Now that both Rajeev Srinivasan and Harkishen Singh Surjeet have invoked mysterious forces and omimous signals w.r.t the tsunami, the Mullahs in Saudi Arabia were feeling left behind.

Fatah said, The disappointment is not just because of the pathetic contributions by Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. It is compounded by the message being repeated ad nauseam in their mosques and media that the earthquake was a punishment from God for the sins of the people of South and South East Asia. The view that wanton behavior provoked the quake was the subject of Friday sermons in Saudi Arabia and of other religious commentaries in the kingdom. Asia

Left-wing rebels killed at least 17 peasants in northeast Colombia on New Year’s Eve in reprisal for cooperating with far-right paramilitaries, police and local authorities said Saturday.
The massacre, in which police said four children and six women died, took place Friday night in the town of Tame, in the province of Arauca near the Venezuelan border. The oil-rich region is contested by Marxist rebels and their paramilitary foes.
The victims were gathered for a New Year’s Eve celebration when they were attacked, said Tame Mayor Alfredo Guzman.
Police say the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, carried out the crime. Authorities say the group killed nine peasant coca growers in August and 34 in June in the neighboring province of Norte de Santander. [Rebels Kill 17 Peasants in Colombia, Police Say]

FARC was established in 1964 by the Columbian Communist Party to defend Communist controlled areas and is considered the best equipped insurgency of Marxist origin in Latin America. You would think that Communism is a religion meant to defend the rights of peasants and common folk from exploitation. But looking at their activities, the same people are exploited and murdered.

It is said that animals can sense when disaster is going to strike and escape. But what is not often mentioned is that humans become insane during such times. Here are two stories.
Apparently when you are going to provide aid in Indonesia, you have to dress as per Islamic code.

“The Americans have to understand our culture here,” said Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, vice-chairman of the Jakarta-based Islamic Defenders Front, which is mobilising relief efforts of its own.
“If they are not sensitive to local issues then there will be problems. If American women come to Aceh, they must wear dilbab for example. There is Sharia law in Aceh and that is what is dictated.”
USAid’s Bok said it was unlikely US service personnel would adhere to a Muslim dresscode.
“I don’t think the practice of Islam in Aceh is such that it forces all people to wear dilbab,” said Weiss. “This is not Saudi Arabia.” [Indonesian Islamic Group Wants US military aidgivers to wear Islamic dress]

The next one is from Tamil Nadu

People have died, but politics lives on. A strange game of politics in so in Tamil Nadu. J Jayalalitha is the chief minister of the state and controls a TV channel, Jaya TV. M Karunanidhi is her chief rival and controls Sun TV. Sun TV keeps showing news that portrays the government

There was a program on NPR few weeks back saying that some British are moving out of the country and living as immigrants in other countries as they are fed up with many things. One of the problems cited by them was the influx of immigrants.
Now a recent Economist poll in which 74% of the people said that too many immigrants are coming to Britain. The most important problem cited was that immigrants put too much pressure on public services.

Most damaging for Britain’s enlightened self-image, the nation has risen to the top of the European xenophobes’ league. A Eurobarometer poll earlier this year found that 41% saw immigration as one of the two biggest problems faced by the nation

While violence in Iraq shows no signs of abatement, you would think that civilians would be scared to go there. Today I had gone to notarize a document, when I met this American who wanted someone to sign as witness to his will. He said he was off to Iraq as a civilian contractor and wanted to give the power of attorney to his wife.
He said he was going to give counter-terrorism training to Iraqis. On asked what motivated him to go to such a dangerous place, pat came the reply: Money.

Throughout the world, we see that wherever socialists took power, genocide followed. In the USSR, up to 30 million people were murdered by Communists. Tens of millions were slaughtered in China. Two million in Vietnam. A million and a half in Cambodia. Up to three and a half million people in North Korea. In Afghanistan upon Communist take-over, at least 12,000 people were killed in Kabul alone in the first few months.
The reason why genocides occur under a socialist form of economics is very simple. For one, politicians have total power over the masses. They can tell you where to live, what to buy

John Howard won by a narrow margin in Australia with a swing of less than 2% and James Taranto immediately branded it as a defeat for al Qaeda as if the whole election was fought on that issue. Australia has only 800 odd troops in Iraq and they have not suffered any casualities.

The election was not a referendum on the Iraq war because the issue was buried by the Labor Party and the mass media. Despite the mountain of evidence showing that the war was based on lies, Howard was never challenged by opposition leader Mark Latham, who maintained that the issue of

bq. “We don’t see any reason – there has been no cause at all for us to have second thoughts about providing any assistance to Pakistan,” Christina Rocca, assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, told a congressional hearing in Washington. [“BBC”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3832037.stm]
At the same time in “Los Angeles Times”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-062404nukes_lat,1,3092028.story
bq. International investigators are examining whether Syria acquired nuclear technology and expertise through the black market network operated by rogue Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, according to a U.S. official and Western diplomats. Intelligence reports found that Khan and some associates visited Syria in the late 1990s and later held clandestine meetings with Syrian nuclear officials in Iran, said Western diplomats from a U.S. ally. Concerns were heightened after an experimental U.S. electronic eavesdropping device recently picked up signals indicating that Syria was operating centrifuges, which enrich uranium for possible use in nuclear weapons. [“LA Times”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-062404nukes_lat,1,3092028.story]

Finally an agreement on the EU Constitution has been reached. One of the contentious issues was, if the new Constitution should include a reference to Christianity. The move had strong support from the “Pope”:https://varnam.org/archives/000371.html, and countries like Poland. But now, the reference to God and Christianity has been dropped.
bq. Over another area, whether or not the text would mention God or Europe?s Christian heritage, Catholic countries (especially Poland) gave way to the secular group (led by France) in leaving out any such reference. [“Economist”:http://economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2783543]

The European plan to contain Saddam was to request him not to do anything bad. Now they are trying the same with Iran. The Europeans met with the mullahs and agreed to block any Security Council referrals and in return Iran would stop work on Uranium enrichment. But now
bq. This week, with the world’s attention focused on the troubled situation in Iraq, the European version of preemption is yielding its own bitter — if less bloody — result. Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency have reported that Iran never honored its agreement; it has stalled and stonewalled the inspectors while continuing to work on elements of a nuclear program that could soon allow it to produce weapons. The Europeans have responded by drafting for approval by the 35-member IAEA board a stern statement demanding Iranian cooperation; Tehran has replied with threats to restart uranium enrichment and suspend negotiations with the West. [“Washington Post”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50913-2004Jun17.html]