problem and this hasn't really been addressed yet."

Optimism

As the new AK party government prepares to take office, most businesses are confident that the process of liberalisation will continue.

Meanwhile, for the Anatolian Tigers, there is also optimism about the future.

"We're looking for more of the same, really," says Vardan.

"That means we'll have a stable government that takes logical decisions. Unless something goes really crazy, I think this is what we will get, too."

[Sohel]

Link:http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...C33846B641.htm

Taliban 'no threat' says Karzai

Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, has said the Taliban is "not posing any threat" to his government and vowed, alongside his American counterpart, to continue the fight against the group.

Karzai arrived at Camp David for talks with George Bush on Monday, amid concern over worsening violence in Afghanistan and 21 South Korean hostages.

In a news conference with Bush, Karzai said: "They [the Taliban] are not posing any threat to the government of Afghanistan ... the institutions of Afghanistan or to the buildup of institutions of Afghanistan."

He acknowledged the group were a threat but said it was "a force that is frustrated".

He said the Taliban, which was driven from power by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, were "a force that is acting in cowardice by killing children".

"Cold blooded killers"

Bush called the Taliban "cold blooded killers" who "have no regard for human life" and put a positive spin on Afghanistan's progress since the 2001 invasion.

"There is still work to be done, don't get me wrong," he said. "But progress is being made, Mr President, and we're proud of you."

Dr Marvin Weinbaum, a professor at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told Al Jazeera: "It is in both their interests to play up the positives and I think that's really all that this meeting was intended to do."

But while the two leaders blamed Afghanistan's problems on the Taliban,
both leaders have come under fire over the rising number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan.

The growing toll has inflamed public opinion in the country and increased hostility towards foreign troops.

Karzai's critics say he has failed to address both the increasing civilian deaths caused by foreign forces and a decrease in security across the country.

Bush's critics, on the other hand, say the US president has neglected Afghanistan after ordering the invasion of Iraq in 2002.

Weinbaum said that Karzai's support might well be strongest in America rather than in Afghanistan.

"If he [Karzai] has a really strong constituency it's here in the United States," he said.

Difference of opinion

The two leaders differed over Iran's influence in Afghanistan. Karzai had said in advance of his visit to Camp David that Iran is a partner in the fight against terrorism and narcotics.

"So far, Iran has been a helper," he said over the weekend.

But Bush, whose administration has been sharply critical of Iran, said: "I would be very cautious about whether or not the Iranian influence there in Afghanistan is a positive force."

The meeting was also been overshadowed by the US failure to find Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, who US intelligence officials say is hiding across Afghanistan's border in Pakistan's tribal region.

Bush has said before that he would order the US to act inside Pakistan if there were firm intelligence on the whereabouts of bin Laden.

Pakistan's leaders, though, have objected to any unilateral action by Washington. In their meeting Bush and Karzai also discussed the fact that Afghanistan now accounts for 95 per cent of the world's poppy production, which is used to make heroin.

Karzai finished the press conference, saying: "We know today that the terrorists are buying and selling suicide bombers. We have received calls in our government offices by handlers of suicide bombers that they want to sell them to us. So it's become a trade."

There was no mention of the crisis involving 21 South Korean hostages seized by the Taliban in July.

The kidnappers have killed two of the 23 initially taken and are demanding the release of Taliban prisoners in exchange for the rest of the group.

South Korea has appealed to the US and the Afghan officials to negotiate the release, but Bush and Karzai have both said that they will not make concessions to the Taliban that might encourage a hostage-taking "industry".

[Alien]

This Karzai makes me laugh. Most of the Talibans being killed are done by NATO while they are also infesting Pakistan. And here he says they are posing no threat. If America ditches Afghanistan then they will fall like Vietnam did to the communists.

[Puck]

Originally Posted by Alien
This Karzai makes me laugh. Most of the Talibans being killed are done by NATO while they are also infesting Pakistan. And here he says they are posing no threat. If America ditches Afghanistan then they will fall like Vietnam did to the communists.

much of this is really a public relations exercise. of course they fear the taliban. however, i think he was referring to the taliban purely as a military threat. perhaps he is also considering the nato troops being present in his country to be a permanent feature. this would explain the sense of dismissal.

it is really difficult to get an accurate picture of religious politics in pakistan. however, it appears to me that there is a growing islamic threat arrising in that country. the mullahs had always been kept out of politics in the short stints of democratic rule. this is because, despite popular support for a religiously run state, how the constituency boundaries are defined made it difficult for religious candidates to win overall majority. the seeds of religiosity that was fostered during the reign of general zia have truly matured now.

i think that it is pakistan that would be more in a turmoil if the us stopped backing its present secular military leaders. the red mosque incident was poorly handled. it has only given more impetus to the fundamentalists to carry on their armed struggle against the secular forces of nature.

[Alien]

Originally Posted by Puck
i think that it is pakistan that would be more in a turmoil if the us stopped backing its present secular military leaders. the red mosque incident was poorly handled. it has only given more impetus to the fundamentalists to carry on their armed struggle against the secular forces of nature.

The red mosque incident was an ugly affair and bound to end up ugly whichever path you take. It wasn't Musharraf's fault. On one hand you are dealing with retarded fanatics refusing to surrender, using women and children as human shields.

Musharraf did what any reasonable person would have done: try diplomacy first which he did for about a week b4 consorting to military action.

The incident was just made "look bad" because of the bad timing when Musharraf was criticised from every angle for various reasons: firing chief justice, not taking on hard liners, democracy factor. This incident just topped it like the icing on a cake.

[Fazal]

Yilmaz Karaman aka Lil'Maaz poses with his record outside the restaurant where he works, in Paris Tuesday Aug. 7, 2007. Lil'Maz, a Turkish immigrant who moved to France in 2003 has composed a song about his work ("Eat kebab, eat kebab my friend!"), that was viewed 435,000 time over the past month on the share-site Daily Motion. The EMI record company, home to The Beatles, released a debut single this week by Lil' Maaz. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)


http://www.mangedukebab.com/


If Lil'Maaz can do ... so can you !!!

[Sohel]

Al Jazeera link:http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...702C6F12D1.htm

Excerpt-

Pakistan media is reporting that Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan president, is on the point of announcing a state of emergency for one month.

The decision followed a meeting between the president, top military leaders and other government officials on Wednesday.

The possibility of emergency rule has been mooted for months.

Three reasons were given for the move: the recent threat of US air strikes on the country, the recent kidnapping of Chinese workers and the ongoing heated debates within Pakistan's national assembly on the country's future.

Geo TV reported that the emergency could be extended to three months.

Since the border terrorism and other chaotic dysfunctions will not end anytime soon, the Bush/Rice pressure gives the General another lifeline. Typical Pak-US stuff.

[shaad]

Musharraf has also had talks with Benazir Bhutto in exile, presumably to create some form of legitimacy.

As for the Red Mosque fiasco, he needs better media spinners. The account of govt. forces apprehending the leader's brother trying to flee the scene dressed in a burqa should have received much more air time and used to reduce those fundamentalists to national laughingstocks.

[ialbd]

This is more like a personal news but I felt like putting it here....

I visited USA for the first time this weekend (and probably the last time inshAllah) and sorry to say my visit to the shopner desh was the worst in my life ever. I was never been so mistreated in my life like I was treated by the US DHS officials. I had to register myself (probably cuz of my name & nationality) and missed couple of flights and the same thing happened on the way back (and I thought getting a 5 years multiple US visa was a good thing). So my 3 day long weekend was cut short to just 1.5 days, and I spent some unbearable hours in the airport.

I was just shocked to see how illiterate the officials were (my guess wud be lower than high school) and the way they even talked to some ppl. It was quite traumatic living 3 years in Canada. You can disticntly see the difference between the 2 country. I was so relieved to come back to Canada (truly felt like home) after a 7 hour night at Newark airport terminal because of flight delay/Nseers de-registration etc. It was a very very painful weekend for me, I wish I was just in Toronto even doing nothing......

One thing in my short stay there, I just noticed how complicated life is in USA compared to Canada. I guess ppl living in USA got used to it, which is natural...

Wont visit USA any time soon, Lesson learnt...... will be content with my life in Canada.......... happy paying these taxes......

[Fazal]

Taslima Nasreen attacked in Hyderabad

An unruly crowd attacked controversial writer Taslima Nasreen at the Hyderabad Press club in India Thursday. Three MLAs of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen or MIM were among those who attacked her with bouquets, flowerpots and virtually anything they could lay their hands on. The MLAs were detained after the incident. Taslima was heckled and hemmed in by MIM activists who also sloganeered against her. No injuries have been reported so far. TIMES NOW spoke to Akhtar Khan, one of the MLAs of MIM who fiercely protected their move of attacking the author. "She is enemy of Islam, she is a black spot on Muslims," lashed out a defiant Khan. "We cannot bear anyone talking against Islam. She has written books against our government, Islam. We will not tolerate her in Hyderabad". - source BDnews24.com

[Kabir]

Originally Posted by ialbd
I visited USA for the first time this weekend (and probably the last time inshAllah) and sorry to say my visit to the shopner desh was the worst in my life ever. I was never been so mistreated in my life like I was treated by the US DHS officials.

...
Wont visit USA any time soon, Lesson learnt...... will be content with my life in Canada.......... happy paying these taxes......

Well Ishtiaq, I'm happy that I never went to US, just for this very reason. I hate people that are obsessed with themselves, and US authorities are just the biggest example of that. Personally, I think US nationals are okay, it's just their authority that's a pain in the a$$.

I just wish you came over to my place last weekend

[AsifTheManRahman]

Fazal's post on Taslima Nasreen reminded me of this: http://www.banglacricket.com/alochon...9&postcount=36

Probably the most priceless comment ever made about this woman.

[akabir77]

Originally Posted by AsifTheManRahman
Fazal's post on Taslima Nasreen reminded me of this: http://www.banglacricket.com/alochon...9&postcount=36

Probably the most priceless comment ever made about this woman.

the link takes me to Orpheus post is there any link between fazal mamu and Orpheus?

[AsifTheManRahman]

No, unless Fazal feels the same way about Taslima

Just thought I'd bring that post up as Taslima was being discussed.

[Alien]

I saw Taslima's name in the Google news page and clicked on it. I must say about 70 percent of the news had headings defending her and makes the attackers look like cowards and fanatical nutcases.

She should be happy that she didn't get hit by a sniper.

[Tehsin]

Just saw this on yaho main page. Thought i'd share:

Mecca's hallowed skyline transformed
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070812/..._lost_heritage

Of all the places, you'd think these people would have enough sense to build new structures a little further from Mecca. Greed is UGLY.

[ammark]

Originally Posted by Tehsin
Mecca's hallowed skyline transformed
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070812/..._lost_heritage

and people Wonder why the Saudis are stereotyped as an uncultured lot. For one thing, the saudis themselves certainly arent doing anything to prove this stereotype wrong.

[ammark]

'Great Show': Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks Sunday Night

Every August, just when many people go vacationing in the country where skies are dark, the best-known meteor shower makes its appearance.

The annual Perseid meteor shower is expected to be at its best this year, producing one or two meteors per minute during peak hours....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/200708...kVkLLHofYDW7oF

[Alien]

Very sad to see all that crappy buildings taking over the historical sites at Mecca and Medina. I am particularly shocked to hear about the Ottoman fort overlooking the Kaba being torn down. I did my Hajj at 2001 of many things, that fort stands out. Sad to hear it's gone.

While I hate the Saudi's attitude to and their justification in eliminating so called "idolatory" to make room for high rise, I appreciate their effort to prevent the Prophet(SM) and other important figures graves to turn into a worshipping shrine or Majar. It's the only good thing they have done.

[ammark]

About a year ago I saw a documentary on knife wielding 9 year olds in East London. Now this:

Originally Posted by BBC
School uniforms made slash-proof


Parents concerned about knife crime are getting "slash-proof" school uniforms for their children.

A company is offering to modify blazers and jumpers by lining them with knife-resistant Kevlar.
Bladerunner in Romford, east London, said it has been contacted by the parents of five local pupils about the £130 adaptation.
But the government said stabbings in schools were very rare and accused the firm of scaremongering for profits.
Jim Knight, Department for Children, Schools and Families minister, said: "Stabbings in schools are exceptionally rare. This is a commercial organisation scaremongering to sell its products."
Kevlar is a synthetic material that can be spun into a fabric which makes it light but also very strong.
Seven teenagers have so far been stabbed to death in London this year.

Read More