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When Pakisan’s president visits the White House next week, he’s sure to ask for another handout. But Fatima Bhutto, niece of the late Benazir Bhutto, says the billions of dollars the U.S. gives are merely propping up a government that’s capitulating to terror.

Fatima Bhutto is a graduate of Columbia University and the School of Oriental and African Studies. She is working on a book to be published by Jonathan Cape in 2010. Fatima lives and works in Karachi, Pakistan.

By Fatima Bhutto

In Pakistan things move at a leisurely South Asian pace. We missed our goals to eradicate polio recently because we, a nuclear nation, could not sustain electricity across the country long enough to refrigerate the vaccines. Garbage disposal is a nonexistent concept, and plush neighborhoods in Karachi boast towers of rubbish piled on street corners and alleyways. Prisons and police cells are full of prisoners awaiting trials, and our justice system, despite the reinstatement of the Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudry, leaves a lot to be desired in terms of meting out free and fair access to justice.
One thing moving ridiculously fast, however, is the Taliban’s stranglehold on the country. After two years of fighting off Taliban insurgents camped out in the lush Swat Valley, Pakistan’s president, Asif Zardari, threw in the towel last week and gave the militants what they wanted—Shariah law.

Never mind that Pakistan’s constitution stipulates that no law contrary to Islam can be passed in the land. The no-goodnik president, who The Wall Street Journal called a “Category 5 disaster,” went ahead and unilaterally—without a vote granted to the citizens of Swat—imposed Shariah. So perhaps it shouldn’t be considered a great surprise that a week after the law was passed, the Taliban, in typical breakneck speed, have now advanced into the Buner district, a mere 70 miles from the capital.

Meanwhile, President Obama is set to meet with President Zardari (who locals have now taken to calling President Ghadari, or “traitor” in Urdu) in 10 days’ time. There is, I’d imagine, much to discuss.
The most important question that will come from Pakistan, however, is a familiar one: Can we have some more please? Money, that is, not Taliban. It may surprise some Americans that even in the midst of this recession, billions of their tax dollars are given directly to the thievery corporation that is Pakistan’s government, never to be seen again. George W. Bush gave Pakistan a whopping $10 billion to fight terror, money that seems to have gone down the drain—or rather, into some pretty deep pockets. And it’s not just the U.S.—last week, international donors from 30 countries met in Tokyo and pledged $5 billion to Pakistan to “fight terror.” The IMF has given the country $7.6 billion in a bailout deal that boggles the mind. Saudi Arabia has generously pledged $700 million over the next four years, and the less-generous European Union an additional $640 million over the same period. And then there’s Obama’s promise of $1.5 billion a year, dependent, the White House says, on results.

It’s phenomenally silly to give that kind of money to a president who, before becoming president, was facing corruption cases in Switzerland, Spain, and England. Zardari and his wife, the late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, are estimated to have stolen upwards of $3 billion from the Pakistani Treasury—a figure Zardari doesn’t seem desperate to disprove, he placed his personal assets before becoming president at over $1 billion.

Daily Beast for more
(Submitted by Abdul Hamid Bashani Khan)

As Tamil Nadu goes to the polls, there are fears that the Tamil Tigers will regroup in the Indian state and add to insecurity in the subcontinent

By Padraig Colman

India and Sri Lanka have both been holding elections. Although India is touted as the world’s largest democracy and Sri Lanka praised for peaceful handovers of power since independence in 1948, elections in both countries have potential for violence, and their politics are intertwined. The Sri Lanka government believes it is close to securing a military victory over the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) who have been engaged in a bloody struggle since 1983 to achieve a separate Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka.

As the Indian state of Tamil Nadu goes to the polls on 13 May, its chief minister M Karunanidhi and opposition leader Jeyaram Jayalalitha are trying to outdo each other in support for Sri Lanka’s Tamils. Jayalalitha has vowed that if she becomes Tamil Nadu’s chief minister again she will use her influence to send Indian troops into Sri Lanka to create a separate state of Tamil Eelam.

Although the Sinhalese are the majority in Sri Lanka, they have a minority complex: Tamil may be the language of just 11% of the population (of 20 million), but there are more than 62 million Tamil speakers just across the Palk Straits in India.

Meanwhile Tamil Nadu itself has long been fractious, and the Sri Lankan situation has a destabilising effect on its polity: many Indians in Tamil Nadu support the Sri Lankan separatist militants. Continuing civilian casualties in northern Sri Lanka have led to violent protests in Tamil Nadu, and immolations and hunger strikes. Chief Minister Karunanidhi himself went on a brief hunger strike (described as a fast from breakfast to lunch rather than a fast unto death).

Over the years, India has not just played a passive role in Sri Lankan affairs. Its intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), trained Sri Lankan Tamil militants at a RAW base in Uttar Pradesh in 1983. Arms deliveries to various Sri Lankan Tamil separatist groups began in 1984.

In 1982, exiled LTTE leader V Prabakharan had been arrested in Madras, when he was captured by a mob after a shootout with a rival militant. The Sri Lankan authorities were overjoyed that the man they had hunted for seven years for the murder of the mayor of Jaffna was now in custody.

Tamil Nadu’s chief minister was then the former film star MG Ramachandran. He and (current chief minister) Karunanidhi, another graduate of the film industry, were old rivals who saw the Eelam campaign in terms of their own electoral advantage. They used their influence to ensure that Prabakharan was not extradited to Sri Lanka and that the Indian government continued to support the separatist militants.

However, the Indian government discovered that the Sri Lankan militants it harboured were not easy to control. After Indira Gandhi was assassinated, her son Rajiv followed different advice and tried to mediate. Initially the atmosphere between the two nations improved and the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord was signed on 29 July 1987, which led to the Indian army operating in northern Sri Lanka. India then expected the LTTE to hand over its arms, but the LTTE resisted efforts by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to disarm them: the LTTE was as ready to fight the Indians as it was to fight the Sinhalese. The Indians at first sent 10,000 troops but, with unexpected resistance from the LTTE, the number increased to 100,000. The LTTE took control of Jaffna and set about eliminating their Tamil rivals.

Le Monde Diplomatique for more

‘Nuclear Weapons Are Not Kalashnikovs’

The West is concerned about the stability of Pakistan. SPIEGEL spoke with President Asif Ali Zardari, 53, about failed peace talks with the Taliban, the possible whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and the safety of his country’s nuclear arsenal.

SPIEGEL: Mr. President, the Taliban is advancing deeper and deeper into the heart of Pakistan. Does your army lack the will or the capability to effectively combat the extremists?

Zardari: Neither the one nor the other. Swat itself has a particular nature — its physical boundaries limit our action and capabilities. We had a similar situation in Bajaur along the border to Afghanistan. There, too, we went in with F-16s, tanks, heavy artillery and our forces. At the time, 800,000 people lived in the region, and 500,000 were displaced by the fighting. What we really wanted, though, was for the local population to stay and help resist the Taliban on their land. In the case of Swat, the Taliban used the population as human shields. A more aggressive offensive would have caused greater civilian casualties. For us, the concept of a policy of dialogue has always applied. War is not the solution to every kind of problem.
SPIEGEL: The peace agreement you supported with militant Islamists in Swat Valley just failed like others before it. The Taliban didn’t give up their arms as agreed to in the deal. Are deals with extremists a realistic strategy for peace?

Zardari: During negotiations, we try to differentiate between copycats or criminals and the hardcore. It is an ongoing insurgency which takes time to finish. We go in with our troops, we talk, we retreat, we pull back, and then the Taliban goes on a new offensive. It is a drawn-out issue and there is no encyclopaedia one can turn to for answers. I would advise you to read about the Afghan wars. It’s the way the Taliban, who are Pashtuns, fight: They take you on and then they melt into the mountains. And you often can’t tell who is who or what they are up to. These men are like old Indian chiefs in the US who didn’t want to recognize the fact that, by then, they were ruled by American laws.

SPIEGEL: The chief Taliban negotiator in Swat, Sufi Mohammed, claims that democracy is opposed to Islam. So what are the foundations for a treaty?

Zardari: When he refuses to recognize Pakistan’s constitution, he is breaking the terms of the peace deal. That gives our negotiators and the populace the support they need to take him on. If the deal doesn’t work, then parliament will have to decide on it again. That’s democracy and, as you can see, it works.

Spiegel Online for more

By Elisabeth Rosenthal

VAUBAN, Germany — Residents of this upscale community are suburban pioneers, going where few soccer moms or commuting executives have ever gone before: they have given up their cars.
Street parking, driveways and home garages are generally forbidden in this experimental new district on the outskirts of Freiburg, near the French and Swiss borders. Vauban’s streets are completely “car-free” — except the main thoroughfare, where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community. Car ownership is allowed, but there are only two places to park — large garages at the edge of the development, where a car-owner buys a space, for $40,000, along with a home.

As a result, 70 percent of Vauban’s families do not own cars, and 57 percent sold a car to move here. “When I had a car I was always tense. I’m much happier this way,” said Heidrun Walter, a media trainer and mother of two, as she walked verdant streets where the swish of bicycles and the chatter of wandering children drown out the occasional distant motor.

Vauban, completed in 2006, is an example of a growing trend in Europe, the United States and elsewhere to separate suburban life from auto use, as a component of a movement called “smart planning.”

Automobiles are the linchpin of suburbs, where middle-class families from Chicago to Shanghai tend to make their homes. And that, experts say, is a huge impediment to current efforts to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from tailpipes, and thus to reduce global warming. Passenger cars are responsible for 12 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe — a proportion that is growing, according to the European Environment Agency — and up to 50 percent in some car-intensive areas in the United States.
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In California, the Hayward Area Planning Association is developing a Vauban-like community called Quarry Village on the outskirts of Oakland, accessible without a car to the Bay Area Rapid Transit system and to the California State University’s campus in Hayward.
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In Europe, some governments are thinking on a national scale. In 2000, Britain began a comprehensive effort to reform planning, to discourage car use by requiring that new development be accessible by public transit.

New York Times for more

Dengue fever is the most common infectious disease transmitted by mosquitoes – some 100 million people around the world are infected. Researchers at the Hygiene Institute at Heidelberg University Hospital were the first to present a three-dimensional model of the location in the human cell where the virus is reproduced. Their research provides an insight into the exact process of viral replication and serves as a model for other viruses whose replication is still unclear, such as the hepatitis C virus. In addition, it offers new approaches for developing measures to prevent or treat dengue fever. Up to now, neither a vaccine nor a specific antiviral therapy exists.

Professor Dr. Ralf Bartenschlager, director of the Department of Molecular Virology at the Heidelberg Hygiene Institute and his team, working in cooperation with colleagues from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have published their study in the latest issue of the prestigious journal Cell Host & Microbes.

Viruses do not have a metabolism and cannot produce proteins from their genetic material (RNA or DNA) on their own. They can replicate only inside a host cell – but where and how exactly does this take place? The answer to this question is crucial for developing therapy.
Viruses transform human cell membranes for their purposes

Biology News for more

By Gwynne Dyer

In the past two years, various non-African countries – China, India, South Korea, Britain and the Arab Gulf states lead the pack – have been taking over huge tracts of farmland in Africa by lease or purchase, to produce food or biofuels for their own use.

Critics call them “neo-colonialists”, but they will not be as successful as the old ones.

The scale of the land grab is truly impressive. In Sudan, South Korea has acquired 690,000ha of land to grow wheat. The United Arab Emirates, which already has 30,000ha in Sudan, is investing in another 378,000ha to grow corn, alfalfa, wheat, potatoes and beans.

In Tanzania, Saudi Arabia is seeking 500,000ha.

Even bigger chunks of land are being leased to produce biofuels.
China has acquired 2.8 million hectares in the Democratic Republic of Congo to create the world’s largest oil-palm plantation (replacing all that messy rainforest and useless wildlife with tidy lines of palm trees), and is negotiating for 2 million hectares in Zambia to grow jatropha. British firms have secured big tracts of land in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania.

Only rarely is there protest from local people. One striking exception is Madagascar, where the announcement of a 99-year contract to lease 1.3 million hectares to South Korea’s Daewoo Corporation to grow corn helped to trigger the recent revolution. “Madagascar’s land is neither for sale nor for rent,” said the new leader, Andry Rajoelina, who cancelled the deal.

After the revolution, it turned out another 465,000ha of land in Madagascar had been leased to an Indian company, Varun International, to grow rice for consumption in India. That deal is also being cancelled by the new Government – but elsewhere, the acquisition of huge tracts of African land by Asian and European Governments and companies goes ahead almost unopposed.
Why Africa? Because that’s the last place where there are large areas of good agricultural land that aren’t already completely occupied by local farmers. There are usually some peasants scratching a living from the land, but they are few and poor, and they can easily be bought or driven out.

For the foreigners, the lure is profit, or food security, or both.

New Zealand Herald for more

By Carl Ratner

In developing a psychology of liberation, the key question is, “what do we mean by liberation?” The way we define liberation determines the kind of psychology of liberation that we develop. If we believe that liberation consists of expressing oneself, the psychology of liberation would investigate psychological processes that promote this. If we believe that liberation consists in forming personal meanings about things, then a psychology of liberation would consist of understanding and promoting ways of doing this. If we define liberation as exercising the imagination, then we would understand and promote the psychology of imagination.

Most of us at this congress believe that liberation must be defined more culturally. It must include transforming the culture in which people live — humanizing social institutions, practices, conditions, and values. Such cultural change is imperative for real liberation. Accepting oppressive social conditions diminishes human liberation.
How can psychologists contribute to cultural analysis and change? We can do so by studying the effects of cultural factors and processes on psychology. This approach will identify fulfilling psychological functions and trace them to positive cultural influences. It will also identify unfulfilling, debasing, anti-social psychological phenomena — e.g., insecurity, anxiety, irrationality, prejudice, self-destructive behavior, selfishness, and aggression — and trace them back to negative cultural influences. Identifying positive and negative cultural influences on psychology will point out the ones which need to be promoted and the ones which need to be transformed. In this way, psychologists can contribute to the liberation of people.

This is precisely the kind of analysis that Martin-Baro made of fatalism among Central American peasants. He traced fatalism to real social relations and conditions of the peasants. He argued that these must be changed in order to free people of fatalism.
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Fascinating research has demonstrated that cultural concepts also shape psychological functions. Concepts act as filters which mediate perception, emotions, memory, self-concept, body-image, and mental illness.

Smith-Rosenberg (1972) explained 19th century hysteria as resting upon cultural concepts. Hysteria was prevalent among white, upper middle class women in the U.S. and Europe. It was rare among men and among lower class women. Hysterical symptoms included deadening of the senses and immobilizing the limbs. According to Smith-Rosenberg, these symptoms reflected the middle class feminine ideal of a weak, spiritual, person. Normal middle class women were expected to shun physical work, take no interest in bodily pleasure, and avoid the mere mention of bodily functions. Even the breast of chicken was euphemistically called white meat to avoid reference to anatomical parts. The ideal Victorian young women was very slim and weak. Her body was restricted by eating extremely little and by wearing tightly laced corsets that produced an 18 inch waist. Normal Victorian middle class women cultivated physical debilitation in order to realize the ideal of weakness, delicacy, gentleness, purity, submissiveness, and freedom from physical labor. The debilitating symptoms of hysteria were only a slight exaggeration of middle class feminine ideals. Middle class hysteria was sympathetically accepted by men and women as characteristic of women.

CEPAOS Review for more

By Amrita Pritam

Her name was Sahiban*. And she came visiting the ‘enemy country’. She came to see the relics of ancient monuments. And carried with her a letter requesting that she be allowed to stay for a few days. The letter was from an old friend who knew that they would be happy to host Sahiban in their home for a few days.

The parents of the family opened for her the airy guestroom, a little removed from the bustle of the living room. On the top floor of the house was a small apartment set amidst a terrace garden in bloom. The son of the family lived in the two rooms of the apartment.

There was tea ready for Sahiban when she arrived. After tea and pleasantries, she went to her room to freshen up. Soon, it was time for dinner. The son of the family had come down to the dining room and was arranging the flowers that he had brought from the terrace. The mother called Sahiban from the guestroom. She introduced Sahiban to her son and started laying out the meal. The family of three sat down to dinner with their guest, making small talk as they ate.

The next morning Sahiban had a cup of tea and ventured out to see the monuments and relics of this ancient city.

She would travel by bus all day, visiting one monument after another. She had brought a list with her. But she would always return home before dark and the dinner ceremony of the first evening would be replicated. There was only one change: Sahiban would always bring some flowers and sweets for the dining table. The mother asked her not to take the trouble, but Sahiban seemed to like coming back home with something for the family.

On the fourth day, there was a minor accident. The son hurt his leg while riding his motorcycle. There was no bruise, but he seemed to have pulled a ligament. He returned from the doctor’s clinic with a bandage on his leg, went straight to his den and lay down. In a few hours, the leg was so stiff that he could not raise it. His mother went up to foment the injury and give him tea.

That evening, when Sahiban returned and learned of the accident, she took the balm from the mother’s hands, went softly up the stairs and started massaging his leg. Then she gently massaged the soles of his feet to work out the stiffness. The young man was embarrassed. But her gentle touch was so soothing that he overcame his shyness.

That night, she took his dinner from his mother and went up to his room and spent the night on a settee there, in case he required any attention during the night. Next morning, she washed up in the bathroom upstairs and then came down to fetch his breakfast. After three days of tender care, the young man was up and about. He could not ride the motorbike, but he could drive the car.

He had taken a week’s leave from work when he got hurt, so he still had a few days off. There were some very interesting old monuments outside the city and some ruins too, he told his mother, and would she lend him the car to take Sahiban there?

The mother laughed in permission. She was relieved to see her son look somewhat happy. He had lost interest in women when the love of his college days did not work out. He would not consider marriage. He wouldn’t even go to parties.

Two days later, Sahiban asked him if he would take her to Hardwar. She wanted to bathe in the Ganga. He mentioned her request to his mother, who had no objection. So the two of them left for Hardwar.

Sahiban was of delicate build and she was always in simple, casual clothes. They reached Hardwar late in the evening. They rented two small cottages for the night at an ashram by the Ganga. Just before dawn, Sahiban went over and woke the young man so that together, they could watch the sun rise over the river.

He was still quite sleepy, but he washed his face and went out with her to the riverbank. Sahiban gazed at the shades of red splashed across the sky and reflected in the water. She climbed down the steps to bathe in the river, fully clad.

The young man stood on the bank. He was carrying neither a towel nor a change of clothing, so he did not climb down with her. He sat on the edge and played with the water. Then he saw Sahiban standing in the water with her hands folded, looking up at the sky, as though she were greeting the sun. He stared at her in amazement.

When she came out, thoroughly drenched, he said, “You should have brought a towel and a change.”

Sahiban smiled. The hut was close enough, she said, she would go and change there.

Back in the ashram, after a change of clothes and a cup of tea, Sahiban said, “Take me to the city bazaar. I want to look in the shops.” They might not be open yet, he replied, but they could stroll down and they might open by the time they got there.

The narrow-laned bazaars were selling river shells, rudraksha beads, scarves printed with the name of Ram, small boxes of saffron and musk. The girl looked at all this in awe. All of a sudden, she stopped by a shop selling red dupattas edged with golden tassel-work, glass bangles and bridal choorhas of ivory. Holding up her wrist to the shopkeeper, she asked for a choorha her size and put it on right there. Then she bought a red dupatta and some sindoor. Surprised, the young man said, “Sahiban, what will you do with all this? You might like them, but how can you return to your country wearing all this? Even the customs officers will wonder!”

The girl laughed, “How do my arms concern them?”

He was insistent, “But what are you up to?”

Sahiban said, “These are debts that Khuda will have to pay back.”

When the two returned from Hardwar, Sahiban had a dot of sindoor on her forehead and some more in the parting of her hair. The wedding bangles were on her wrists and her head was covered with the red dupatta. Sahiban glowed like a bride.

The young man’s mother stared at her, astounded. She did not say a word to Sahiban but she cornered her son alone and said, “Tell me the truth! Have you and Sahiban got married?”

“Not at all, Ma,” he laughed. “Neither of us have even talked of marriage. She took a fancy to those trinkets and put them on!”

“The silly girl shouldn’t return to her country like this,” said the mother, “she will get merry hell.”

Sahiban was to return the next day. Her visa had run out. After breakfast, the young man took the car out of the garage to drop her at the airport. Just then a friend of his arrived. He introduced Sahiban to his friend, adding: “There’s not much time, but let’s sit for a few minutes.” They sat in the living room downstairs.

“Had you come for a pilgrimage of the dargahs?” the friend asked Sahiban.

“I didn’t go to a dargah, but it was a pilgrimage nevertheless,” Sahiban replied.

Then, playing on her name, he asked, “And where is the Mirza of this Sahiban?”

The girl laughed and said, “Mirza must always belong to the enemy clan, and that’s true for this Sahiban’s Mirza as well.” She looked up at the young man for a moment, then lowered her eyes.

On their way out, the friend asked once again, “But this time Sahiban lacks the courage to walk away with her Mirza?”

She shot back, “This Sahiban does not want her Mirza to be killed by the people of her father’s clan.” She got into the car and left for the airport.

Little Magazine for more

Scientists are peering into the brains of people with borderline personality disorder and finding clues to the roots of this disabling illness

By Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg

Key Concepts
• Borderline personality disorder (BPD) accounts for up to 10 percent of patients under psychiatric care and 20 percent of those who have to be hospitalized. People who have BPD suffer from unstable personal relationships, along with an inability to control their impulses and regulate their emotions.
• Parts of the brain’s limbic system, which governs emotion, are abnormally small as well as hyperactive in patients with BPD. According to one interpretation of these findings, a loss of inhibitory neurons in BPD might underlie both impulsivity and overly negative reactions to events.
• New research suggests that individuals with BPD also have problems correctly perceiving social gestures and that a brain structure called the anterior insula plays a key role in the disorder.

Glenn Close’s unforgettably vivid portrayal in the movie Fatal Attraction gave viewers a front-row look at the damaging mental illness known as borderline personality disorder (BPD). By itself, this ailment accounts for up to 10 percent of patients under psychiatric care and 20 percent of those who have to be hospitalized. The defining characteristic is pervasive instability in the patient’s life, especially in relationships. People who suffer from BPD also have difficulty controlling their impulses and regulating their emotions. Their behavior exerts a tremendous toll not only on themselves but also on their friends and colleagues, as well as on the health care system.

Despite the importance of this disorder, surprisingly little is known about what brain mechanisms might underlie it. Over the past few years, however, scientists have found intriguing hints. Structural imaging studies have indicated, for example, that parts of the brain’s limbic system, which regulates various aspects of emotion, are abnormally small in patients with BPD, and the areas that appear most reduced in volume govern negative moods. Investigations of functional abnormalities show that these same limbic areas—including the amygdala—tend to be hyperactive. Some researchers theorize that the smaller size of limbic structures reflects a loss of inhibitory neurons, which might mean these patients’ brains have a weaker rein on behavior and negative emotions, leading to impulsivity and overly negative reactions to events.

Scientific American for more