Financial sector reforms to quicken, says PM.PM adviser says RBI may trim stimulus!Haven for al Qaeda in Pakistan `very troubling', Clinton Exclaims.Lula seeks explanation for huge Brazil blackout. Obama: strains unless U.S., China balance growth.India hopeful of over 7 pct growth in FY11 - Mukherjee.Final Australia-India one-dayer washed out.Business urges Obama get off trade sidelines in Asia.Lalgarh operation will continue, says Pranab!
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams, Chapter 419
Palash Biswas
http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/
Nepal govt blinks before Maoists, lifts protest banTimes of India - 2 hours ago KATHMANDU: Facing the possibility of violence and clashes with Maoist protesters in the capital Thursday due to a ban on all demonstrations around the Prime ... Maoists block roads to Kathmandu BBC News Maoists release policemen abducted in West BengalHindustan Times - 3 hours ago Maoist guerrillas on Wednesday released two policemen they had abducted on Tuesday in West Bengal's West Midnapore district, police said. ... Police officer, 3 others killed in Rayagada Maoist attackTimes of India - 1 hour ago KORAPUT: A special police officer (SPO) was among four people gunned down by a group of 40 armed Maoists in Rayagada district on Tuesday night. ... Not Chinese government but smugglers selling arms to Maoists: IndiaTimes of India - Nov 10, 2009 NEW DELHI: The union home ministry Tuesday denied that its official had said that the Chinese government was supplying arms to Indian Maoists and clarified ... Not Chinese government but smugglers selling arms to Maoists: India India Business Blog (blog) India probes Maoists' foreign links Asia Times Online Six former Maoists to fight Jharkhand assembly pollsEconomic Times - 5 hours ago RANCHI: Six former Maoist rebels have decided to shun violence and join the political mainstream by contesting the coming Jharkhand assembly elections. ... Nepalese Maoists claim no involvement with Indian MaoistsIndia Today - 1 hour ago PTI Nepal's opposition Maoists on Wednesday insisted that they had no involvement with the Indian Maoists and favoured friendly ties between the two ... Nepal: Chinese are smugglers? Telegraphnepal.com UML chairman Khanal returns home Nepalnews.com Maoists killed four people in Orissa, Government announces 2 lakh ex-gratiaOrissadiary.com - 54 minutes ago Report by Dipti Ranjan Kanungo, Bhubaneswar: Maoists have killed four people at late night of Tuesday and injured two others in Pandratola village of ... Maoists kill four persons in Rayagada district KalingaTimes Maoists kill three in Orissa SamayLive 'Maoists regrouping in N Telangana'Times of India - 15 hours ago NIZAMABAD: Amidst reports that the movement of Maoists has increased by leaps and bounds in North Telangana districts, sources said nearly 70 action team ... 7 Maoists killed near AP border Express Buzz Anti-Maoist operations at Lalgarh to continue: PranabPress Trust of India - 4 hours ago Kolkata, Nov 12 (PTI) Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's reservations over anti-Maoist operations in West Midnapore district notwithstanding, ... Maoist-Trinamool link: Home secy does a flip-flop Times of India Kishenda got in touch with Chhattisgarh Cong leaderEconomic Times - 17 hours ago Though favourably inclined to the idea of a bilateral suspension of operations with Maoists, the government will prefer to wait and watch as to how serious ... Maoism's other side Hindustan Times Seven Maoists killed in Dantewada The Hindu |
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I-league: East Bengal start favourite against LajongTimes of India - 1 hour ago PTI 11 November 2009, 08:48pm IST KOLKATA: A new coach at the helm and an upswing in their performance, East Bengal will start favourite against Lajong FC, ... No Left turn in Bengal and KeralaHindustan Times - 21 hours ago The Left was emphatically rejected by voters in 10 constituencies in West Bengal and three in Kerala in the Assembly byelections. ... Semis lost, Left hopes for a miracle in finals Times of India Solace hunt in fine print Calcutta Telegraph Bengal let go advantageCalcutta Telegraph - 18 hours ago Calcutta: Bengal captain Laxmi Ratan Shukla must be a touch disappointed after his pacers frittered away the advantage gained after the first two sessions ... Irfan, Pinal rescue Baroda MSN India Sourav plots Yusuf's fall Calcutta Telegraph Want to play my natural game: Yusuf Calcutta Telegraph By-poll result gives a fillip to Gorkhaland movementEconomic Times - 11 hours ago KOLKATA: The victory of the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM)-backed independent candidate in West Bengal's Kalchini Assembly seat could fan the separatist ... GJM win' to strengthen Gorkhaland demand Times of India Morcha makes foray into ballot politics Calcutta Telegraph Saurashtra piles up big score against BengalPress Trust of India - 2 hours ago Coming to bat at 20 for two, Vasvada put up a fine display and hit the Bengal medium pacers and spinners all around the wicket. He was finally out caught by ... Arindam's 52 guides Bengal to 102 for three on day 2Press Trust of India - 4 hours ago Kolkata, Nov 10 (PTI) Opener Arindam Das cracked an unbeaten fifty as Bengal scored 102 for three in their first innings after shooting out Baroda for 307 ... The rise and rise of Maoists in BengalExpressindia.com - - Nov 8, 2009 ... people — more than 90 civilians, seven security personnel and 10 Maoists — were killed this year in connection with the Maoist violence in West Bengal. ... We will defeat Maoists in West Bengal, asserts Buddhadeb Hindustan Times Maoists gun down three villagers in West Bengal Times of India Raids continue in state, BengalTimes of India - Nov 10, 2009 BHUBANESWAR/KEONJHAR: Fearing that the mining scam investigation may slip into the hands of the CBI, the state government on Tuesday announced cancellation ... |
Issue : VOL 44 No. 45 November 07 - November 13, 2009
EDITORIALS
Marriage of Money and Politics
Afghanistan: Which Way Now?
Encroaching Places of Worship
From 50 Years Ago (7 November 2009)
COMMENTARY
Whither India-China Relations?
Alka Acharya
India's Financial Sector in Current Times
Y V Reddy
A Nobel for the Commons: A Tribute to Elinor Ostrom
Jayanta Bandyopadhyay , Kanchan Chopra , Purnamita Dasgupta , Nilanjan Ghosh
Warming Up to Immigrants: An Option for the US in Climate Policy
Sujatha Byravan , Sudhir Chella Rajan
A Europe in the World? Twenty Years After 1989
Dipesh Chakrabarty
REVIEW ARTICLE
Development in the Time of Finance
Rajiv Jha
PERSPECTIVES
Ashoka – A Retrospective
Romila Thapar
SPECIAL ARTICLES
A Climate Agreement beyond 2012
Gautam Dutt
Holistic Engineering and Hydro-Diplomacy in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Basin
Jayanta Bandyopadhyay , Nilanjan Ghosh
Michael Madhusudan Datta and the Marxist Understanding of the Real Renaissance in Bengal
Rosinka Chaudhuri
NOTES
Uniform Licence Fee in Telecom: Way Forward
Rajkumar Upadhyay
DISCUSSION
Postnational Condition: Objections and Extensions
Sasheej Hegde
CURRENT STATISTICS
Macroeconomic Indicators (7 November 2009)
EPW Research Foundation
India's Overall Balance of Payments: Annual and Quarterly
EPW Research Foundation
LETTERS
Maoists on Talks
Azad
Corporate Profits
Kripa Shankar
http://epw.in/epw/user/fullContent.jsp
countercurrents
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Outcome of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Election 2009
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Full coverage of the global economic crisis and how it is affecting you
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/default.stm
Alert against simultaneous terror attacks in 5 cities
Nitin Gokhale, Wednesday November 11, 2009, New Delhi
There is a terror threat and it is more widespread than believed earlier by the government, which says it now knows more about the plot since the alert last week.
Now Intelligence sources have warned that there could be multiple and simultaneous attacks in five cities that American terror suspect, David Headley, visited. Headley is believed to have had links with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).
Part of the latest assessment is based on FBI leads. The rest is based on human intelligence and electronic surveillance by Indian agencies. Security authorities suggest that there could be perhaps 50 to 60 attackers involved.
The government had last week issued a nationwide alert that another Mumbai-type attack was imminent. The Home Ministry had said there were fresh inputs warning of a similar terror attack. So what is the government doing about it?
For starters, it is retracing Headley's movements. It is clear now that he visited Delhi during April-May last year. Police in Mumbai have already begun tracking down all the places he went to and the people he met.
In addition, authorities are trying to track down sleeper cells in several cities.
Security sources point out that while there has not been a major terror strike since 26/11, it is one year to that incident. And with the anniversary just round the corner, could equally be an occasion for terrorists to make a statement.
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- http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/2611-type_terror_threat_narrowed_down_to_5_cities_headley_visited.php
Manmohan Singh well up in global green leader ranking
New Delhi: Manmohan Singh has done quite well among global leaders on initiatives to fight climate change, according to a ranking prepared by the NGO Greenpeace. US President Barack Obama has fared the worst, while the premier of Tuvalu has come out tops.
Dr Manmohan Singh has scored well among global leaders on initiatives to fight climate change with 53 of 100 points while US President Obama fared the worst with a score of 8 out of 100.
A spokesperson of the international NGO Greenpeace said here Tuesday: "Developing country leaders were ranked on the basis of greenhouse gas emission reductions from the business-as-usual scenario, frequent measuring and reporting of emissions, transparency of mitigation actions, forest and biodiversity protection, ensuring real and additional climate benefits, guaranteeing the rights of indigenous peoples and national emission reduction plans."
On this basis, Manmohan Singh scored 53 out of 100. The big four among developing countries was led by Jacob Zuma of South Africa with 63, followed by Hu Jintao of China with 59. Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva brought up the rear with 50.
The developing countries were led by Apisai Lelemia, the prime minister of Tuvalu, who scored 87 out of 100. The little archipelago in the Pacific Ocean is critically endangered as the sea level rises due to global warming and has taken a number of urgent steps to save the citizens of his country.
In contrast, Obama scored only 8 out of 100. The highest ranked leaders in the rich world were Angela Merkel of Germany and Gordon Brown of Britain, both with 45.
CIA Foreknowledge of the Mumbai 26/11 terror Attacks - Reprehensor - 911Blogger.com
by Erik Larson
Get it here:
http://awamibharat.blogspot.com/2009/11/cia-foreknowledge-of-mumbai-2611-terror.html
Lalgarh operation will continue, says Pranab
The operation to flush out Maoists from Lalgarh in West Bengal would continue till the situation was 'completely under control', senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee said Wednesday, notwithstanding ally Trinamool Congress' demand that it be called off immediately.
Asserting that the security operation to flush out the extreme Left wing rebels from the Lalgarh belt in West Midnapore district was a joint initiative of the central and the West Bengal governments, the union finance minister said: 'The operation would continue till the entire situation is brought under control.'
Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee has repeatedly urged the central government to withdraw the joint operation, arguing that the state's ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) was using it to regain lost political ground and sneaking in armed party cadres to terrorise the opposition.
While turning down her demand, Mukherjee, however, praised Banerjee for the spectacular success of the Congress-Trinamool combine, which picked up eight of the 10 seats in Saturday's state assembly by-polls.
'The Trinamool Congress scored very well in the by-polls. They won in all seven seats. People again have reposed faith on Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's leadership,' said Mukherjee, also the West Bengal Pradesh Congress president.
Mukherjee said the by-poll results showed that people had faith in the Congress-Trinamool combine.
'The result also proves that the ruling Left Front (LF) is gradually losing popularity among people,' he told reporters.
According to Mukherjee, the Congress and the Trinamool Congress were together in the state and the electoral alliance would continue in future as well.
Asked about the defeat of Congress candidate in Goalpokhar seat, he said: 'I had talks with Deepa Dasmunsi about the result in Goalpokhor seat. We're reviewing the result now.'
The seat in West Dinajpur district fell vacant after Dasmunshi, who won it in 2006, got elected to the Lok Sabha earlier this year. Mukherjee held a meeting with senior state Congress leaders to discuss the party's organisational issues.
APEC ministers warn economic crisis is not over
By Bill Tarrant
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Asia-Pacific ministers warned on Wednesday that the global economic crisis was far from over and a current upturn was a respite rather than recovery.
Ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) have gathered in Singapore for meetings that will culminate in a weekend summit that U.S. President Barack Obama will attend.
Obama, in an interview with Reuters, said he would work with China on his Asian visit to address the economic recovery and trade imbalances.
After foreign and trade ministers met for breakfast on Wednesday, Singapore's representative George Yeo said they had discussed the global economic recovery, reform of financial institutions and resisting protectionism.
He said the consensus among ministers was that the global economic crisis was "by no means over".
"The upturn that we now have is a respite. The situation is still fragile. We should still address the root cause of the problem," he said.
Finance ministers from the 21-member Pacific rim group have a separate meeting on Thursday and, according to a draft statement, will pledge to keep up economic stimulus plans.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick said he was comfortable about world growth prospects this year, but saw downside risks for 2010 and recommended governments keep stimulus measures in place through next year.
Obama: strains unless U.S., China balance growth
The United States sees China as a vital partner and competitor, but the two countries need to address economic imbalances or risk "enormous strains" on their relationship, President Barack Obama said on Monday.
Three days before leaving on a nine-day trip to Asia, Obama said the world's two most powerful nations need to work together on the big issues facing the globe, and any competition between them has to be fair and friendly.
"On critical issues, whether climate change, economic recovery, nuclear nonproliferation, it is very hard to see how we succeed or China succeeds in our respective goals, without working together," he told Reuters in an interview.
Speaking in the Oval Office, he warned that the economic relationship between the two countries had become "deeply imbalanced" in recent decades, with a yawning trade gap and huge Chinese holdings of U.S. government debt.
Obama said he would be raising with Chinese leaders the sensitive issue of their yuan currency -- which is seen by U.S. industry as significantly undervalued -- as one factor contributing to the imbalances.
"As we emerge from an emergency situation, a crisis situation, I believe China will be increasingly interested in finding a model that is sustainable over the long term," he said. "They have a huge amount of U.S. dollars that they are holding, so our success is important to them."
"The flipside of that is that if we don't solve some of these problems, then I think both economically and politically it will put enormous strains on the relationship."
Excessive consumption and borrowing in the United States and aggressive export policies, high savings and lending from Asia fueled a global economic bubble which burst last year.
Final Australia-India one-dayer washed out.The final one-day international between Australia and India was washed out without a ball being bowled on Wednesday.
Australia, who had trailed India 2-1 in the seven-match series, clinched victory on Sunday with a six-wicket win to take a 4-2 lead.
The world champions, who won a second straight Champions Trophy in South Africa last month, retained top spot in the official ODI rankings while the series defeat saw the hosts drop one place to third behind South Africa.
Financial sector reforms to quicken, says PM Dr. Manmohan Singh!
India's long-stalled reforms to its financial sector gained momentum on Sunday after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he would push through legislative changes, including the insurance sector which foreign players are eyeing.
Investors have been keenly awaiting signs of a pick-up in the pace of economic reforms in India after disappointment that the re-elected Congress party did not speed up the process after May's elections.
"We are also better placed than at any time in the recent past to push the reform process forward," he told the World Economic Forum in Delhi.
Singh also said his government would take steps in the 2010/2011 fiscal year to wind down economic stimulus measures for Asia's third largest economy.
"Some of the reforms needed, especially in insurance, involve legislative changes. We have taken initiatives in this area and will strive to build the political consensus needed for these legislative actions to be completed," Singh said.
He said India needed to develop long-term debt markets, deepen corporate bond markets, strengthen the insurance and pensions sectors, improve futures markets for better price discovery and regulation.
"All these issues will be addressed through gradual but steady progress in financial sector reforms to make the sector more competitive while ensuring an efficient regulatory and oversight system," Singh said.
He also said the government would accelerate the sale of stakes in state-run companies
Contrarily, It is premature for Asian central banks to begin exiting from their extraordinarily loose monetary policies given the fragility of economic recovery, a top official with the Asian Development Bank said on Monday.
Rajat Nag, managing director general of the ADB, also said the U.S. dollar would remain a key reserve currency but that other currencies would also gain prominence over the medium and longer term.
"We do consider this as a V-shaped rather than a double-dip recovery, but the dynamics of the growth are frail. The numbers are obviously very encouraging, but they are soft," Nag told Reuters TV on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum event.
"On the one hand you certainly don't want to choke off growth and you also don't want to stoke inflation," Nag said.
"And this balancing act will require the central banks to be very watchful of inflation but our feeling is that, no, it is premature to talk about exiting right now."
He said countries should coordinate their exit strategies and cited the Group of 20 nations as a venue for such dialogue.
"It is important to coordinate the policy. Now, that does not mean the countries will be able to synchronise, because circumstances will be different," he said.
The multilateral lender expects developing Asian economies on average to grow 3.9 percent this year and 6.4 percent next year. The so-called Group of Three or G3 -- Japan, the United States and the euro zone -- are projected by the bank to contract 3.7 percent this year and grow 1.1 percent in 2010.
Business urges Obama get off trade sidelines in Asia, reports reuter!
U.S. business groups on Monday urged President Barack Obama to use his upcoming trip to Asia to join talks on a regional free trade initiative and to set the stage for long-delayed congressional approval of a free trade pact with South Korea.
"We are standing on the sidelines while Asian nations clinch new deals," Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a statement.
"It's time to see action from Washington to expand trade with Asia in order to create jobs and avoid drawing a line down the middle of the Pacific," he said.
Obama heads to Asia on Thursday on a four-nation tour that begins in Japan before heading to Singapore for the annual summit meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and finishing with stops in China and South Korea.
In a pre-trip interview with Reuters on Monday, Obama said boosting exports was a crucial part of his economic agenda.
"It is particularly important for us when it comes to Asia as a whole to recognize that in the absence of a more robust export strategy, it is going to be hard for us to rebuild our manufacturing base and employment base," Obama said.
He also said U.S. manufacturers had "legitimate concerns" about their ability to sell their goods into China and that he would raise the issue of the value of that country's currency when he meets with Chinese leaders next week in Beijing.
U.S. business groups fear the United States could be left on the outside as China, Japan, South Korea and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations accelerate efforts toward regional economic integration.
On the Other hand,Haven for al Qaeda in Pakistan `very troubling', Clinton Exclaims !Lula seeks explanation for huge Brazil blackout.
The Reserve Bank of India may withdraw some monetary stimulus if inflation rises towards the end of 2009, C. Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister's economic advisory council, said on Wednesday.
"If inflation pressures develop, monetary authorities may take measures earlier. RBI (Reserve Bank of India) will wait and see how price situation develops in Nov-Dec," Rangarajan said.
The fiscal deficit needed to be reduced by 1 to 1.5 percentage points in the next fiscal year, he said.
"Next year we might have to start the process of withdrawing some of the measures," he said referring to the fiscal stimulus, adding that excise duties needed to be adjusted while the government's expenditure needed to be cut in 2010/11.
Good news for WEST Bengal Congress after the By Election debacle followed the SILIGURI Drama as Dasmunsi back in India after stem cell therapy in brain!Former union minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi has come back to India after undergoing stereotactic brain surgery using stem cells in Germany, a doctor who attended on him said today. The 62-year-old Congress leader, who was flown to Germany last week, underwent the surgery at a hospital in Dusseldorf.
"In stereotactic brain surgery, we use images of the brain to guide us to a target within the brain. We inject stem cells collected from bone marrow directly into his brain with help of a hi-tech procedure, " Dr Nils Haberlang, neurosurgeon with Xcell Centre in Dusseldorf, said.
"It has not been tried here in AIIMS yet and not in India till now. Use of stem cell in the brain is yet to be considered," a doctor in the stem cell department in AIIMS said.
Dr Haberlang said that in the case of Dasmunsi "the stem cells were taken from the patient. We collected the bone marrow from the pelvic bone and with isolation procedure collected the stem cells which were then injected directly into his brain.
" He along with an anaesthesiologist in Switzerland''s Aeskulap Clinic Dr Ben Pfeifer were involved in the surgery. The Xcell-Center is a private clinic group and institute for regenerative medicine located in Dsseldorf and Cologne, Germany.
Dasmunsi is now in Indraprastha Apollo Hospital where he was shifted from AIIMS..
West Bengal's Left Front Government losing popularity: Mukherjee
West Bengal's Left Front Government losing popularity: Mukherjee
The CPI(M)-led Left Front government is West Bengal is losing popularity in the state, claimed Union Finance Minister and President of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday.
Addressing a press conference at the Congress party office here, Mukherjee pointed out that it was becoming apparent that the anti-Left people in the state were now supporting the Trinamool Congress-Congress (I) alliance.ukherjee said the people had voted overwhelmingly for the alliance in the Lok Sabha elections and the subsequent municipal elections in the state.
They also voted for the alliance wherever a joint candidate was put up during the assembly by-polls.
He said it was clear that the CPI(M)-led Left Front government in the state was losing the support of the voters.
Mukherjee, however, declined to comment on a possible date for the assembly elections in the state, scheduled for 2011.
The Congress party's alliance partner, the Trinamool Congress and its leader Mamata Banerjee has been clamouring for early polls in West Bengal.
Mukherjee said the date cannot be announced now, but it was apparent that the people of the state were now in favour of the opposition alliance.
In a clear snub to Banerjee, Mukherjee said the decision to carry out joint operations against Maoists in Lalgarh was taken by the state government and the centre together and the forces would remain in Lalgarh till deemed fit.
Banerjee had said at a recent rally that she did not support the joint operations in Lalgarh.
Forward Bloc to review its alliance with CPI-M
The All India Forward Bloc, a major Left Front partner, is likely to review its decades-old association with the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) after the continuing electoral debacle of the Marxist-led ruling alliance in West Bengal.
'We will review our alliance with the CPI-M in our Party Congress to be held in Kolkata Dec 17 to 21,' a top Forward Bloc leader told IANS.
A senior Forward Bloc leader even said the 16th Party Congress to be held in Kolkata would decide whether the party founded by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose should go with Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's surging Trinamool Congress.
Besides the Forward Bloc, the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) are the other partners in the CPI-M-led Left alliance in the country.
The Forward Bloc leader said the issue of association with the Marxists has not been discussed in any high-level party committees so far.
'We are under pressure from our workers to review our alliance with the CPI-M. This is a major demand being raised in the party conferences being held ahead of the Party Congress,' the Forward Bloc leader said, requesting anonymity.
He said the Forward Bloc did not have any problems with Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee.
'She is too soft towards us. Mamata once attended an all-party meeting on Singur and Nandigram convened by our state general secretary Ashok Ghosh,' said the Forward Bloc leader, who is closely associated with senior CPI-M and other Left party leaders.
Continuing with its electoral debacles since the Lok Sabha elections in May, the CPI-M remained blanked out in all the seats it contested in the assembly by-election held to 10 seats Saturday.
Trinamool Congress bagged all the seven seats it contested, retaining five and wresting Belgachia East and Rajganj from the CPI-M in the by-election. While the Congress won one, an Independent supported by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha bagged one.
The Forward Bloc was the only Left Front partner that won one seat - the Goalpokhar constituency in North Dinajpur.
Asked whether the party has got any invitation from the Trinamool Congress leader to join them, he said: 'We had got an invitation when Nandigram and Singur movements were heating up.'
He said the party was against the CPI-M's policy in Nandigram and Singur.
'We even formed a mini-front within the Left Front to oppose the CPI-M. This also forced the state government to abandon the projects there,' said the Forward Bloc leader.
Tata Motors withdrew its small car project from Singur last year after a section of farmers, led by the Trinamool Congress, carried out a sustained agitation for return of 400 acres of the acquired 997.11 acres to farmers.
Following widespread violent protests, the state government was also forced to pull out of Nandigram, where it was hoping to set up a chemical hub with Indonesia's Salim group.
This is for the first time in 25 years that the Forward Bloc is holding its Party Congress at Kolkata, the party leader said.
Mukherjee's statement today makes it clear that the centre is in no mood to cave into Trinamool Congress demands.
After a year of global economic crisis and political limbo, investors in India are returning to business as usual -- this time with real hope that a new government might actually bring in needed financial reforms.While, India hopeful of over 7 pct growth in FY11, Explains Mukherjee!India is hopeful of more than 7 percent growth in the fiscal year ending March 2011 and 9 percent growth by 2012, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Tuesday.
Mukherjee was speaking at the World Economic Forum's India Economic summit in New Delhi.
India's economic growth slowed to 6.7 percent in the fiscal year to March 2009 after three straight years of at least 9 percent, and government officials have said growth in the current year is on track for roughly 6.5 percent.
Policymakers including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have pressed the case for keeping easy fiscal and monetary policies in place to nurture growth in Asia's third-largest economy.
The word "reform" has been touted in India for years but if discussions at the World Economic Forum are anything to go by, Asia's third-largest economy may have turned a corner with its political will to help it reach 9-10 percent growth rates.
With the re-elected Congress-led government freed from the shackles of communist support, reforms from foreign investment in retail to recycling India's $400 billion in domestic savings to help fund infrastructure projects were seen as real possibilities.
Aside from 2005-2008 when India's economy expanded by more than 9 percent annually, the Asian giant has struggled to keep up with China's breakneck growth, hampered by infrastructure bottlenecks, red tape and an often plodding financial system.
"There is now political stability," said Saurabh Agrawal, head of investment banking for Bank of America Merrill Lynch in India. "The government is making the right noises and it looks like there is political will."
Congress's May general election win, recent state victories and a weak opposition have freed the hands of reformists in the government, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
"India is in a sweet spot," one senior banker said, as the centre of gravity over the last year has leaned towards emerging economies, while Western economies struggled to stay afloat.
"If you want a high rate of return, where would you invest? Europe? Brazil? Russia? China?" he added, referring each time to their economic or regulatory problems. "India does stand out."
Meanwhile, Describing the 'safe haven' that Al Qaeda has found in Pakistan as 'very troubling', US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the terror group is engaged with the Pakistani Taliban in threatening the state of Pakistan.
The US was in Afghanistan 'because we believe that we cannot permit the return of a safe haven or a staging platform for terrorists', she told German Der Spiegel newspaper in Berlin, according to a transcript of the interview released Tuesday by the State Department.
'We think that Al Qaeda and the other extremists are part of a syndicate of terror, with Al Qaeda still being an inspiration, a funder, a trainer, an equipper, director of a lot of what goes on.
'In the last two months, we have arrested a gentleman who was plotting, it's alleged, against the subway system in New York who went to an Al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan,' she said.
'The porous nature of that border is one that we consider to be very dangerous,' Clinton said, noting that the government and military of Pakistan are now moving against some of these extremists.
Asked about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, Clinton said: 'The nuclear arsenal that Pakistan has, I believe is secure. I think that the government and the military have taken adequate steps to protect that.'
But 'the safe haven that Al Qaeda has found in Pakistan is very troubling', Clinton said, noting 'they are still actively engaged with the elements of the Pakistani Taliban that are threatening the state of Pakistan'.
Asked if she still feared that intelligence services in Pakistan are not reliable, she said: 'Not at the highest levels'. But 'I would like to see a real effort made on the part of the top leadership to make sure that no one down the ranks is doing anything to give any kind of support or cover-up to the Al Qaeda leadership'.
In another interview on the Charlie Rose Show, Clinton said Pakistan was now 'evidencing' that the Taliban is their enemy as much as their long-held opposition to India.
'Well, they're certainly evidencing that. This very forceful response, first in Swat, now in South Waziristan, illustrates a commitment to take on the Pakistani Taliban.
'I think in my conversations with both the civilian government leaders as well as the military intelligence leaders, there is an awareness that the Taliban is not just about somebody else's fight, it is a direct attack on the authority of the Pakistani government,' she said.
Maya directs officials to expedite development works
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati today directed officials to complete all development works in the identified villages under the Ambedkar Gram Sabha Vikas yojna by the year end. Expressing her displeasure over laxity in the development works, she asked officials to ensure quality and take stern action against erring people.
Issuing special directives for the naxal-affected areas, she said under NREGS, at least 100 days work be ensured to the beneficiaries besides other works. PWD would be ensuring the quality of works and the respective district magistrates would have to undertake surprise checks, the chief minister said during a review meeting.
Mayawati also expressed her unhappiness over allotment of houses to the homeless and asked for immediate allotment of the houses constructed under the Kanshiram Urban Housing scheme. She directed that the scholarships given to students be verified by respective district magistrates.
80 fishing boats, 800 men missing in cyclone-hit Arabian Sea
About 80 fishing trawlers, with an average of 10 men in each, are missing in cyclone-hit Arabian Sea, organisations of fishermen along India's west coast said Wednesday.
As Cyclone Phyan intensified and tore northwards, slated to make landfall along the north Maharashtra-south Gujarat coast late Wednesday night, there were reports of boats missing at sea, despite repeated warnings from the authorities over the last few days that no fisherman should venture out.
Gopal Tandel, president of the Daman Machimar Sangh (fishermen's association), told IANS: 'Fifty fishing boats with a total estimated complement of about 500 fishermen are still out at sea and are on the path of the cyclone headed this way.' Daman is a small coastal enclave on the Gujarat coast.
'There were about 80 boats out fishing but about 30 of them have either returned or are on their way back,' Tandel added.
Administrator of the union territory of Daman, Satya Gopal, said the Coast Guard authorities had sent out a Dornier aircraft to warn fishing boats to return. He said that over the last three days, special warnings were being put out by the administration advising fishermen against venturing out to sea.
While there was no information from Maharashtra till Wednesday afternoon on any fishing boats missing at sea, fishermen's organisations in Goa told IANS that an estimated 30 trawlers were missing.
The Coast Guard started a search for them. 'Our patrol vessels are already on the lookout for the trawlers. We have also pressed a lookout aircraft into the operation, which will scan the sea off Goa in search of the missing trawlers,' Goa Coast Guard Commandant N. Saxena said.
Lula seeks explanation for huge Brazil blackout
Brazil's president sought an urgent explanation on Wednesday for the worst power outage in a decade, which left a huge swath of the country in the dark for more than five hours and raised doubts about the reliability of its energy infrastructure.
The blackout on Tuesday night left tens of millions of people without power across most of the country's wealthy southeastern region, halting subways and snarling traffic in major cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
The cause of the outage was unclear. Energy officials said the giant Itaipu hydroelectric dam had shut down, but the Itaipu Binacional company that runs the project said in a statement on Wednesday that problem originated elsewhere.
It said the dam on the border between Brazil and Paraguay had been functioning normally but had not been able to transmit energy because power lines were not working properly.
"We haven't established the cause of the problem yet," Energy Minister Edison Lobao told the O Globo news network.
Lobao earlier told reporters that a storm may have caused power lines from Itaipu to shut down, causing a chain reaction that cut service throughout Brazil and Paraguay, which gets about 90 percent of its electricity from the dam.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva summoned Lobao for an urgent meeting in the capital Brasilia early on Wednesday to explain what caused the outage.
The massive power failure was already being politicized on morning talk shows throughout Brazil, with opposition politicians accusing the government of negligence in maintaining the country's transmission lines.
The blackout affected 10 of Brazil's 26 states, including the capital Brasilia, and left all of Paraguay in the dark for about 15 minutes.
The last time Brazil suffered an outage on such a large scale was 1999, when a lightening bolt struck a transmission line in Sao Paulo state. Two years later, the government was forced to implement energy rationing after a severe drought.
Power was fully restored in Sao Paulo, Brazil's financial capital and South America's largest city, before dawn on Wednesday.
The Itaipu power plant provides about 20 percent of the electricity supply in Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, but more than 90 percent of Paraguay's.
Traffic on the streets of Sao Paulo descended into chaos shortly after the power outage. Thousands of passengers were forced to exit stalled subway trains and walk along the tracks to get back to stations and make their way to the surface.
The city's streets were still clogged early on Wednesday after the mayor cancelled restrictions on the amount of cars allowed to circulate during rush-hour traffic.
Other Brazilian cities that suffered power outages included Belo Horizonte in the state of Minas Gerais and Campinas, a large city about an hour outside of Sao Paulo.
Growth, inflation and financial stability -- tough choices
(Sanjay Sinha is the CEO of DBS Cholamandalam Asset Management Ltd. The views expressed in this column are his own)
By Sanjay Sinha
World over, the first set of noises are being made to herald the end of easy monetary policy.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in its credit policy announced on Oct 27, has rolled back the 1 percentage point of leeway that it had extended in the statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) in Nov 2008 by bringing it back to 25 percent and has announced an enhancement of bank's provisioning norms to 70 percent in a graded manner over the next one year.
There is now a consensus view that we will see a hardening cycle begin from Jan 2010. The Finance Minister, the Commerce Minister and the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission were quick to jump in and assuage fears by announcing that it was too early to roll back the stimulus measures.
RBI is conscious of the fact that inflation will very quickly move up to 5-6 percent territory, largely driven by food prices while base effect will also play a villainous role. Despite political noises, RBI will need to act.
Globally too, things seem to be warming up with U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announcing that the $800 bln stimulus buy back plan will be concluded and we need to brace ourselves for some rate hikes now. This was enough to send a shiver down the spine of financial markets.
The larger school of thought believes that we are not out of the woods as yet. The spectre of a double dip recession still haunts. How else will you explain that Citi Bank has opted to hoard $244 billion in cash reserves. Continued...
http://in.reuters.com/article/economicNews/idINIndia-43708420091105
India - planning the road to recovery
(Nipun Mehta is Executive Director & Head - India, SG Private Banking. The views expressed in this column are his own)
By Nipun Mehta
Clearly, whether it is spending on infrastructure, education or healthcare, the subjects lie predominantly in the government domain. This means each spending decision would generally be assessed by the government from a short term or long term 'benefit' and from a political point of view.
The National Rural Employment Gurantee Act (NREGA) scheme has clearly had its short term employment and income distribution benefits while at the same time creating infrastructure. One must remember that such schemes have GDP implications.
Purely from a GDP growth point of view, growth through pump priming via such schemes has had its contribution and any government needs to keep an eye on the same. On the other hand, long term investments through spending on education and healthcare are not 'direct' GDP contributors. They are a social responsibility which cannot be ignored.
An economic investment need coming out of a slowdown, can really be compared to a farm which has just seen a drought and needs to be brought back to 'GDP contributing' health. One needs to obviously look at re-planting trees which will bear long term fruits, but it also needs to recommence generating revenue in the immediate term.
Importantly, India as an economy hasn't had a significant investment in social spending causes and hence is not in a position to ignore or delay investment in education and healthcare. In comparison, a country like China can probably afford to take a more short- term outlook.
For India which has lagged behind both in infrastructure and social responsibility projects, trying to maintain a more consistent pace between both these priorities is critical once the short-term inconsistencies have leveled out.
At the current juncture, coming out of a slowdown, pump priming will prove to be an ideal solution to get the economy back on the high growth trajectory. However such pump priming has its implications as well in the form of a high fiscal deficit. This in turn can lead to an inflationary spiral and higher interest rates, which can only impact long term growth. Continued...
http://in.reuters.com/article/economicNews/idINIndia-43602120091102
Direct marketing gains new clout in Asia
By Ralph Jennings
TAIPEI (Reuters) - For hundreds of diners in Taiwan, 22-year-old Sheena Tsai is the billboard for Carlsberg, a Danish beer vying for a slice of Asia's competitive lager market.
The university student brings beer straight to tables at packed Taipei seafood restaurants with handy facts about Carlsberg's origin and flavour.
"Some don't know about it," said Tsai, who wears a beer-branded blouse to local seafood joints. "They like to meet sellers face to face. This kind of promotion is useful."
Carlsberg isn't the only one in Asia.
As major companies see growth potential in the region, many more are seeking a marketing strategy to suit it, giving new clout to the ages-old tool of bringing products directly to consumers.
Dozens of companies, from consumer goods maker Hindustan Unilever Ltd to delivery firms such as Fedex, are now using direct marketing methods to sell their products in increasingly crowded and competitive markets.
Direct marketing, broadly defined, covers any sales technique from pop-up stores and commercial gift bag giveaways to free sample handouts that puts sellers directly in touch with target customers, compared to indirect marketing such as advertising, product placement or sponsorships.
Asian consumers, long accustomed to doing business with trusted family or friends to avoid scams, see contact with direct marketers as safe avenues to get to study a product in a world of commercial uncertainty, experts say. Continued...
http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINIndia-43626320091103
ANALYSIS - U.S. keeps pressure on Abbas after Netanyahu visit
Reuter
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have felt some frost while visiting the White House but Washington is keeping the heat on Palestinians to resume peace talks without an Israeli settlement freeze first.
Netanyahu was ushered into the Oval Office on Monday after nightfall for a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at which, contrary to normal practice with a visiting Israeli prime ministers, reporters were not allowed in.
Back home in Israel, newspapers seized on the low-profile White House visit as a snub, a sign of strained relations between Obama and Netanyahu, who had rejected his calls for a halt to settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.
But the underlying U.S. message appears to be unchanged: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should negotiate with Israel now. Judging by Abbas's rhetoric in a speech on Wednesday, he is making at least a show of not listening. Settlement expansion must come to a complete stop, he said, before talks can resume.
However, echoing Netanyahu remarks in Washington the day before, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told U.S. Jewish leaders on Tuesday that Israeli-Palestinian talks, suspended for nearly a year, should get under way "without preconditions".
"No one should allow the issue of settlements to distract from the goal of a lasting peace between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab world," Emanuel said.
Whether the Palestinians are in a position to revive peace talks now or move towards a deal with Israel is a big question.
Much will depend on Abbas's political future. He has said he would rather not run for re-election in January, citing U.S. backsliding on settlements -- in 10 months in office, Obama has gone from demanding a "freeze" to merely "restraint".
Many suspect Abbas is bluffing about both threatening to quit and even about holding elections that his Hamas Islamist rivals in the Gaza Strip have rejected. But doubts will linger.
Palestinians have rejected Netanyahu's proposal, praised last week by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to limit temporarily construction in West Bank enclaves to 3,000 homes.
Uzi Arad, Netanyahu's national security adviser, attributed the change in Washington's tone towards settlements by saying on Wednesday that the United States was a "pragmatic nation" that understood and respected Israel's red lines on the issue.
Netanyahu's position on settlements, Arad told Israel Radio from Paris, where the prime minister was to meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy later in the day, is supported by a majority of Israelis and the United States recognises that.
FRENCH CRITICISM
Netanyahu's tough line on settlements, insisting his government must accommodate the "natural growth" of settler families and continue to construct homes for Jews in Arab East Jerusalem, has not won him favour among French leaders.
On the eve of Netanyahu's visit, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner questioned whether most Israelis really wanted peace: "It seems to me, and I hope that I am completely wrong, that this desire has completely vanished," he said.
In his public addresses, Netanyahu has been taking pains to try to dispel any such notion, while noting that he would make no move toward peace that would compromise Israel's security.
That is shorthand for reminding Israelis and the world that Islamists opposed to Israel's existence control Gaza to the south and dominate in south Lebanon, to Israel's north.
"My goal is not to have endless negotiations. My goal is not negotiations for negotiations sake. My goal is to reach a peace treaty, and soon," Netanyahu told the conference in Washington.
He repeated his demand that any Palestinian state have no army: "Any peace agreement we sign today must include ironclad security measures that will protect the State of Israel."
For Netanyahu, and for all Israeli governments since the 1967 war in which Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, that means no return to pre-conflict lines. It is a position reflected in the expansion of settlements Israel aims to hang on onto under a peace deal but which angers Palestinians who see such building as pre-judging the outcome of negotiation.
(Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
UP leaders, intellectuals demand action against MNS
Wed, Nov 11 02:52 PM
Lucknow, Nov 11 (PTI) The assault on SP lagislator Abu Asim Azmi in the Maharashtra assembly has come in for severe criticism by Hindi litterateurs and political parties in Uttar Pradesh with protestors burning effigies of MNS chief Raj Thackeray and demanding a ban on the party. Congress and Samajwadi Party workers took out separate protest marches in Bhadohi district today.
Congress workers who submitted a memorandum addressed to President Pratibha Patil demanding ban on MNS, held the march through the streets and raised anti-MNS slogans. Hindi Vidyapeeth President Sumit Vyas has sent a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking his help in ensuring that the most unfortunate incident of insult to the national language is not repeated.
CPI held a protest meeting in Lucknow during which it held Congress-NCP government responsible for the unlawful activities of MNS leaders against Hindi and north Indians. A VHP release called for checking the practice of dividing the country and Hindus on the issue of language and region.
North Indian Public Union, Akhil Bhartiya Alpshankhyak Adhivakta Association, All India Dalit Muslim Morcha, Shia Democratic Alliance, Sunni Board of India and Lok Awaz and others held separate meetings to protest the incident and demanded a ban on the MNS and expulsion of its legislators.
Rajnath Singh meets RSS chief Bhagwat
Wed, Nov 11 08:08 PM
New Delhi, Nov 11 (IANS) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh Wednesday met Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat here, a RSS functionary said.
'Yes, Rajnath Singhji met Bhagwatji,' the RSS functionary told IANS, without divulging any other information.
Singh's term will end in December and the party is yet to zero-in on the name of his successor.
Of the second generation leaders, names of Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and M. Venkaiah Naidu have been doing the rounds.
However, when Bhagwat had suggested that the party should look beyond its leaders in Delhi, names of Manohar Parikkar from Goa and Nitin Gadkari and Bal Apte from Maharashtra also cropped up.
Indo Asian News Service
Arrest warrants issued against Koda's aides
Wed, Nov 11 08:02 PM
Ranchi, Nov 11 (IANS) The Income Tax (IT) department Wednesday issued arrest warrants against Vinod Sinha and Sanjay Chaudhary, close associates of former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda, who is faced with charges of laundering Rs.2,500 crore.
'We have issued arrest warrants against Vinod Sinha and Sanjay Chaudhary and asked the concerned police station to arrest them and produce them before us,' said Ajit Srivastava, additional director of investigations in the IT department.
'Vinod Sinha's lawyer appeared before us, requesting that they (the lawyer) should be allowed to be present when Sinha appears before us,' he added.
On Oct 9, the ED filed a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against Koda, three more former ministers as well as his associates Vinod Sinha and Sanjay Chaudhary. Vikas Sinha, brother of Sinha, was on Nov 6 sent to ED custody for 10 days.
According to sources, Vikas has admitted to sending Rs.40 crore abroad for Koda.
Indo Asian News Service
Demand surge in India adds to stimulus exit debate
Wed, Nov 11 07:59 PM
India saw a 34 percent surge in car sales in October from a year earlier, a sign of strengthening consumer demand, and a top government economic adviser said stimulus measures may need to be withdrawn next year.
India is widely expected to be among the first of the large economies to pull back from extraordinary fiscal and monetary measures introduced to help weather the global downturn, as inflationary pressures and a surge in capital inflows have started worrying policy makers.
Demand in Asia's third largest economy has been rising faster than expected, supported by low interest rates and government spending, helping to drive sales of cars and other consumer goods.
Consumer demand and supply shortages in food items after a weak monsoon have driven up inflation in recent weeks.
"If inflation pressures develop, monetary authorities may take measures earlier. RBI (Reserve Bank of India) will wait and see how price situation develops in Nov-Dec," said C. Rangarajan, chairman of the prime minister's economic advisory council.
"Next year we might have to start the process of withdrawing some of the measures," he said, referring to fiscal stimulus.
He said excise duties, which were lowered twice between December and February, needed to be adjusted while the government's expenditure needed to be cut in 2010/11 to reduce the fiscal deficit by 1 to 1.5 percentage points.
India's fiscal deficit is forecast to be 6.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2009/10, higher than the 6.2 percent last year. India aims to cut its deficit to 5.5 percent of GDP in 2010/11.
The economy expanded by 6.7 percent in 2008/09, slowing from 9 percent or more in the previous three years.
INFLOWS NOT A CONCERN
Rangarajan, a former central bank governor, said the economy could grow 7-8 percent in 2010/11 (April-March), but Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla said on Wednesday the economy cannot return to the 8-9 percent growth trajectory until exports revive.
India's exports declined 11.4 percent in October from a year earlier, their 13th drop in a row, and India's trade secretary said they would start growing only from January.
While the global slump continued to erode India's exports, the country has seen a surge in capital inflows as foreign investors buy Indian shares and invest in capacity expansion.
A central bank deputy governor said on Tuesday that India faces a dilemma of needing to contain rising inflation while trying to support growth and managing foreign capital inflows.
But the finance secretary said the surge in capital inflows into the country was not a matter of concern for now, and authorities were not planning to put any curbs on such flows.
About $14 billion in foreign funds have been pumped into Indian shares so this year. Last year, foreign investors were net sellers.
(Editing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Victoria Main)
(Additional reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh and Matthias Williams)
Rajkumar Ray and C.J. Kuncheria
Jeffrey Heller http://maobadiwatch.blogspot.com/2009/11/nepal-update.html
"In defense of Civilian Supremacy over the military and the democratic "New Nepal" process the revolutionary movement of Nepal, led by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) has initiated a nation wide "Peoples Movement" to topple the government and anti-people forces."
CAPITALIST CRISIS MAKES SOCIALISM NECESSARY
Statement on the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples' Struggle
9 November 2009
Since the fall of the Berlin wall on 9 November 1989, the world capitalist system has sunk deeper into crisis. It is now undergoing its most severe crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, with some commentators calling the present crisis "the Greater Depression" in terms of its effects on the jobs and livelihood of the workers and peoples of the world.
After emerging as the world's sole superpower in the wake of the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the US itself is wracked by a severe crisis and is further plunging the world with it. The imperialists and its propagandists perorate on how value and value-creation in the economies of the socialist states and then the modern revisionist regimes were distorted by the state bureaucracy.
Now all the countries of the world in varying degrees are reeling from a crisis driven by unbridled private greed under the slogan of "free market globalization" involving the fantastic accumulation of immense wealth by the financial oligarchy and monopoly capitalists through unrelenting super-exploitation of the working people, financial manipulation and the berserk generation of fictitious capital.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the social conditions of the workers and peoples of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have plummeted under the conditions of unbridled capitalist exploitation, oppression and violence. Poverty levels have risen due to massive unemployment and depressed incomes. Inflation has been cutting down the value of wages, pensions and savings.
State investment in production and job creation has been significantly reduced. Public allotment to education and other social services has plummeted. The educated have difficulties finding work and illiteracy is spreading. The workers' and peoples' health have taken a beating, causing severe malnutrition, stunting growth among the youth and shortening the average life span of people.
The number of children living in the streets and left to fend for themselves in these very cold countries has multiplied. The suicide rate has grown among them by significant percentages. The situation of the street children and society at large is being further aggravated by the current financial and economic crisis.
The anger and discontent of the workers and peoples of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are becoming manifest in different ways. Parties of the Left are becoming popular and are gaining strength in national elections. The workers and people are speaking out against the accelerated escalation of exploitation, oppression and violence of the big bourgeoisie.
Survey after survey shows that the people feel they are plunging deeper into poverty and that they are increasingly disillusioned and angry with capitalism and its unfulfilled promises. With the onslaught of the current economic and financial crisis, there is rising interest in and study of Marxist and progressive writings. The imperialists and the local ruling classes are responding to this by deflecting the workers and peoples from the class struggle and anti-imperialist solidarity by promoting divisions and hatred based on chauvinism, racism, ethnocentrism and religious bigotry.
The Comecon is gone. But all the former revisionist-ruled countries are now in the tight grip of the US-controlled world capitalist system and are caught up in the turmoil of the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis is whipping up fascism and aggressive wars. The room for inter-imperialist competition has become more cramped and more intense, with Russia and China joining in as big power players.
The Warsaw Pact is gone. But the NATO has been expanded as to include the former revisionist-ruled countries in Eastern Europe, reaching the borders of Russia. Most of the former revisionist-ruled countries are potential hotbeds of fascist repression and aggressive wars as already indicated by the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia by a series of wars instigated by the imperialists and by wars involving Chechnya and Georgia. Mercenary forces from the former revisionist-ruled countries have been deployed by the NATO to distant lands like Iraq and Afghanistan.
The crisis of monopoly capitalism has brought ever-greater suffering among the workers and peoples of the world. The imperialist-controlled multilateral agencies underestimate world hunger when they report that only 1 billion people go hungry out of the more than six billion human population. They say that this is the largest number of people going hungry in history, and the same number of people suffer from malnutrition.
This situation is bound to get worse, as world economic output is predicted to decrease this year, the first time since World War II. The contraction of employment is estimated to last for another eight years. The number of people living on less than $2 per day will increase by hundreds of millions. Decreasing demand for consumer goods, semi-manufactures and raw materials impacts heavily on millions of workers and peasants in neocolonial economies.
The workers and peoples of the world are waging various legal and illegal forms of organized action to protest the anti-people policies of imperialism. International gatherings of the monopoly capitalists, the finance oligarchy, and heads of imperialist states have become occasions for mass protests by indignant workers and peoples in the meeting areas and in various countries. Countries assertive of national independence are exposing and lambasting the dictates and impositions of imperialism.
Armed revolutions for national liberation and democracy are continuing and gaining strength in the Philippines, Colombia, India, Peru and Turkey. The people of Iraq and Afghanistan are waging armed resistance against the occupation and colonization of their countries by the US. The armed forms of struggle are bound to grow in strength and advance as a result of the intensification of the crisis of monopoly capitalism.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the workers and peoples of Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the world have undergone ever worsening economic and social conditions. They see monopoly capitalism as an evil and bankrupt system that is destroying the world's productive forces and is inflicting immense suffering on the people.
Monopoly capitalism is igniting the people's desire for socialism. So long as imperialist oppression and exploitation persist, the people fight for national and social liberation. It is farthest from the truth that monopoly capitalism is the end of history. The utter bankruptcy of monopoly capitalism and its descent to ever more barbarous forms of plunder and aggression drive the people to fight for their rights and for a bright socialist future.
The workers and peoples of the world are called upon to persevere in the struggle for genuine socialism, against monopoly capitalism that is now in the throes of its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The crisis of the world capitalist system makes socialism necessary for humankind.
Contrary to the claims of the imperialists and their propagandists that socialism fell in 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall has actually meant the collapse of the modern revisionist regimes in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the completion of the restoration of capitalism. It is the end result of the revisionist betrayal of socialism started by Khruschov in 1956 and completed by Gorbachov in the years of 1989-91.
The history of socialist countries from the Bolshevik victory of 1917 up to 1956, and from the founding of the People's Republic of China up to 1976 shows great leaps in the advancement of the social, economic, political, cultural and defense situations of the workers and peoples of those countries. The poverty, hunger, joblessness, and the cruelties of exploitation and oppression before the victory of the socialist revolution were overcome. The great victories in socialist construction and revolution were achieved despite imperialist wars of aggression and economic and military blockades and subversion.
The rise of modern revisionism in socialist countries and elsewhere reversed all the great achievements of socialism. Advances in the situation of the workers and peoples were slowly but surely eroded, and pre-revolutionary forms of exploitation, oppression and violence were restored. Together with criminal syndicates in the so-called free market, the modern revisionist big bourgeoisie grew fat on bureaucratic corruption and enjoyed the lifestyles of the rich and famous, while the workers and peoples suffered from the decrease in food, jobs, savings and social services.
As workers and peoples grew restive and began clamoring for reforms, the ruling revisionist regimes imposed severe political repression. In Eastern Europe, and in East Germany especially, this condition fueled the mass protests that brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The revisionist regimes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union peacefully gave up power and gave way to the legalization of their bureaucratic loot, the barefaced restoration of capitalism and the blatant privatization of state assets.
Since Nikita Khrushchov's reign in the Soviet Union, genuine proletarian revolutionaries the world over have called the ruling regimes in the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe as modern revisionists, who mouth socialism but practice capitalism. They have predicted that it will not take long before capitalism reveals itself bare-faced in these countries.
The fall of the Wall has shown how accurate their predictions are. The modern revisionists in these countries have since exposed themselves as pseudo-communists and anti-communists. It is modern revisionism, not socialism, which fell with the Berlin Wall and delivered the workers and peoples of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe into the even more predatory and violent rule of barefaced capitalism. The revisionists had earlier undermined, eroded and destroyed socialism.
Since 1989 up to the present, imperialism and its well-paid propagandists in the mass media and academe have tirelessly repeated their line on the fall of the Berlin Wall. They have misrepresented the revisionist regimes as socialist and boasted that their fall meant the futility of socialism and the end of history with capitalism and liberal democracy.
They have touted the jump from the frying pan of revisionist-ruled state monopoly capitalism to the flames of barefaced capitalism as the beginning of development and democracy. But the imperialist powers are incomparable in discrediting monopoly capitalism through their unbridled plunder and wars of aggression and the recurrent and increasingly severe crisis.
The workers and peoples of the world are subjected to ever-increasing exploitation, oppression and violence and are impelled to wage resistance, seek national and social liberation and aim for the attainment of socialism. The present crisis, which has been generated by the US-directed policy of neoliberal "globalization" in the last three decades, incites the people to struggle for socialism.
The world capitalist system continues to sink deeper into crisis. It is devastating jobs and livelihood of the workers and peoples of the world. The profuse use of public funds to bail out the big banks and corporations in the military industrial complex is building bigger bubbles than ever before. These are bound to burst and cause a steeper fall in the crisis.
The US and its imperialist allies have generated the global financial and economic crisis, have plunged the world into a state of economic depression and have aggravated and deepened the conditions for state terrorism and aggressive wars.
The combination of state monopoly capitalism and monopoly capitalism in imperialist countries is responsible for the unprecedentedly greatest devastation of productive forces through the most rapacious forms of private profit-taking and private accumulation, including the wanton creation of fictitious capital.
We are in the era of modern imperialism and proletarian revolution. Further economic crisis, social disorder, state terrorism and imperialist wars of aggression are in prospect. These are the objective conditions for the rise of revolutionary movements for national and social liberation led by the working class. ###
Following are excerpts from an address by Egyptian cleric Amin Al-Ansari, which aired on Al-Rahma TV on October 12, 2009. Earlier this year, Amin Al-Ansari appeared on Al-Rahma TV to show footage of torture and killing of Jews in Nazi concentration camps, stating, "This is what we hope will happen, but, Allah willing, at the hand of the Muslims." (1)
To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2261.htm.
"God Has Filled People's Hearts With Loathing For These [Jews]"
Amin Al-Ansari: "God has filled people's hearts with loathing for these [Jews]. Let's take a look at the field of sports. Forget about politics, military issues, and so on. Let's look at sports on the international level. How come there are no successful Israeli athletes like in any other people? They are abhorred. God does not let people be friendly with them.
[...]
"Let's see how the Jews are hated in the field of sports. They are abhorred. Let's take a look."
Footage of soccer game, showing a Chelsea player kicking the Israeli Yossi Benayoun, playing for Liverpool
Amin Al-Ansari: "This is a Jewish soccer player, who behaved unjustly even on the field. But Allah be praised... Let's take another look."
Replay of footage
Amin Al-Ansari: "Look at this Jew being kicked. People hate them. They don't like them.
[...]
"We are not talking only about people. [The same goes] even for trees and animals. You know, there is rather peculiar footage, in which an Arab man who has a camel loves it and kisses it, and the camel kisses him back. Along comes a Jew and wants to kiss the camel, just like the Arab. What do you think the camel did? Let's watch."
Footage showing Arab kissing camel and camel trying to bite Jewish man
"Animals Can Sense Things; The Proof [of This] Is That... When Judgment Day Draws Near, the Final War Between Muslims and Jews Will Take Place"
Amin Al-Ansari: "Look what happens when the Jew tries to kiss it... He's fled the scene, of course. He's fled from this 'lion.'"
[...]
"Jews think that anybody can... No, animals can sense things. The proof is that the Prophet Muhammad said that when Judgment Day draws near, the final war between the Muslims and the Jews will take place. The Prophet said that the Muslims would kill the Jews.
"'Judgment Day will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.' The Muslims will kill the Jews. Be patient. All the trees and all the stones will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him – except for the Gharqad tree.' Only one kind of tree will not call [the Muslims]. It is the Gharqad tree."
Endnote:
See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 2215, "To Mark 'Holocaust Holiday,' Egyptian Cleric Amin Al-Ansari Revises History, And Comments On Footage of Prisoners Being Tortured in Dachau, Mauthausen, and Belsen, Saying: 'This Is What We Hope Will Happen But, Allah Willing, at the Hand of the Muslims,'" January 27, 2009, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP221509 . To view the clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1999.htm.
Muslim bodies bombarded with hate mail: Mosques in US seek protection
By Anwar Iqbal
Sunday, 08 Nov, 2009 | 03:26 AM PST
WASHINGTON, Nov 7: President Barack Obama stressed on Saturday that people of all faiths, including Muslims, served the US military, as mosques across America sought police protection.
On Thursday, a Muslim psychiatrist in the US Army, Maj Nidal Malik Hasan, killed 13 and wounded 30 people at the Fort Hood military base. And on Saturday, the US media warned that the shootings could likely post the sternest test for US Muslims since the Sept 11 terrorist attacks.
Officials at the White House told reporters that the shootings had deeply troubled President Obama who had made repairing US relations with the Islamic world an important element of his foreign policy. US policy makers now fear that a possible public backlash against Muslims may further complicate an already difficult task.
In his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama focussed on an immediate concern: preventing religious tensions within the US armed forces, emphasising that the military employed people of all races and creeds.
"They are Americans of every race, faith, and station. They are Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers," said Mr Obama as media reports indicated that US armed forces employed as many as 10,000 Muslims.
"They are descendents of immigrants and immigrants themselves. They reflect the diversity that makes this America," the US president noted.
"What they share is a patriotism like no other. What they share is a commitment to the country that has been tested and proved worthy."
In Washington, Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, Indiana, North and South Carolinas, New York and in several other states, mosques asked police for extra patrols. Some made their own security arrangements.
"I went for Juma prayers today and was shocked that the masjid doors were locked from the inside and they had a camera pointed at the door to monitor the visitors," a Los Angeles resident, Sabahat Tanvir, told Dawn.
At some places in California, authorities have already deployed police officers outside mosques as a precaution.
Congressman Andre Carson, one of two Muslims in the US Congress, warned Americans at a news conference in Washington not to focus on the gunman's religion.
"This is no way a reflection of Islam any more than Timothy McVeigh's actions are a reflection of Christianity," said Carson, who supervised an anti-terrorism unit in Indiana's Department of Homeland Security and comes from a family of Marines.
Yet Muslim organisations complained that they had received dozens of death threats and hate e-mails since Saturday.
"We do fear a backlash every time an Arab or a Muslim is found involved in an incident like this," said Imam Mohammed Abdullahi, of the Muslim Community Centre in Silver Spring, Maryland. Major Hasan attended this mosque before moving to Fort Hood.
In his Friday sermon, Imam Abdullahi urged worshippers to tell their non-Muslim neighbours that what happened was the act of an individual, not of a community.
Yet Bruce Hoffman, professor of security studies at Georgetown University, saw a pattern behind such attacks. "I'm not saying it's part of an organised campaign or a systematic strategy, but we're seeing a sea change when we have once a month a plot that is related somehow to Afghanistan, Iraq, or what these people see is a war against Islam," he told the Washington Post. "It's too easy to dismiss them as unstable individuals when they have expressed strong religious beliefs with politics."
Robert Salaam, a blogger and former US Marine who converted to Islam shortly after 9/11, warned that one man's actions would affect all Muslims.
"The actions of this mad man cost us, the many Muslims who have served this country honourably over the years, so much," he wrote. "Already our military loyalties, our honour, and our integrity are being questioned."
He noted that some non-Muslims still believed that "an entire religious community shares responsibility for the actions of one guy that we didn't even know existed until Thursday."
All major US Muslim organisations urged Americans Muslims to be vigilant, both at home and at mosques.
The Council on American Islamic Relations, the Muslim American Society, the Muslim Public Affairs Council-DC, the Islamic Society of North America Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances and the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council and many others denounced the shooting as "a barbaric act of violence" and urged other Americans not to blame an entire religion for the actions of one individual.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/muslim-bodies-bombarded-with-hate-mail-mosques-in-us-seek-protection-819
URL:http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15952
America The Betrayed
Walt Whitman: "Poet of the People"
By Richard C Cook
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Global Research, November 6, 2009
Richard C. Cook
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If you want to get an idea of what America once was like, read the poems of Walt Whitman. Whitman was born on Long Island in 1819 and grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. His family was poor, but even though he left school at the age of 11 he gave himself an education by reading and working in the printing shop of a newspaper until he gradually became a published writer. He worked as a teacher and news reporter and owned his own newspaper by the age of 20.
In 1848 Whitman was a delegate to the founding convention of the Free Soil Party. During the Civil War he worked as a nurse in Union military hospitals and held several government jobs, including interviewing Confederate prisoners for pardons. Some of his greatest poems came from his war experiences, including his famous elegy upon the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, "Oh Captain! My Captain!" His great collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, was self-published. He died a national hero in 1892 in Camden, New Jersey, where thousands of people came to pay their respects.
Whitman has always been viewed as a poet of the people, in contrast to the pretentious dandies from academia who have controlled official American culture for much of our history. He wrote of workmen, farmers, sailors, soldiers, lovers, criminals, and prostitutes.
In the text of the first edition of Leaves of Grass, he wrote of himself as, "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no sentimentalist, no stander above men or women or apart from them, no more modest than immodest." He had discovered a great secret, one that is known to everyone who is young at heart: that the free individual, always potentially a "kosmos," stands at a much higher level in the scale of creation than any man-made collective.
Thus was Whitman a hero to the Beatniks of the 1950s who tried to rediscover an authentic American voice in the streets and on the roads and highways of this great land. The spirit of Whitman was surely present through the rebellion of the 1960s, when America's young men and women rose up and fought the Establishment to stop the Vietnam War and bring civil rights to racial minorities.
The Establishment fought back with a vengeance and, through the most egregious betrayal in history, reduced the world's greatest industrial democracy to the pathetic shadow of its former self we are today.
The first thing the Establishment did was destroy the industrial job base by shipping millions of good jobs to China and other Third World nations, where slave laborers could be forced to churn out consumer products at a fraction of the cost of similar work done by American workers.
Acting through the CIA and organized crime, the Establishment flooded the cities and college campuses with illegal drugs in order to rot the minds and souls of our youth.
They dumbed down education to the point where young people who graduate today know little and can do less of a practical nature. Vocational training is dead. A high school graduate is worth virtually nothing in the job market, and many college graduates are semi-literate and self-absorbed, often lacking backbone, skills, or initiative. Some high school and college graduates are even drug addicts or alcoholics.
They turned the economy over to thieves from Wall Street and created a military machine that turns youth into murderers and assassins whose job it is to conquer the world for the fat cats of global capital.
They ruined the arts, literature, and music through crass commercialization, making it almost impossible for any real original creativity to be produced or communicated. The one bright light in this darkness is the internet, which is being threatened by commercial suppression of freedom of expression by the ambitions of big communications companies. Thank goodness too for the rare creative genius like Michael Moore who has the courage to hold up a mirror to this deeply diseased society.
Then they wrecked people's health with processed food and constant inducements to a sedentary lifestyle while pumping us full of dangerous vaccines and prescription drugs. They drummed it into everyone's head that we are basically weak, ill, helpless creatures who can only survive by taking pills and making constant trips to doctors, hospitals, and clinics.
They induced us to fight over our possessions and freedoms in law courts with the aid of greedy lawyers in front of rapacious judges who have built up the largest prison population in the world.
They pulled money and credit out of the inner cities and rural areas leaving those segments of the nation and their populations to rot.
The list could go on and on and on.
Today we are in the midst of not just a recession but a terminal depression. Getting the banks to lend again so people can buy homes at what are still over-inflated prices or so they might compete with immigrants to get construction jobs through building of more useless office buildings or military bases is not a recovery. The "greening of America" is a myth. There is no resurgence of alternative energy investment or new public infrastructure apart from a few highway projects.
American family farming is practically dead and is under a new assault from speculators who are undercutting prices and forcing foreclosures. The local manufacturing sector never came back after the calamitous decline produced by the Paul Volcker recession of 1979-1983, when interest rates were deliberately raised to over 20 percent to kill off family-owned businesses so that global corporations could step in and take over. Since then we had the "Reagan Revolution" when the banks took over the economy, the Clinton dot.com bubble of the 1990s which crashed in 2000, and the George W. Bush/Alan Greenspan housing bubble which blew up in 2008. Now Main Street lies shattered and shuttered as a result of the crimes and treacheries of the last 30 years.
True, there is a rebellion brewing, including a monetary reform movement that has attacked the power of the Federal Reserve, as well as a few progressive voices that call for a much larger economic "stimulus" than the Obama administration has seen fit to implement.
But is there any practical plan on the part of either political party or organized movement to restore America to what it once was–a place where ordinary people could live, work, learn, and flourish? The answer is a resounding "No." Not a chance. And "Change You Can Believe In" hasn't changed a thing. All it has done has been to produce another financial bubble, this time using huge amounts of public debt through the sale of U.S. Treasury bonds. Business is not growing and jobs are not coming back. The only thing that has gone up has been the meeting of military recruitment quotas.
This latest bubble will fail too, because money created through lending to float the prices of assets is not wealth. Rather wealth consists of goods and services produced by labor applied to natural resources. Those who provide the labor must be recompensed fairly.
So what is to be done? The answer is that nothing can or will be done, if by that you mean whether a political savior is going to come along to rescue our nation and its people from destruction.
In fact, what they are planning is to continue to throttle and enslave us with a predatory financial establishment and a military policy that is preparing the groundwork for World War III. The war will be fought with American troops against Russia and China, after which China will take over as the world's policeman while this country disappears from the face of the earth. It's the ultimate plan of the New World Order, the ones American politicians, financiers, military leaders, and academics bow down to.
It is time for each and every individual who values his or her own life along with the creative potential of the human spirit to begin to work with others to create a new nation and world. The government isn't going to do it for us. Please believe me. This is not a system that can be reformed. It is a system that must be replaced. And it must be replaced by the ordinary working men and women who have been crushed, used, and abused during the past ugly half-century.
Americans, get to work. Call your friends and family together today and begin to figure out what to do. Start with 15 minutes of prayer and meditation. You will be shown the way from within yourselves. My own view is that setting up local currency systems, as many communities are now doing, is a good place to start.
===
Richard C. Cook is a former federal analyst who writes on public policy issues. His latest book is "We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform." His website is www.richardccook.com.
Richard C Cook is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Richard C Cook
Honda looks to China, India; no plan for Nano rival
By Devidutta Tripathy
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Honda Motor Co is not betting on an immediate recovery in traditional markets and will focus on bright spots China and India, although it will not build an ultra low-cost car to take on Tata Motor's Nano.
Chief executive Takanobu Ito said on Wednesday that Japan's second-largest automaker was researching a new compact car for Asian markets and more specifically for India, where it launched its first small car, the Jazz hatchback, earlier this year.
"We are still undergoing tough times in many traditional markets," Ito told reporters in the Indian capital.
"I wish I had the magic to predict these numbers," he said when asked about a recovery in these markets.
"In terms of business planning, we are not predicting an immediate recovery to their original levels."
Honda's Japan operations are expected to stay in red though demand has been brisk, helped by generous tax reductions and incentives on hybrids such as its new Insight model.
U.S. sales spiked temporarily in August helped by the cash-for-clunkers programme, but the impact was short-lived and followed by a sharp slump in demand the following month.
"Our top priority is on China and India, where we would like to grow the size of our business as much as possible," Ito said.
Gold traders at bay on record high prices
MUMBAI (Reuters) - India gold traders were reluctant to place fresh orders as prices struck a fresh record high in afternoon trade on Wednesday, helped by firm overseas leads, but a strong rupee checked a further rise.
"We did a few deals yesterday, but the market has turned quiet today. Traders are enquiring, but aren't materialising," said Pinakin Vyas, chief manager-treasury, IndusInd Bank, Mumbai.
The gold contract on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) made a new record high of 16,784 rupees in afternoon trade, surpassing an earlier high of 16,749 rupees hit in morning trade.
The Indian rupee reversed its early fall in afternoon trade on Wednesday as local shares rose 2 percent, while the dollar continued to trade marginally lower against a basket of currencies.
A strong rupee makes the dollar-quoted asset cheaper.
Dealers said traders were seen comfortable in booking stocks at $1,050 an ounce or 16,200 rupees per 10 grams levels as they seek to replenish stocks for the wedding season, which will last till December.
"Still there is appetite, I have plenty of orders at $ 1,050-1,060," said another dealer with a state-run bank.
The troops dilemma facing Obama
| By Caroline Wyatt Defence correspondent, BBC News |
 Many allies clearly want an "out" date from Afghanistan |
Among military commanders and politicians, there is a sense of growing frustration at the length of time it is taking for the White House to make its decision on strategy and troop levels in Afghanistan.
As public support for the campaign wanes in almost every Nato ally, the signal sent out by President Obama's decision will be crucial.
The fear is that the current delay sends out a message to other Nato members, to the Afghan people and to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, that America and its partners may be wavering.
For three months, President Obama has now had on his desk the report and recommendations from the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) commander he appointed in Kabul, General Stanley McChrystal.
While British, US and other forces on the ground get on with the task of trying to build a reasonable Afghan security force so that Afghans can ultimately ensure their own security and stability, the fear is that the delay at the White House is helping the Taliban.
With every Isaf soldier's death, the militants are hitting successfully at the international community's will to continue the campaign.
Political danger
Military commanders are well-aware that counter-insurgency is a slow process that takes years, and not months or days to achieve.
The professional head of Britain's Armed Forces, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, and the head of the British Army, General Sir David Richards, have both said that British forces could be in Afghanistan for up to five more years, because training the Afghan security forces to take on the job for themselves will take time.
The danger for political leaders in Britain and the rest of Europe is that trying to reassure their voters by setting withdrawal dates and discussing exit strategies sends out a message to the Afghan people that defying the Taliban may not be worth the risk, if Western troops are to pull out soon.
That risks undermining the entire mission, in which the will of the Afghan people is key.
Meanwhile, one of the dangers for President Obama is that committing a large number of extra American troops would make Afghanistan very much an American mission.
So whatever number he ultimately decides to send, the White House is still likely to ask Nato's European allies for more combat troops.
However, many European nations and some other allies very clearly want an "out" date - especially those who have committed combat troops to serious fighting and whose armed forces are overstretched as a result.
The Dutch are currently due to pull out their 1,800 troops from Uruzgan province by 2010.
Canada, with 2,800 troops, wants to pull out from Kandahar by 2011, while Gordon Brown - with an election looming next year - has begun to hint that even Britain's 9,000 troops will begin handing over some areas in Helmand to Afghan forces as soon as they can.
As one American diplomat recently put it, nobody in the alliance is yet running for the door - but they are walking towards it.
And military leaders warn that the danger of that is that while the costs of the campaign in terms of soldiers' lives are high and likely to remain so, nobody has yet successfully spelled out to the public just how deadly the cost of failure in Afghanistan and the wider region might be in the longer-term.
Who are the Taliban? History of movement in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Taliban challenge What Pakistani army is up against in South Waziristan
Karzai's in-tray Challenges president must meet to be effective
Pakistanis count cost of conflict 
IEDs: The soldier's biggest enemy 
Thousands flee Waziristan fighting 
Pakistan claim Taliban victories 
Street fighting in Taliban bases 
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- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8354649.stm
South Asia |
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 | | At least eight Pakistani soldiers are killed by a mine blast in Mohmand tribal district, close to the border with Afghanistan. |
| Air India reports a net loss of more than $1bn as a result of falling passenger numbers. | | Mohammad Yousuf will replace Younus Khan as Pakistan captain for their tour of New Zealand. |
| Can Taliban fighters be persuaded to switch sides? | | Have Sri Lanka's leaders fallen out over who won war? | | Frustration at Obama's Afghan troop delay | |
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| MORE FROM SOUTH ASIA BUSINESS | | FEATURES PICTURE STORIES |
| Indian frontier town rejoices in Dalai Lama's visit | | Pakistanis describe fear of frequent suicide attacks | | The Maldives' battle against rising sea levels |
Missing Nato soldier body found
MORE FROM SOUTH ASIA BUSINESS | | FEATURES |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/default.stm
Business |
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 | | China's industrial production rises faster than expected and Chinese people are spending more, official statistics indicate. |
| Troubled national carrier Air India reports a net loss of 55.5bn rupees for the full-year to the end of March. | | The European Commission calls for 13 members countries to bring their budget deficits below 3% of GDP by 2014 at the latest. |
| Tourism industry looks forward to brighter 2010 | | The strong Aussie dollar makes life tough for tourists | | Sacked Nigerian corruption fighter 'got death threats' | |
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Cadbury rejects hostile bid
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