Ah, the perils of oneupsmanship. Kanwar Singh Tanwar was hosting a reception to honor his son’s wedding this week, and the main event was to be the arrival of a helicopter, a thoughtful little wedding present from the bride’s parents. This was not just any helicopter—of the kind that nouveau-riche farmers might merely rent to arrive at …
Asia
Prince Harming: Links with Gaddafi Spell Trouble for the Queen’s Son
There are, it seems, three ways to endanger your job if you’re a public figure: you can call into a radio show to denigrate your boss as a clown, you can claim an affection for Hitler, or you can be linked to the Gaddafis. Howard Davies, the head of Britain’s prestigious London School of Economics, has just tendered his resignation over …
Ripples of a Revolution: A Jasmine Crackdown in Vietnam
Nguyen Dan Que heard the call for revolution. But so did the government. On Feb. 28, the 68-year-old doctor and dissident was detained by Vietnamese authorities for posting internet messages that threatened the “stability and strength” of the country’s ruling party. He has since been released, but must attend daily “interrogation …
Hey, You Sitting in Beijing Traffic? Big Brother is Watching
The news was packaged innocuously enough. In order to alleviate Beijing’s horrible traffic jams, a new project called the Dynamic Information Platform for Public Travel would use residents’ cellphones to track where they were and figure out how to make traffic flow more smoothly. The People’s Daily, the Chinese government’s …
March 3: Happy Mistress Day!
Mark your calendars: March 3 is Mistress Day in China. How are you going to celebrate this special occasion? According to the Shanghai Daily and the Global Times, an Internet community of third wheels has decided to designate 3/3 as their exclusive day. Here’s the scoop from the Global Times:
“An online forum advocating
…
Afghanistan’s Buddhas Can Be Rebuilt. But Should They?
Ten years ago next month, the world watched in horror as Afghanistan’s Taliban regime blew up one of the ancient world’s most inspiring works of art: two standing Buddha statues, one at 125 feet and the other at 180, that had been carved in a cliff face in the remote Bamiyan valley. Within days the Taliban had all but decimated the …
A Twist in Grameen Bank Founder’s Ouster: Not Fired After All?
The case of Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize-winning founder of the Grameen Bank, gets curiouser and curiouser. Earlier today, Grameen announced that Bangladesh’s Central Bank had fired Yunus, apparently because he had stayed on beyond the legal retirement age.That was a surprise in itself. Monday’s board meeting, which was billed as a …
Nobel Laureate Yunus Ousted from Microfinance Bank
Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize-winning founding father of microfinance, has been pushed out of the Grameen Bank. The board of the bank held an inconclusive meeting on Monday to determine whether he would stay. Apparently, efforts to work out a face-saving exit have failed. The official reason given by the Bangladeshi government, which …
South Africa’s Rainbow Nation: Still Stuck on Color
Two race scandals dominate the headlines in South Africa today, both of them concerning slurs against the colored community of the Western Cape, where I live. On Sunday, socialite Nomakula “Kuli” Roberts wrote a poorly conceived and dreadfully executed column about the characteristics supposedly shared by all colored women in her Bitch’s …
How Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws Are Tearing The Country Apart
In a sign of Pakistan’s increasing instability gunmen attacked and killed Pakistan’s minister for religious minorities earlier this morning. Shahbaz Bhatti, a member of Pakistan’s minority Christian community, had been vocal about Pakistan’s draconian anti-blasphemy laws. And he is not the first: in January, Salmaan Taseer, the …
The Raymond Davis Affair: Are CIA and ISI Ties Doomed?
On Swampland, TIME contributor Mark Benjamin blogs about the breakdown between Washington and Islamabad over the planned trial of Raymond Davis, a U.S. CIA agent responsible for the deaths of three Pakistanis in the city of Lahore. U.S. officials are frantically trying to broker a deal that will avoid a public trial in Pakistan. Benjamin …
Defensive Position: Cameron Tells Karzai Why Troop Cuts Will Make UK Stronger
Sometimes press conferences involve as much diplomacy as, well, diplomacy. Before British Prime Minister David Cameron and Afghan President Hamid Karzai emerged from their London bilateral at lunchtime today, a Downing Street official told assembled journalists that a tight schedule permitted only two questions to the leaders. This did …
India’s Budget: Trying to Please All of the People, All of the Time
I can remember a time not so long ago when journalists covered the unveiling of India’s annual budget using the classic “man on the street” interview. Farmers, housewives, shopkeepers and students all got their say on the government’s latest set of subsidies, taxes and signals about the country’s financial and political …