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March 20 marks the six-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The war sparked a bloody insurgency, but in Baghdad today, normal life is cautiously reemerging.
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On Prince Nayef and the Succession: Nobody Knows What It Means
By F. Gregory Gause
Prince Nayef (Image: AFP)
The appointment of Prince Nayif as second deputy Prime Minister in Saudi Arabia could be an important move. It is certainly an unexpected move. It caught me out. But we should beware of jumping to conclusions about it. The internal workings of the Al Saud are particularly opaque. Gossip is everything in court politics, but 90% of it turns out to be wrong.
I do not think that this appointment settles the issue of succession. If it actually comes to appointing a new Crown Prince, we have the as-yet untried process of the Allegiance Council to get through. That puts a wild card into the process, potentially. We should also note that another prominent possible Crown Prince, Gov. of Riyadh Prince Salman (full brother of Nayif), is not a member of the cabinet, so appointing him second deputy PM would have been a more drastic move.
In fact, this appointment could be occasioned by something as simple as the King’s travel schedule. He wants to be in Doha for the summit; Crown Prince and First Deputy PM Sultan is in New York (convalescing or dying, depending upon which rumor you prefer). So to leave the country Abdallah had to deputize somebody to be in charge. Maybe Nayif said, “as long as you are at it, make be second deputy prime minister.” So we could be getting excited about something that does not have long-term consequences. That said, this is a promotion and does improve Nayif’s standing in the succession game.
Trying to figure out what Nayif "really" thinks about issues is particularly hard. In the post-9/11 period he was depicted by some as leaning toward the more hard-line salafi position. Perhaps this was because of some of his unfortunate comments about 9/11 itself. His ministry was caught unprepared for the al-Qaeda campaign in the kingdom itself (Nayif just a few weeks before the May 2003 attack on the housing compounds denied that there was any al-Qaeda presence in the kingdom itself). Although I do not know this for a fact, there were stories going around that he took off for an extended stay abroad during the height of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula campaign, presumably in reaction to criticism within the family of how he was handling it.
But his ministry certainly turned their performance around, got on top of the AQAP phenomenon and by 2005 were taking the fight to the "deviant trend." (Many in the West give high marks to Muhammad bin Nayif, deputy minister, for this turnaround.) Nayif also very publicly upbraided the ulama, on two public occasions in recent years, for their laxity in dealing with the phenomenon of extremism in the country, along the lines of "the security forces are doing their job, why aren't you doing your job?" So one wonders if the earlier speculation about him being close to hard-line salafis is true.
His recently stated position on women does not really reveal that much, it seems to me, in terms of his more general political views. As I recall, his statement was that there would be no need for women in the Shura Council. As far as I know, nobody was putting that one forward as a near-term possibility. Women's issues are a football in Saudi Arabia which men kick around. Nayif clearly is signaling an appreciation for social conservatism that is, unfortunately, pretty main stream in Saudi society, particularly in Najd but not absent elsewhere. His social conservatism is real, I assume, given that the most liberal member of the family, Prince Talal, took the unusual step of publicly reminding everyone that this appointment does NOT mean that Nayif will become crown prince.
My impression, and this is just an impression based on superficial observation, is that Prince Nayif has strongly held opinions, some of which will not endear him to Washington (about democracy, for one). But I remember that for years it was commonly accepted among Saudi-watchers that Prince Abdallah was "anti-American" and "close to the tribes" and thus very conservative. So much for that as an indicator of how he would govern. There are major constraints on a Saudi king regarding the relationship with the US. If 9/11 did not fracture it, I doubt that Nayif becoming king (not that I am forecasting that) would.
One other reflection, which is particularly superficial -- Nayif is small in stature. Every Saudi king of the current period has been a relatively tall fellow, with the possible exception of King Khalid (I don't remember how he measured up physically). They had an imposing physical presence -- tall and regal (Faysal) or just plain BIG (Saud, Fahd). Abdallah is a big guy as well. Would the Al Saud put forward a relativey short man as king? I don't know, but I throw this out for speculation.
Noted filmmaker MAHESH BHATT makes an impassioned plea to save Urdu from extinction here
Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash 
Man is memory, and memory is sound. The first sound that resonates in my heart is the Urdu word “Shireen”, meaning sweet; the name of my mother, who was by birth a Shia Muslim and remained one till the end of her days.
Shadowing that sweet memory is a bitter one. My mother couldn’t marry my Hindu father because my father couldn’t go against the wishes of his staunch Brahmin family in post-Partition India. She concealed her Muslim identity in the predominantly Hindu area of Mumbai’s Shivaji Park where we lived because, in spite of the Nehruvian vision of India as a plural and diverse nation, the rising Hindu fundamentalist movement looked upon the minority Muslim community as the enemy within. So, to arm herself from a possible Hindu backlash, she tried her best to fit in by submerging her true identity. “Do not call me by my Muslim name,” she would caution us in private. “I do not want the world to know about my Muslim identity.”
Suspect loyalties
Those were the days when Urdu was looked upon as the language of those who partitioned India. The Indian Muslim’s loyalty was always suspect; he had to regularly re-affirm his Indianness and patriotism to quell the nationalist anxieties of the majority, whose Partition-inflicted wounds had not healed.
Is it any wonder then that this Shia woman who was ‘living in sin’ with a Brahmin filmmaker gave all her children Hindu names, hurled us into Christian Schools run by Italian priests where we learned good English and absurd nursery rhymes and brought us up as Hindus?
At the same time, this same Shia woman who masqueraded as a Hindu, ushered me into the magical world of the Hindu mythology of Shiva, Ganesh and Parvati, Ram, Sita and Hanuman, as well as the great epic of the Mahabharata. “You are the son of a nagar Brahmin… you belong to the Bhargav gotra” she would say. And in the next breath, in chaste Urdu, give me a Kalma while telling me to chant “Ya Ali Maddat” if confronted with an adversary ! What a paradox !
A memory bubble bursts… The year is 1958. I am barely nine years old. The atmosphere in our house is sombre. One of the finest flowers of Indian renaissance, Maulana Azad, is dead. My mother is listening to a live relay of his funeral procession on the All India Radio Urdu service. Suddenly my father, who is equally upset by the death of this great nationalist, storms into the house. On hearing the Urdu relay, he angrily says, “Put this Radio Pakistan off! I want to hear this news in Hindi, not in Urdu!” My mother meekly does so, but I can see that she is deeply hurt.
Personal is political
They say the personal is the political. This incident explains the tremendous odds that lay in the path of Urdu, just as the first decade of Independent India was coming to an end. My father, who was a secular Brahmin, taught me a lesson through that action. That ‘tolerance’ implies superiority… where the majority community, very condescendingly, ‘ puts up’ with the very existence of the minority. But it is always ‘thus far and no further…’ an implied limit on their so-called tolerance.
My mother’s language was dying, and there was nothing that I could do as a child to keep it alive! As the years deepened, the only place I heard Urdu being spoken was on the sets of my father’s films. My father used to make enchanting Muslim fantasy movies like “The Thief of Baghdad” or “Sinbad the Sailor”. Or during secret visits with my mother to the Majlis during Moharram, where the blood-soaked history of Karbala was enacted with passion. Or, in the dark comfort of the cinema hall, watching “Mughal-e-Azam” or “Chaudvin Ka Chand”… and at the home of my actress aunt Poornima who, unlike my mother, was a successful actress. Poornima Aunty felt no need to hide her Muslim identity. And I loved her for being brave and audaciously speaking Urdu.
By the time I became a teenager, I realised that Urdu was the language of the ‘other’; and it also dawned on me that, in spite of all her attempts, my Muslim mother continued to remain an outsider in her own homeland. She would shoot down my rebellious attempts to unveil her real identity by saying, “It’s their country, and we have to get along with them.” But I could never seem to see it her way.
Emotional syntax
I felt Urdu and Islam were a part of my heritage and, as the years went by, I felt this burning surge within me to express who I really was. I couldn’t be myself by denying a part of me. My consciousness resonated with the chants of Hassan Hussain during Moharram; the bells of Mangal Murti Mauriya during the Ganesh Utsav, and the memories of Ave Maria of my Christian school. The only language that could give expression to a paradox like me was Urdu. And though I do not have an arsenal of words in my vocabulary, the emotional syntax of Urdu is my inner melody.
After the 93rd Amendment to the Constitution of India, the right of Urdu speakers to obtain education in their mother tongue has to be recognised as a fundamental right. Therefore to promote the teaching and learning of Urdu at the primary and secondary levels of education is the responsibility of the State. I feel that all Urdu lovers must compel the state to act with a sense of urgency and make this fundamental right a reality.
I wonder when it will dawn on our nation that Urdu is the language of India. I wonder what will it take for those who oppose Urdu to see that this fight to preserve Urdu is a fight for India!
WASHINGTON — Barely six months ago, the International Monetary Fund emerged from years of declining relevance, hurriedly cobbling together emergency loans for countries from Iceland to Pakistan, as the first wave of the financial crisis hit.
Now, with world leaders gathering this week in London to plot a response to the gravest global economic downturn since World War II, the fund is becoming a chip in a contest to reshape the postcrisis landscape.
The Obama administration has made fortifying the I.M.F. one of its primary goals for the meeting of the Group of 20, which includes leading industrial and developing countries and the European Union. But China, India and other rising powers seem to believe that the made-in-America crisis has curtailed the ability of the United States to set the agenda. They view the Western-dominated fund as a place to begin staking their claim to a greater voice in global economic affairs.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who once worked at the fund, has called for its financial resources to be expanded by $500 billion, effectively tripling its lending capacity to distressed countries and cementing its status as the lender of last resort for much of the world.
Japan and the European Union have each pledged $100 billion; the United States has signaled it will contribute a similar sum, though its money will take longer to arrive because of the need for Congressional approval. China, with its mammoth foreign exchange reserves, is the next obvious donor.
Yet officials of China and other developing countries have served notice that they are reluctant to make comparable pledges without getting a greater say in the operations of the fund, which is run by a Frenchman, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and is heavily influenced by the United States and Western Europe.
A senior Chinese leader, Wang Qishan, said Friday that Beijing was willing to kick in some money, but he called for an overhaul of the way the fund is governed. China wants its quota — which determines its financial contribution and voting power — adjusted to reflect its economic weight better.
China’s contribution, Mr. Wang said, should not be based on the size of its reserves but on its economic output per person, which is still modest. Some American officials now expect a pledge on the order of $50 billion from China.
“Their arms may yet be twisted, but they simply do not want to pony up based on vague promises of governance reform,” said Eswar S. Prasad, a professor of economics at Cornell University who has discussed the matter in recent days with Chinese and Indian officials.
Given the inevitability that these countries will have a growing influence, the London summit meeting, which begins Thursday, is likely to be remembered “as the last hurrah for the U.S. and Europe rescuing the world economy,” said Simon Johnson, a professor at M.I.T. and a former chief economist of the fund.
One reason the I.M.F. has emerged as such a popular cause is that the United States has been unable to rally countries behind its other major priority: economic stimulus. The European Union opposes further stimulus packages in 2010, arguing that its social safety net makes an increase in government spending unnecessary.
European and American officials are also still divided, to a lesser degree, on how to rewrite international financial regulations. France and Germany are more receptive than the United States to giving regulators supranational authority to scrutinize global banks and other financial companies.
“The United States is desperately trying to assert leadership, as if it were 10 years ago, when the U.S. set the agenda,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, an economist at Harvard and another former chief economist of the fund.
With more countries slipping into crisis by the week, there is general agreement that the fund needs additional resources. Since last year, the I.M.F. has made nearly $50 billion in loans to 13 countries. It is streamlining the process for making loans and loosening its strings, hoping to counter the resentment that built up against it during past crises because of its stringent demands.
At a preparatory meeting two weeks ago, finance ministers of the Group of 20 agreed to “very substantially” increase financing, though the Europeans favored an extra $250 billion, not $500 billion.
Whatever their reservations about financing, the Chinese have seized on the fund for another purpose: to tweak the United States. The governor of China’s central bank, Zhou Xiaochuan, recently proposed that the American dollar be phased out as the world’s default reserve currency. As a replacement, he suggested using special drawing rights, or S.D.R.’s, the synthetic currency created by the fund that is used for transactions between it and its 185 member countries.
Few economists view that idea as a realistic one, at least for years to come. But the mere assertion that the dollar’s pre-eminence is waning — a theme picked up by Russian officials as well — sends a message.
“I don’t think the Chinese or Russians really believe the S.D.R. is a viable currency,” said Mr. Prasad, the Cornell economist. “But they’re laying down a very clear marker that they’re going to be much more assertive about their role.”
Mr. Geithner took the remarks seriously enough that he publicly reaffirmed the primacy of the dollar.
The United States will address China’s status this week, when it announces details of a new high-level strategic and economic dialogue with Beijing, led by Mr. Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to a senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the information was not yet public. The announcement will come after the first meeting between President Obama and the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, in London.
The Obama administration has personal reasons to support the fund. Mr. Geithner was the I.M.F. director of policy planning from 2001 to 2003, after his first stint in the Treasury Department. He recruited Edwin M. Truman, another former Treasury official and a longtime advocate of the fund, as a temporary adviser to develop policies for the Group of 20 meeting.
Just before leaving his academic position at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Mr. Truman proposed that the fund issue $250 billion in S.D.R.’s on a one-time basis to be allocated to all its members, as another way of increasing its resources. Western European countries, he said, could use their S.D.R.’s to lend money to their troubled Eastern neighbors.
That proposal is in a current draft of the statement to be issued at the Group of 20 meeting. If all the American proposals for the fund are adopted, its resources will approach $1 trillion — a big number, even in these extraordinary times.
Yet for Mr. Johnson of M.I.T., it merely shows how difficult it is for the United States to marshal support for anything else.
“They can’t agree on fiscal policy; they can’t agree on regulations,” he said. “The only thing left is the I.M.F.”
ON March 5, in the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan, forces believed to be affiliated with the Taliban bombed the shrine of Rahman Baba (born around 1650), the most revered Pashtun poet. The attack evokes one of the grosser Taliban outrages from the pre-9/11 era: the dynamiting in 2001 of the enormous stone Buddhas in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley.
This use of bombs as cultural commentary is especially notable in that the shrine was sacred to other Muslims. It reminds the world, and especially complacent Muslims, that the Islamist extremists’ war is a civil war within Islam — and not just a “holy war” against other religions and the United States. It should show American policymakers the wisdom of working to persuade Pashtuns to reject the Taliban.
The bombers took aim at the poet’s shrine because it represented Sufism, the mystical form of Islam that has long been predominant in India and Pakistan. The Sufism of Rahman Baba generally stresses a believer’s personal relationship with God and de-emphasizes the importance of the mosque. It refrains from exalting violence and war and praises such virtues as tolerance, devotion and love. Its practice relies extensively on dance, music and poetry. Some of Sufism’s most esteemed poets and scholars are women.
The extremists are determined to destroy Pakistan’s moderate Sufi tradition — by claiming the exclusive right to fly the banner of Islam and asserting this claim through cultural, educational and violent means. Through intimidation, they silence musicians, still dancers and oppress women. As a result, artists and performers are leaving Pakistan’s Swat Valley and the North-West Frontier Province in droves.
Though the Sufi tradition has been widely followed for centuries in South Asia, its hold is weakening as the extremists flex their muscles. Pakistan’s inability to enforce its laws in the border region with Afghanistan has allowed extremists to threaten dominance in northwestern Pakistan.
The United States may be able to help Pakistan prevent this, however, by supporting Pashtun opposition to the extremists. The Pashtuns who oppose the Taliban need protection. The extremists have gunned down, bombed and hanged those who have worked against them. It would help to improve the government’s schools in the region and thus reduce the appeal and influence of Taliban-run madrassas. And by building roads and creating jobs and business opportunities for the Pashtuns, the Pakistani government, with American help, could counter the money and other material blandishments offered by the extremists.
It is a costly failing that the American government has been unable to communicate quickly with the Pashtun community about the attack on the Rahman Baba shrine. Congress has provided trillions of dollars to support military action in the fight against terrorism, but it has not yet provided resources for a strategic communications capacity that could be the key to victory.
If it had the equipment and personnel for the job, the United States could broadcast radio programs for the Pashtuns commemorating Rahman Baba’s life and poetry, thus helping to revive the collective memory of Sufism and inspiring opposition to the Taliban. Other programs could highlight the cultural and physical devastation wrought by the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The United States conducted impressive strategic communications during the cold war. Radio Free Europe, Voice of America and other programs conveyed information and ideas that contributed to the discrediting and ultimate defeat of Soviet communism.
Pakistan’s Islamist extremists apparently know the value of strategic communications. They preach and broadcast, understanding that every non-extremist school they close, every artist they force to move, every moderate tribal leader they kill and every Sufi shrine they destroy can increase their powers of intimidation and persuasion.
The problem along the Afghan border is not mass support for Islamist extremism. Rather it is widespread acquiescence by people who are fearful and demoralized. As the extremists work to demonstrate that only they represent the true Islam, Pashtuns can reflect on the warnings against cruelty and violence that Rahman Baba outlined in “Sow Flowers”:
Sow flowers to make a garden bloom around you,
The thorns you sow will prick your own feet.
Arrows shot at others
Will return to hit you as they fall.
You yourself will come to teeter on the lip
Of a well dug to undermine another.
The Woman Who has 200 Orgasms every day
She believes her condition was brought on by the pills. "Within a few weeks I just began to get more and more aroused more and more of the time and I just kept having endless orgasms. It started off in bed where sex sessions would last for hours and my boyfriend would be stunned at how many times I would orgasm. Then it would happen after sex. I'd be thinking about what we'd done in bed and I'd start feeling a bit flushed, then I'd become aroused and climax. In six months I was having 150 orgasms a day—and it has been as many as 200."
She and her boyfriend split— and new partners struggle to keep up with her sex demands. "Often, I'll want to wear myself out by having as many orgasms as I can so they stop and I can get some peace," she said.
The Man Who Can't Get Fat
Mr Perry, 59, can eat whatever he likes - including unlimited pies, burgers and desserts - and never get fat. He cannot put on weight because of a condition called lipodystrophy that makes his body rapidly burn fat.
He used to be a chubby child, but at age 12 the fat dropped off "almost over night". He initially tried to eat more to gain weight, but it had no effect. Mr Perry, of Ilford in
The Man Who Doesn't Feel Cold
Dutchman Wim
Scientists can't really explain it, but the 48-year-old Dutchman is able to withstand, and even thrive, in temperatures that could be fatal to the average person.
The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep: stayed awake 24 hours a day for years
Rhett Lamb is often cranky like any other 3-year-old toddler, but there's one thing that makes him completely different: he has a rare medical condition in which he can't sleep a wink.
Rhett is awake nearly 24 hours a day, and his condition has baffled his parents and doctors for years. They took clock shifts watching his every sleep-deprived mood to determine what ailed the young boy.
After a number of conflicting opinions, Shannon and David Lamb finally learned what was wrong with their child: Doctors diagnosed Rhett with an extremely rare condition called chiari malformation.
"The brain literally is squeezed into the spinal column. What happens is you get compression, squeezing, strangulating of the brain stem, which has all the vital functions that control sleep, speech, our cranial nerves, our circulatory system, even our breathing system," Savard said.
The Girl Who is Allergic to Water
Teenager Ashleigh Morris can't go swimming, soak in a hot bath or enjoy a shower after a stressful day's work - she's allergic to water. Even sweating brings the 19-year-old out in a painful rash.
Ashleigh, from
The Woman Who Can't Forget
That's the story of AJ, an extraordinary 40-year-old married woman who remembers everything.
McGaugh and fellow UCI researchers Larry Cahill and Elizabeth Parker have been studying the extraordinary case of a person who has "nonstop, uncontrollable and automatic" memory of her personal history and countless public events. If you randomly pick a date from the past 25 years and ask her about it, she'll usually provide elaborate, verifiable details about what happened to her that day and if there were any significant news events on topics that interested her. She usually also recalls what day of the week it was and what the weather was like.
The 40-year-old woman, who was given the code name AJ to protect her privacy, is so unusual that UCI coined a name for her condition in a recent issue of the journal Neurocase: hyperthymestic syndrome.
The Girl Who Eats Only Tic Tacs
eet Natalie Cooper, a 17-year-old teenager who has a mystery illness that makes her sick every time she eats anything.. Well, almost anything. She can eat one thing that doesn't make her sick: Tic tac mint!
For reasons that doctors are unable to explain, Tic tacs are the only thing she can stomach, meaning she has to get the rest of her sustenance from a specially formulated feed through a tube.
The Musician Who Can't Stop Hiccupping
Chris Sands, 24, from
Mr Sands, who is a backing singer in the group Ebullient, said the condition has hampered his career as he has only been able to perform four times. In the next couple of weeks --as of the day of the report--, doctors at
The Girl That Collapses Every Time She Laughs
Kay Underwood, 20, has cataplexy, which means that almost any sort of strong emotion triggers a dramatic weakening of her muscles. Exhilaration, anger, fear, surprise, awe and even embarrassment can also cause sufferers to suddenly collapse on the spot.
Kay, of Barrow-upon-Soar, Leicestershire (UK), who was diagnosed with the condition five years ago, once collapsed more than 40 times in a single day. She said: "People find it very odd when it happens, and it isn't always easy to cope with strangers' reactions. "
Like most cataplexy sufferers, Ms Underwood is also battling narcolepsy - a condition that makes her drop off to sleep without warning. Narcolepsy affects around 30,000 people in the
The Woman Who is Allergic to Modern Technology
For most people talking on a mobile phone, cooking dinner in the microwave or driving in a car is simply part of modern living in 21st century
The 39-year-old is so sensitive to the electromagnetic field (emf) or 'smog' created by computers, mobile phones, microwave ovens and even some cars, that she develops a painful skin rash and her eyelids swell to three times their size if she goes near them. As a consequence, Mrs Bird, a health spa manager, has transformed her home into an EMF-free zone to try and stay healthy. 'I can no longer do things that I used to take for granted,' Mrs Bird said. "My day-to-day life has been seriously affected by EMF"..
A fire set by antigovernment protesters last week in Malkiya, Bahrain. Daily clashes with the police reflect the Shiite majority’s discontent with Sunni minority rule. More Photos >
MALIKIYA, Bahrain — It was just another night in this small Shiite Muslim village on the Persian Gulf. A mattress and chairs were set on fire in the street. The police shot tear gas canisters at the crowds. Neighborhood children taunted the police. The police fired more tear gas.
There were smiles all around, not on the faces of the police, who were sweating and trying not to inhale their own tear gas. The people from the village were nearly festive, egging the police on, with rocks and slogans and the speed of youth. They darted. The police lumbered. Their tormentors got away.
It was just another night, and there would be another and another and another all over this sliver of a nation where, as in Iraq before the American invasion, a majority Shiite population is ruled by Sunni Muslims.
It is an inherently unstable arrangement, and the Shiites frequently complain that they are marginalized and discriminated against. As in Iraq, the situation has endured for decades, and no one is suggesting that the security forces are in danger of losing their grip.
But Bahrain, the base for the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet, is in turmoil.
“We are demanding the release of political prisoners,” said Ihsan Abdel Reda, 25, explaining why he and his friends take to the streets nightly. “We are against sectarian discrimination.”
Coastal villages are marred by these confrontations. Walls are stained with antigovernment graffiti written at night, and then painted over in the morning by the government. “No, no to oppressing freedoms,” read one slogan that had not yet been whitewashed. The roads are scarred with soot from burned tires.
“These people who demonstrate in the streets have demands; it is not sectarian,” said Muhammad Jamil al-Jamir, a Parliament member whose family has long been a leader in Shiite political movements. “The Shiites say they are not treated equally.”
For years there have been tense relations between Bahrain’s Sunni elite and the Shiite majority. That tension exploded into regular protests this year after the police arrested 23 opposition organizers, including two popular figures, Hassan Mushaima’a and a Shiite cleric, Sheik Mohammed Habib al-Moqdad. Prosecutors accused them of trying to destabilize the government and planning terrorist attacks.
But their supporters say they were just trying to organize political opposition and peaceful demonstrations. “We sacrifice our souls and our blood for you, Mushaima’a,” young men chanted, fists pumped in the air until the police gave chase.
Then they ran.
Compared with other places in the Persian Gulf, tiny Bahrain feels laid back and calm in the capital and the better neighborhoods. More than half the nation’s one million residents are expatriate workers, giving the streets a relatively cosmopolitan feel. Bahrain also has a not-too-hidden seedy side. Prostitution is rampant in the hotels and nightclubs, and the streets are filled with “massage parlors.” Bahrain is a destination for sex tourism.
Bahrain’s politics are heated, too. The 40-member Parliament is controlled by religious parties, Sunnis and Shiites, who have turned it into a sectarian battleground. The country is run by a self-declared king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, who presides over a police force staffed primarily by foreigners: Syrians, Iraqis, Jordanians, almost anyone who happens to be a Sunni and is eager to earn a Bahraini passport.
Shiites are all but banned from the military and security forces — certainly from command positions — one of their primary grievances.
The Shiite majority complains that the government has a plan to naturalize as many Sunnis as possible, to change the demographic balance. The government and its supporters insist that is not true.
But the Shiites do not believe them. “I don’t work, and I don’t go to school,” said Muhammad Nasser, 19. “I am demonstrating because there are no jobs because of naturalization of foreigners, because of the political prisoners, because of the abuse of the rights of the citizen.”
The government and its supporters say that the Shiites are not discriminated against, but that they also cannot be trusted to serve in the security forces.
“There are so many riots, burnings, killings, and not even one case is condemned by the Shiites,” said Adel al-Maawdah, chairman of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, defense and national security and a member of a fundamentalist Sunni political party. “Burning a car with people inside is not condemned. How can we trust such people?”
In fact, plenty of people condemn the violence. But the young people are so bored, and so agitated by religious leaders who define the conflict as sectarian, that they see protest as both entertainment and a duty.
“When we demonstrate peacefully, when we just hold banners, they don’t like it,” said Salman Hassan, 20, with a touch of sarcasm and defiance. “They want us to burn things so that they can say, ‘See, you are destructive.’ ”
There was no plan to throw rocks and light fires, or at least that is how it seemed when the protest here began. About 4 p.m., three dozen young men, some children and a small group of women gathered in a traffic circle carrying banners in support of political prisoners. They set up a small speaker, and a local religious leader, Al Sayyid Sadeq, began to speak.
Within minutes a fleet of police cars with flashing blue lights started toward them. Some in the crowd held their ground and jeered at the police. A second group of police charged in from a side road. The protesters ran. The crack of tear gas guns filled the air, followed by clouds of white acrid smoke.
Soon everyone was gone but the police.
But the young men quickly regrouped and blocked the road with construction materials. Two young boys dragged furniture into the street, and the older men doused it with gasoline and set it on fire. Only 11 officers were left, hardly a show of force.
The police made a final push, with a second group charging from another direction. They still failed to catch anyone. By 6 p.m., with the fires burned out, the police seemed exhausted, and the young men had faded into the neighborhood, excited and ready to do it again.
Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting.
| By Syed Shoaib Hasan BBC News, Mingora, Swat |
Maulana Rahman is a qazi, or judge, in one of the newly appointed Islamic Sharia courts in Pakistan's troubled district of Swat.
He is addressing about a dozen people standing in front of the bench in the circuit courthouse of Mingora, Swat's main town.
They are led by a tall, fierce-looking man who adamantly demands an explanation for the court's decision.
He is a commander in the Swat Taleban who fought Pakistan's army to a recent standstill.
The Taleban had demanded the implementation of Islamic Sharia law here.
The government acceded and these courts are the first step in that direction.
 |  The members of the Taleban present refused to accept the verdict and said they would take up the matter with senior Taleban commanders  Court eyewitness |
The move led to an outcry across Pakistan and in the international community.
Human rights activists are horrified at the possibility of punishments such as the amputation of limbs, whipping and stoning to death being implemented.
Moreover, legal experts are worried over the challenges posed by setting up a parallel legal system.
But the common people in Swat have welcomed the establishment of the courts and have thronged to them.
"We believe we will get quick and impartial justice from the Sharia courts," says Umar Hayat, a local man waiting to file his petition.
"In the past, cases used to drag on for years, but now they are settled in days. More importantly, everybody is equal in front of the law."
Farmer's win
The "Taleban case" before the court vividly illustrates this.
It pertains to the creation of a dirt track through the fields of a local farmer at the behest of the Taleban.
 Maulana Rahman says he has heard 100 cases since 18 February |
The farmer filed a case in the Sharia courts and the matter was adjudicated by Maulana Rahman.
The ruling was in the farmer's favour.
"But the members of the Taleban present refused to accept the verdict and said they would take up the matter with senior Taleban commanders," an eyewitness says.
"They also twisted the judge's words and brought in the commander after telling him that Maulana Rahman had said that he did not care if Maulana Fazlullah himself had demanded a repeal."
Maulana Fazlullah is head of the Taleban in the Swat region. His power is said to be absolute.
The clearly incensed Taleban commander demanded an explanation from Maulana Rahman.
The qazi made it clear he had not made any such comments.
But he also reiterated the fact that the ruling was final.
| SHARIA IN SWAT The Nizam-e-Adl (Order of Justice) ordinance implements Sharia in Swat retrospectively from 15 March Cases are decided according to the sect of the person(s) filing There are two major sects: Sunni (80%) and Shia (20%) but they divide into many subsects The Taleban follow the Wahhabist/Deoband Sunni subsects and want their own form of Sharia Most Pakistanis follow the Barelvi Sunni subsect |
But Maulana Rahman refused to budge, and fellow qazis waded into the argument in his support.
Finally, they managed to convince the Taleban after quoting examples supporting the decision from the Koran.
They also said they would personally come and investigate the matter if the ruling was not followed.
At this, the Taleban agreed to the decision and beat a hasty retreat.
"This a system that works for us," says Qari Fazal Maula, a petitioner at the court.
He had just received a ruling in his favour over a dispute involving the ownership of his rickshaw taxi.
"I couldn't get a decision despite having filed two years ago in a local court," he says.
"It was a waste of money with all the lawyers' fees and other costs. Here I had to spend 20 rupees (25 US cents) on a piece of official stamp paper."
 |
But there are dissenting voices.
"The courts are not admitting our cases," says Farooq Ahmed.
He is waiting to file a petition regarding a property dispute dating back 40 years.
"Cases that were filed before the implementation of the original Sharia draft in 1999 will not be accepted," a judge explains.
"This had to be done otherwise there would be a huge backlog of cases and this would again start the delay in justice."
According to Maulana Rahman, he has so far heard 100 cases since the courts were started on 18 February.
"I have given a decision in 20 of the cases," he says. "The decisions are on the basis of Sharia and consensus."
There is already a minor backlog because of the available number of judges - just seven for the entire district.
Ordinance
The newly implemented Sharia system for the Malakand division is three-tiered.
There is the Ilaqa (local area) court, which comes under the zila (district) court, all of which are presided over by the Darul Darul qaza court for the entire division. This acts as the supreme court.
The region needs at least 20 judges to make the system workable and efficient.
 Not everyone is happy. Farooq Ahmed's case is too old |
The real issue remains the validity of the implementation of Sharia law itself.
A declaration was made for it to take effect from 15 March but the actual ordinance has still to be signed.
"When the ordinance is signed by the president, the relevant code will have retrospective effect," insists a local TNSM leader.
The TNSM organisation, led by former militant leader Sufi Mohammad, brokered the peace agreement between the Taleban and the government.
But that peace may not hold.
Under previous Sharia regulations, courts came to their decisions by taking both the law and consensus into account.
Most analysts believe this is unlikely to change and that it may lead to trouble from the Taleban.
"The Taleban have always said they want the implementation of their version of Sharia law here," explains a local legal expert.
But the Nizam-e-Adl, or Order of Justice, for Swat talks of interpreting Sharia according to the demands of the relevant sects involved.
"This is a sure recipe for disaster," the legal expert says.LAHORE, Pakistan — The opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, sealed his place as the most popular politician in Pakistan this month when he defied his house detention and led a triumphant protest that forced the government to restore the country’s chief justice.
Nawaz Sharif, the former Pakistani prime minister, outside his home in Raiwind on Sunday. More Photos »
Mr. Sharif spoke to thousands of party supporters on Monday at a medical center in Raiwind. More Photos >
Now, as the Obama administration completes its review of strategy toward the region this week, his sudden ascent has raised an urgent question: Can Mr. Sharif, 59, a populist politician close to Islamic parties, be a reliable partner? Or will he use his popular support to blunt the military’s already fitful campaign against the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda?
A former two-time prime minister, Mr. Sharif once pressed for Islamic law for Pakistan, tested a nuclear bomb and was accused by his opponents of undemocratic behavior during his tenure in the late 1990s.
That political past has inspired distrust here and in Washington and left some concerned that Mr. Sharif is too close to the conservative Islamists sympathetic to the Taliban to lead a fight against the insurgents.
His supporters and other analysts say that Mr. Sharif is now a more mature politician, wiser after eight years of exile in Saudi Arabia and London, and that he is eager to prove he can work with Washington and to put his imprint on a workable approach toward stabilizing Pakistan. In any case, opponents and supporters alike note, Mr. Sharif has made himself a political leader Washington can no longer ignore.
Just weeks ago, Mr. Sharif appeared to be sidelined, when a Supreme Court ruling barred him from office, citing an earlier criminal conviction. After forcing the government to reinstate the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who seems likely to reverse that decision, Mr. Sharif is now front and center in Pakistani politics.
His protest tapped a deep well of dissatisfaction with the government of President Asif Ali Zardari, who seems increasingly unable to rally Pakistanis behind the fight against the insurgents.
The new breadth of Mr. Sharif’s support will make him either a drag or a spur to greater Pakistani cooperation, and it positions Mr. Sharif as a potential prime minister, if the already shaky public support for the Zardari government completely erodes.
“If Washington is going to carry Pakistan, it is important they do it with popular support,” said Senator Enver Baig, a disaffected member of the governing Pakistan Peoples Party, who resigned from a party post last month. “There’s the realization in Washington that he is the next guy we should talk to.”
That would be a change. After Mr. Sharif’s return from exile in late 2007, the Bush administration kept him at a distance, choosing instead to broker a power-sharing deal between Pervez Musharraf, the president at the time, and another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.
More secular in outlook, Ms. Bhutto and her Pakistan Peoples Party were considered more amenable allies for Washington. After Ms. Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007, her husband, Mr. Zardari, took up the party mantle.
Both Mr. Musharraf and Mr. Zardari forged their own alliances with Pakistan’s religious parties. But Mr. Sharif’s ties have raised deeper suspicion.
More nationalistic and religiously oriented, he and his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, have traditionally found common cause with the religious parties, some of which have run madrasas that have funneled fighters to the Taliban.
Those who worry that the insurgency will engulf the country are perplexed by what they see as Mr. Sharif’s failure so far to mobilize a Pakistani public inured to its dangers.
“Nawaz Sharif is a reflection of Pakistani society,” said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist and a critic of current government policies. “He is silent on what matters most: the insurgency. What we need is a leader.”
Some diplomats and analysts argue, however, that Mr. Sharif’s affinity with the Islamic parties could now be an asset as Washington tries to win Pakistani support to fight the militants.
“We, and all sensible Pakistanis, need the support of Saudi Arabia and the more moderate Islamist parties, particularly Jamaat-e-Islami, if we are ever going to tame the jihadis,” said a former American ambassador to Pakistan, Robert B. Oakley. “Nawaz’s good standing with them is very, very important."
Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, said Washington’s suspicions of Mr. Sharif might actually be helpful.
“He is sufficiently distanced from the United States to be a credible partner in the eyes of Pakistanis,” she said.
For his part, Mr. Sharif says the impression in Washington that he is too close to the Islamists is propaganda promoted by his political rivals.
Mr. Sharif and his aides point to his close relationship with former President Bill Clinton and recite a litany of decisions Mr. Sharif made as prime minister that were favorable to Washington, like his politically risky decision to support the United States in the Persian Gulf war in 1991.
Mr. Sharif, in a recent interview, emphasized the similarities between the approach he would take toward militancy and that currently being discussed in Washington, including separating the Taliban, whose members can be talked to, from Al Qaeda, whose adherents cannot.
Some experts are skeptical that Mr. Sharif can distinguish between the militants and the conservative Islamic parties. “There’s no evidence that he understands the difference between these groups,” said Stephen P. Cohen, a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Mr. Sharif served twice as prime minister, from 1990 to 1993, and then from 1997 to 1999. His second term was marked by a series of misadventures that rankled Washington, including his decision in 1998 to test Pakistan’s nuclear weapons after India tested its arsenal.
In 1999, he introduced a parliamentary bill to enforce Islamic law, or Shariah, legislation that eventually failed in the Senate. Some of his supporters stormed the Supreme Court building in 1997.
But Mr. Sharif made some remarkable initiatives as well. Previously unheard of for a Pakistani leader, he met with the Indian prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, in early 1999.
In July 1999, he dashed to Washington in a gamble to avert war with India after the Pakistani Army, led by General Musharraf, made incursions into Indian-held territory in Kashmir. Mr. Sharif agreed to Mr. Clinton’s demands to force the army to withdraw to its original positions. Two months later, General Musharraf ousted Mr. Sharif in a coup and forced him into exile.
How much Mr. Sharif has changed is a question many in Pakistan’s elite are asking.
Pakistan’s lawyers had agitated on behalf of the chief justice, Mr. Chaudhry, for two years. But it was not until Mr. Sharif backed the protests, bringing Jamaat-e-Islami with him, that the government was forced to cave in.
Aitzaz Ahsan, the leader of the lawyers’ movement, said it would not be difficult for the United States to work with Mr. Sharif. On March 15, the Sunday of the protest, Mr. Ahsan accompanied Mr. Sharif in a two-and-a-half-ton, bulletproof Land Cruiser, as the men were swamped by crowds.
Their time together, Mr. Ahsan said, revealed an important characteristic about Mr. Sharif that Washington should know. “He’s about personal relationships,” he said. “If you befriend him, you can get him to move mountains.”
| By Chris Hogg BBC News, Shanghai |
 These houses would have to make way for the maglev line |
It has been hailed elsewhere as a victory for "people power" in China.
But have the demonstrators who appear to have halted plans for an extension of a hi-tech magnetic levitation train line through the suburbs of Shanghai really triumphed?
Or does their story just highlight the limits on the power that ordinary citizens can enjoy in an authoritarian country like China?
It was mainly middle class demonstrators who opposed plans to extend the magnetic levitation line, or maglev for short.
Homeowners in particular - a group which has not traditionally been at the forefront of large-scale protests in this country - objected to the extension, which was designed to link Shanghai's two airports and go on to the neighbouring city of Hangzhou.
After decades of economic development here, these were the winners, not the losers.
They are the people who benefited from China's economic growth, and invested huge amounts relative to their income to purchase their homes, only to see those investments threatened by the proposed new maglev line.
They said that the value of their houses had already been badly damaged by the proposal to site the line so close to their front doors.
And they feared the magnetic fields used to propel the maglev train down the tracks would damage their health.
Protest 'strolls'
In January 2008, the demonstrators held what they called "strolls" - not protest marches - to try to get the project halted. Turnout was huge.
| We thought we had won, now we're not so sure Resident of Minghang district |
Following the demonstrations, progress on the project slowed and now the respected business magazine Caijing says the plans have been "suspended".
By now the engineering work should have been completed; it has not even started.
The first trains were scheduled to run on the new stretch of track before the end of this year. In a sense, the residents have won a partial victory as clearly that timetable will not be met.
Little change
It is a sign perhaps of how much has changed in this country that protest movements like this can block the grand schemes of officials.
However, those who led the demonstrations and courted publicity 14 months ago are now reluctant to speak openly about their campaign. We don't want to cause any trouble, they say.
That suggests that in other ways, little has changed.
People are still nervous about challenging the authority of the state. A victory of any sort does not make them feel stronger.
In any case, a visit to the Minghang district, where many of the demonstrators come from, suggests the victory may have been called prematurely.
On the Ping Yang Lu Jia Yuan estate, a peaceful, tidy, unremarkable sort of place, there is no sense of triumph when you talk to people about the maglev issue.
One woman, a ringleader of last year's protest, is at first very reluctant to talk. She does not want us to reveal her name, or have her photograph taken.
She and the other residents do not really know if they have won, she says.
 Residents of the estate feel they have little influence over what will happen |
"We figured no developer would do that if they thought the line was to go ahead.
"Now though, we have discovered it's not going to be homes, but shops or a factory, whose value might not be damaged by the maglev passing so close. So now we're not so sure," she says.
Another woman, Yao Hong Jun, is walking through the grounds with her two-year-old son, Sun Yu Yao.
She is more willing to talk about the maglev, but again is unwilling to be photographed. She does not think they have won either.
"If the government starts to build it, then people might protest again," she insists.
"But of course, it's useless. If the government decides to do something, then we can't win."
'No influence'
The feeling of empowerment they displayed here in January 2008 seems to have been replaced by a sense of the limits of their power.
An old man, sitting on a bench at the back of one of the apartment blocks, playing with his pug dog, scoffs when he is asked what he has heard about the fate of the maglev project.
 The Maglev shuttles passengers at more than 500km/h (310mph) |
"There's no point asking us," he says. "Ordinary people have no influence. If you want to know what's happening, ask the mayor."
In China, the process of approval for such a major infrastructure project is opaque, and our efforts to try to establish from the mayor's office and from other officials whether or not the plan for the maglev extension had been halted proved fruitless.
Under discussion
A journalist from the business magazine Caijing was recently told by a senior official that since ground had been broken in the last few weeks on a high-speed, conventional rail link connecting Shanghai and Hangzhou, the maglev link between the two cities was now "meaningless".
Shanghai's mayor, Han Zheng, had earlier insisted that the maglev project was still "under discussion".
When we asked his office if that was no longer the case, they denied that anything had changed.
|  I think they should be more transparent. There should be regular briefings for the public about what's going on Chen Weihua, chief commentator, China Daily |
The maglev is still "in the discussion phase", they said.
Officials in Hangzhou, the city the maglev extension is supposed to connect to Shanghai, were less sure though.
"I go to most of the mayor's meetings," a bureaucrat in the public information office at the provincial government headquarters said, "and no one has talked about the maglev for months."
Chen Weihua, the chief commentator at the Shanghai office of the state-owned newspaper China Daily, says no-one really knows what is happening.
"The Shanghai government has basically been saying we'll have public hearings, we'll hear from experts about whether it will damage public health, or whether we should revise the plans.
"For almost two years they have been saying that repeatedly, but I don't think they have come out to say how this is progressing."
Dormant project
"I think they should be more transparent. There should be regular briefings for the public about what's going on," he says.
It appears still too early to be sure who has prevailed here - the demonstrators or the officials.
In a country where maintaining social stability is seen as one of the most important tasks officials have, what has happened to the maglev project is a good example of the compromises that have to be entered into to try to avoid unrest.
The project lies dormant, but not abandoned. It can be revived at any time, if the conditions become more favourable.
In the meantime, the threat of its reinstatement hangs over those who opposed it, cowing them in a way, perhaps even ensuring they do not cause any more trouble.
