We are all Neda now. Yet the doors of the Irish embassy in Iran remain closed to injured government opposition protesters, unlike most others. In an echo of De Valera signing a book of condolence for Hitler at the German Embassy in Dublin in 1945 the Department of Foreign Affairs, a hotbed of mediocrity and nepotism even by Irish standards has ( Read more... )

Timi lai kasto cha? Surely the whole point of having Gurkhas fight for Britain is to keep the country free? Yet it falls to Joanna Lumley to be the moral guide for the vermin in government whose immigration policy will probably see the BNP make inroads at the forthcoming elections on 5th June. Poverty in Nepal has led to Maoist insurgents rising up ( Read more... )

Khush Aamdeed. Perhaps Britain (and to an extent the west) thinks it is still 1899. Al Quida destabilizes Pakistan. Tehreek-e-nafaz-e-shariat-e-Mohammadi have been banned but garner support. It is wrong to destroy Buddhist statues and shameful to their cause. Pakistan stood up to the offensive Danish cartoons of Mohammed (QSSL) and rightly so. The ( Read more... )

What makes a group so dangerous it is banned? Surely the BNP are as odious if not moreso than any fringe element of Islam? Often by looking at an English translation the object of hatred becomes less frightening. Al Muhajiroun means the emigrants. Taliban means students. Hardly terrifying, now. The myopic stance of the British government has meant ( Read more... )

The Obama administration may be about to learn a costly lesson, namely, that in central Asia allies do not come cheaply. Kyrgyzstan wants to close the airbase at Manas, which, due to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and what is now going on in the Swat valley of Pakistan makes Manas a very valuable piece of real estate. The trouble with modern day ( Read more... )