Asia (West & South)

[UPDATE MAY 17/09: The Tigers seem to be trying to surrender, or at least concede defeat and pursue a ceasefire, although the government seems to be continuing to pursue (and announce) a military victory.]

The scale of the attacks is incredible: the Taj, the Oberoi Trident, a major train station (CST), a major hospital (Cama), a cafe that's favoured by tourists (Cafe Leopold), the Jewish centre, all in different parts of the city. Some attackers came by sea, others set off bombs, others just entered buildings or public areas and started shooting. The people of India's cities, like Pakistan's and many others, have suffered many bombings in recent months and years. There have also been major raids against targets in India, like the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi.

A couple of posts ago I reported on a talk by Pervez Hoodbhoy (who I will now call "my friend Pervez Hoodbhoy") that he gave at the University of Toronto on October 6. I sent my post to him to elicit reactions and corrections. He made a correction and posted a response in the comments section - but I want to make sure everyone sees it, so I am putting it here as well.

Below is Pervez Hoodbhoy's response:

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On October 6 I was lucky enough to finally meet Pervez Hoodbhoy, the Pakistani activist and physicist, who I have long admired and corresponded with a little. He was going to be in Ottawa and on short notice people at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre managed to organize a talk for him. The talk was called "Can the Taliban Win?" As usual with these blogs, I will summarize what he said, and follow with my reactions.

So, it looks like Musharraf got the message and resigned. The message, probably, having come from the US. Authoritarian regimes might be useful to imperial patrons, but individual dictators are usually dispensable. Because he is resigning, he will get off easy, not be tried for any crimes, and probably be allowed to leave the country. Tariq Ali argued in the Guardian that he can't stay in Pakistan because of the risk of assassination.

ISLAMABAD – The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) is a women's organization that runs underground schools and other projects, educates Afghan girls, runs a periodic journal, and agitates politically for women's rights, human rights, secularism, and social justice in Afghanistan. From the 1979 Soviet invasion through to the 2006 closings of the camps, millions of Afghan refugees lived in Pakistan and many still do. While RAWA's operations were always based primarily in Afghanistan, they have also had a strong presence in the Pakistan refugee community.

They said they saw the piece in the Pakistan News on the US-Israel relationship, and were doing interviews with other bloggers. Linked here.

I am not the best person to commemorate the passing of Mahmoud Darwish, the national poet of Palestine. Any poetry I have written is basically comedic, whether I intend it that way or not. My arabic is not good enough for me to appreciate him in the original, and even of his english translations I only have read or heard a handful of poems. But I do have some sense of what he means and has meant to Palestinians and to poetry.

ABU DHABI (Airport, just passing through on the way back to Toronto) - I was in Islamabad for the 100-day mark of the elected government. It had fractured over the inability to make any clear move to deal with the situation on the border with Afghanistan, the inability to address the economic problem, and the indecisiveness over whether to reinstate the supreme court judges sacked by Musharraf.

PONKUNNAM, KERALA, INDIA - Sorry for not sharing much since the nuclear deal went through. It is partly because I was busy with non-political matters in Kerala, family visits and kalaripayatu (the martial art of southern India that I study as a hobby), partly because internet access was not quite as complete as it had been in Islamabad or Delhi. But partly there was a good reason, which is that I was actually doing some talks and events here.