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Rice urges Pakistan to fight terrorists

Rice pushes Pakistan, seeks to curb India response

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Pakistan snubs India over terrorist 'suspects'

Guardian Unlimited

- 20 hours and 32 minutes ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/33001?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Pakistan+snubs+India+over+terrorist+%27suspects%27ch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Mumbai+terror+attacks+%28News%29%2CPakistan+%28News%29%2CWorld+news%2CIndia+%28News%29%2CTerrorism+-+international%2CUS+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Vikram+Doddc7=2008_12_04c8=1128422c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Mumbai+terror+attacksc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FMumbai+terror+attacks" width="1" height="1" //divpPakistan's president yesterday rebuffed India's key demand that he hand over 20 alleged terrorists, as the US intensified its efforts to ease tensions between the two nuclear powers in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai./ppSpeaking from Delhi, the visiting US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, told Pakistan it had a "special responsibility" to help India's investigation into the terrorist attacks. Washington also sent its most senior military official to Islamabad to hammer home the same message./ppWestern powers, led by the US, are trying to stop tensions between the two countries spilling over after last week's attacks in Mumbai, which killed more than 170 people. India and Pakistan have fought three wars and had numerous skirmishes in the past 60 years. /ppIndia has demanded that Pakistan stop providing sanctuary to 20 people it alleges are linked to violence against it. But Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, yesterday appeared to reject this demand, saying the 20 would be tried in Pakistan if there was evidence to charge them./ppZardari's comments are likely to anger India's government, which is under sustained pressure from its people to take strong action in the wake of the attacks./ppDelhi says all 10 terrorists in Mumbai were Pakistani, and had received training there for a terrorist plot controlled from Pakistan that subjected India to a four-day national nightmare. /ppZardari told CNN: "If we had the proof, we would try them in our courts and we would sentence them." He said he doubted that the only terrorist captured alive was a Pakistani citizen, as India alleges. "We have not been given any tangible proof that he is definitely a Pakistani."/ppYesterday Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, arrived in Pakistan. Mullen urged Pakistan to "investigate aggressively any and all possible ties to groups in Pakistan" and "take more and more concerted action against militant extremists in the country"./ppMost analysts, though, believe the eight-month-old Zardari presidency has limited room for manoeuvre, even if it wants to help India's investigation. Zardari's civilian government faces pressure from hardline groups not only to resist Indian demands, but over the help provided to the west's war against al-Qaida and Taliban elements in its border region with Afghanistan./ppBut in Delhi, Rice said: "This is the time for everybody to cooperate and do so transparently ... Pakistan needs to act with resolve and urgency. That message has been delivered to Pakistan."/ppIn Mumbai, public confidence in India's authorities suffered another blow after it emerged that bombs lay undiscovered for a week at the city's main rail station attacked by terrorists last Wednesday. Police found explosives hidden in a bag among abandoned luggage./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/mumbai-terror-attacks"Mumbai terror attacks/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/pakistan"Pakistan/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/india"India/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/terrorism"Global terrorism/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/qcfnAPthCY82CKD8ZLmvDriKZME/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/qcfnAPthCY82CKD8ZLmvDriKZME/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

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Why Doon Mackichan, star of Smack the Pony and The Day Today, has fallen for Joe Orton

Guardian Unlimited

- 20 hours and 38 minutes ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/69710?ns=guardianpageName=Stage%3A+%27My+whole+life+has+been+a+black+comedy%27ch=Stagec3=The+Guardianc4=Theatre%2CCulture+section%2CJoe+Orton+%28Playwright%29%2CStage%2CTelevision+%28Culture%29c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CTelevision+Media%2CTheatrec6=Catherine+Shoardc7=2008_12_04c8=1128305c9=articlec10=GUc11=Stagec12=Theatrec13=c14=h2=GU%2FStage%2FTheatre" width="1" height="1" //divpIt has been a while since Doon Mackichan was last hung, drawn and quartered for laughing at the suffering of children. There was a week in August 2001 when you couldn't pass a newsstand without seeing her handsome, sparrowhawk face, forehead partially obscured by the word "evil" or "depraved"./ppThe Brass Eye paedophile special is now mostly remembered as virtuoso satire, so it's easy to forget what a stink it caused at the time. And it was Mackichan, who played TV presenter Swanchita Haze, who bore the brunt of it. People expected that sort of thing from Chris Morris, but Doon was a woman with - gulp - children of her own. "[Mackichan] had seen herself as a major comedy force in the making," wrote the Mail. "She even dreamt of becoming a film star. But with the Brass Eye disaster as her epitaph, all those plans lie in tatters."/ppLooking back, it's hard to say her career didn't suffer. There were two more seasons of Smack the Pony, the girly Channel 4 sketch show with Sally Phillips and Fiona Allen, but to diminishing returns. There were wifely roles in ropey sitcoms. There was theatre. Then came a two-year break for unhappier reasons (of which more later). And now she's back, in a play that, well, laughs at the suffering of children. Adults, too. Especially those six feet under. /ppJoe Orton's Loot, like Brass Eye, is comedy that sets out to shock. Don't be fooled by its age; although the play was first performed in 1965, Loot has weathered better than, say, a TV parody of late-90s news shows. Death doesn't date as a cultural taboo; likewise religion. Rereading Loot is like having a shower when you hadn't realised the boiler's broken: unexpectedly shocking./pp"Yep, it's full on," says Mackichan, eating a tuna sandwich between rehearsals in London. "There's this one line about a really great brothel run by Pakistanis who pimp out their kids for Mars bars." She smiles: an attractive smile, heavy on the lippy. "I'm like, 'Oh we'll cut that, won't we?' Well, no, we can't, because what about all the other things people might find offensive? Cut them all and you won't have much of a play left."/ppOther lines trouble her. Orton's gleeful description of a sexual assault, complete with tooth-breaking detail. "That specific image is just really horrible. Do you lose a portion of your audience when you leave that in? Do people stop thinking it's a great play? Or as my mum would say, 'Ooh, Orton's so kinky; yes, I love all that.' " /ppDoon plays Fay, an Irish Catholic home nurse and a prolific serial killer (87 in one week alone). She has lately buried her seventh husband and has her eighth in her crosshairs, having just dispatched his wife with a syringe of poison. Loot takes place on the day of the wife's funeral, and charts the power struggle between Fay, Hal (whose mother is being buried), Dennis, Hal's boyfriend, with whom he has robbed a bank and put the money in mum's coffin, and Detective Truscott, the sinister inspector who comes calling. /ppOrton's stage instructions put Kay in her late 20s; other than that Mackichan, 46, is a good fit. She is Celtic, by nurture at least. She grew up in Surrey but moved to Fife with her family when she was nine. She survived the transition, she says, by acting, specialising in "posh bitches". This is something she still does: she is a natural authoritarian, physically pneumatic, temperamentally tough - a few years back she swam the English channel with a team of paratroopers. /pp"Yes, I could kill someone," she says, without thinking too hard about it. "It must be so easy to just nip a needle in, or hold a pillow over an old person's face. The power and the buzz you'd get." She has been boning up on True Crime magazine to further understand her character's homicidal motivation. "But I just can't read the books. There's such an orgasm about they way they're written. 'Women who kill! Viciously!' When it comes to sex and violence, we're an island of obsessives. I mean, how does it help people to know the details of how someone was physically tortured?"/ppTen years ago, Mackichan got her fingers burned over an Anglican sketch on her Radio 4 show, Doon Your Way, but it hasn't left her any more on-message when it comes to religion. "It's been extraordinary finding out what Catholics actually believe!" she says of the research process. "All the rituals and superstition. The whole voyeurism of talking to someone behind a little screen. The idea that you can think, OK, I'll be a bitch, then on Sunday I'll say, 'Oh, I was a bit of a bitch' and then feel great!"/ppShe is not religious herself, "but I don't think I'm in an atheistic universe. I do think there's a higher power". Has she ever prayed? "Oh, I've been down on my knees many times." She pauses and then roars with laughter - it's a genuine, accidental Orton-ism. /ppIt turns out that Mackichan has had an extremely tough few years. Her father recently died. She is in the process of getting divorced from her husband, Common As Muck actor Anthony Barclay, with whom she has three children, India, 11, Louis, 10, and Ella-Rose, four. And, three years ago, Louis contracted leukaemia. Much of the past three years has been spent with him in hospital. He is now in remission, but shadows still hollow out her face. She wells up frequently, and there is something frayed behind the raucous laugh and actorly tics. "I do find authority hard to deal with now," she growls, after an assistant gives us a 10-minute warning that she needs to get back to work. "I feel a bit of an anarchist. I don't think I could work for someone who was an arsehole any more." She gulps down some fruit juice. "I can't actually have confrontations with people. It's too much. I'm a single muvva with three kids and a show to do." She laughs but she's dead serious./ppWhen things were at their worst, she says, her monopoly on heartache was hard to handle. "People would tut behind me in a supermarket queue and I'd have to go, 'Please, go ahead of me, you've obviously got somewhere to go. I'm just going back to the children's cancer ward.' I once had an actress telling me her hair was falling out because of her new kitchen and I thought, I'm not going to say anything, because this is quite interesting, because I remember how I was before it all." And how was she before it all? "Quite selfish, neurotic. Up my own arse. It's made me very tough. I do think I have endurance beyond the pale." /ppWhen Louis was well enough, Mackichan took her children with her to Africa to shoot a BBC2 series, Taking the Flak, loosely based on John Simpson's reporting from poverty-stricken, war-ravaged places. After such harrowing experiences, how she can cope with her relatively comfortable existence? "You walk into your house and you go: I'm a millionaire. I'm a princess; I live in a palace. And you think: I don't have a lot of shoes, but I do have too many shoes. You look at yourself and think: Party's over, mate. Time to be useful."/ppAnd yet she is not an aid worker in Africa. She is in north London, rehearsing a play. "I did think, I can't go back to acting. It's too vain, too ridiculous. I was going to retrain as a play specialist in Louis' cancer ward. But this is what I've done for 20 years. It's what I do." /ppShe's right. Mackichan is a natural born thesp, right down to her floaty black blouse and stripy woollen leg-warmers. Slice her in half and you would see "actor" written right through the middle of her. "I have a real mission now to be in work that will be cathartic for people. [Work] that's really honest about just how fucking hard it is to stay afloat."/ppLoot isn't exactly what she had in mind, she admits, but its no-nonsense attitude to tragedy has been cathartic. "My whole life lately has been a bit of a black comedy." She snorts. Might she consider turning it into one? "There's a lot of mileage in a children's cancer-ward comedy. All the opening curtains and waving at people being sick into bowls. You could set it in the tiny coffin-like kitchen where only the adults are allowed. You see these little bald children running past the window. It was like suddenly being in a war."/ppCould she really bear to return there, even imaginatively? "I don't know. They haunt me, those nighttime corridors. The characters, too: the carers and nurses and staff and the petty quarrels. And getting high on Quality Street till 3am. But I would like to." /ppstrongmiddot; /strongLoot is at the Tricycle, London NW6, from December 11. Box office: 020-7328 1000./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatre"Theatre/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/orton"Joe Orton/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/television"Television/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lAQCNb9eC0BbtenHfBz0jZUDjxo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lAQCNb9eC0BbtenHfBz0jZUDjxo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

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pillow,anglicans,nurse,crimes,serials

England in India: England prepare to fly out after India all-clear

Guardian Unlimited

- 20 hours and 44 minutes ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/62952?ns=guardianpageName=Sport%3A+England+prepare+to+fly+out+after+India+all-clearch=Sportc3=The+Guardianc4=England+in+India+2008-09%2CIndia+cricket+team%2CEngland+cricket+team%2CEngland+cricket+series%2CCricket%2CSportc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CCricketc6=Mike+Selveyc7=2008_12_04c8=1128468c9=articlec10=GUc11=Sportc12=England+in+India+2008-09c13=c14=h2=GU%2FSport%2FEngland+in+India+2008-09" width="1" height="1" //divpEngland are ready to resume their tour of India after a security report from Chennai alleviated safety concerns. That, coupled with the prospect of similar assurance from Mohali, has convinced the England and Wales Cricket Board that it is safe for the two Test matches to go ahead./ppWith the exception of Ryan Sidebottom, ruled out by a side strain, and Stuart Broad, who is being allowed a few more days to recover from a hamstring injury suffered during the recent abandoned one-day series before flying out to Chennai, it will be a full England squad - including Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison, and reinforced by nine members of the performance squad - that will fly to Abu Dhabi today for a holding camp, where they will practise before moving on to Chennai on Monday. The first of two Tests is scheduled to begin there on December 11./ppThe announcement from Lord's of the intention to resume the tour came after two days of meetings between ECB officials, security advisers and government departments. "The only consideration in all our discussions has been the safety and security of the team and support staff," explained Hugh Morris, the managing director of England cricket. "We have been delighted by the input of the Professional Cricketers' Association and also the willingness of the Board of Control for Cricket in India to act upon our recommendations regarding security. While we have sought to reassure players that their safety is paramount we have not pressurised any player into making the trip against their will./pp"Those who leave for Abu Dhabi are all anticipating travelling to India if both the head of the PCA, Sean Morris, and I are happy that Reg Dickason's security plans have been activated. The board and players will be kept fully informed." /ppHe added: "The PCA and ECB have worked extremely closely on this issue, and the players have been fully supportive throughout. We will access the highest calibre of security advice on a regular basis so that we can provide the players with the latest accurate information. I have been assured by the ECB that they would never compromise the players' safety and security." Both Hugh and Sean Morris were due to travel to India last night to meet Dickason and will fly on to the United Arab Emirates to brief the players./ppThe key to the unanimous decision to return was the positive assessment of conditions by Dickason, the ECB security expert. Dickason was in Chennai yesterday, inspecting the team hotel, the /ppMA Chidambaram Stadium and the route between the two, and has expressed himself satisfied with the strong arrangements that will be put in place by the Chennai police under its commissioner, Thiru K Radhakrishnan./pp"We can provide absolute total security," the police chief said yesterday after Dickason had completed his tour. Dickason will now carry out a similar exercise in Mohali, before completing his reports. Yesterday the chief executive of the ECB, David Collier, praised the way the Indian authorities had handled the situation. "Everyone has been highly cooperative and helpful," he said. "Everything that Reg has asked for has been agreed."/ppIf it has been viewed as an expensive extravagance to bring the tour party home for such a brief period, then to persuade the Test party in its entirety to return when so much talk was of dissidents is something of a triumph. There had been suggestions from influential figures that several players, possibly Flintoff and Harmison, were intent on staying at home regardless of the outcome of the security report./ppMeanwhile, it was confirmed that West Indies will tour England in the early summer in place of Zimbabwe. Sri Lanka had been pencilled in provisionally, but player commitments to the Indian Premier League, given the backing of their cricket board, meant it was no longer a viable option. The tour will feature two Tests, at Lord's and Chester-le-Street, and three ODIs. West Indies' visit will provide a lead into a busy summer that also includes the Twenty20 World Cup and an Ashes series. Its timing, with the opening Test scheduled for May 6, precludes any hope of a large window of opportunity for England players to ply their trade in the IPL./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/englandinindia200809"England in India 2008-09/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/indiacricketteam"India Cricket Team/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/englandcricketteam"England Cricket Team/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/englandcricketseries"England cricket series/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/cricket"Cricket/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/Vnl8B9fUgtdd1RMSpOSTMcXV1KI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/Vnl8B9fUgtdd1RMSpOSTMcXV1KI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

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Los ingleses en Afganistán, ¿nosotros en Afganistán?

Martin Varsavsky | Spanish

- 21 hours and 2 minutes ago

Image via Wikipedia

Esta noche estuve ayudando a mi segunda hija, Isabella, de 16 años a estudiar historia de la India a principios 1900. Tiene un examen mañana. Al final me quedé enganchadísimo con un tema y es el de la zona de la actual frontera Afganistán/Pakistán que pertenecía a la provincia del noroeste de la India y lo trataba de gestionar inutilmente el Virrey Curzon.

Estudiar el conflicto entre los rusos y los ingleses por dominar lo que es hoy Afganistán (Great Game) y ver como tanto los rusos como los ingleses fracasaron rotundamente en la zona Pakistán/Afganistán de los Pashtunes, es darse cuenta que los norteamericanos y europeos ahora en Afganistán no hemos aprendido mucho. De lo que leí me impresionó este artículo sacado de la Wikipedia. Especialmente esta frase de cuando los ingleses pelearon contra los Pashtuns.

The British, who had captured most of rest of South Asia without significant problems, faced a number of difficulties here. The first war with the Pashtuns resulted in a devastating defeat, with just one soldier coming back alive (out of a total of 14,800 people).

Enviaron 14,800 soldados a pelear contra los Pashtuns de Afganistán y volvió uno solo.

Por todo lo que leí pasaron 100 años pero poco parece haber cambiado. Tratar de controlar Afganistán/Pakistán sigue siendo misión imposible. También se entiende como los antentados terribles de Bombay pueden venir de Pakistán pero que Pakistán en si no sea culpable de esos antentados porque la zona de las tribus Pashtun es hace siglo tierra de guerreros fanáticos (los Talibanes entre otros) que no solo causan muchos problemas a su alrededor pero meterse con ellos parece ser entrar a un agujero negro de la muerte. Esta zona combina partes de Afganistán y Pakistán. Cito un artículo de la experta María Amparo Tortosa Garrigós publicado en el periódico online de mi fundación.

Los datos arrojados por el período de extensión de las operaciones de combate de la Coalición anglo-americana indican un aumento terrorista desde que se impulsaran. Mientras de 2001 a 2003 no hubo ataques suicidas, en el 2004 hubo tres, en 2005 diecisiete, y en 2006 la cifra se disparó a 124 con un resultado de 4.400 víctimas. “Se está perdiendo también la batalla de la opinión afgana hacia la presencia internacional en el país” ¿Con qué coincide este pico? Con la expansión de dichas operaciones al surete (verano de 2006 Operación Medusa a Kandahar, y en marzo de 2007 a Helmand con la operación Aquiles). A ello hay que sumar que en 2007 hubo 137 ataques suicidas con un resultado de 6000 muertes (de las cuales 210 eran soldados de la Coalición y 700 afganos). Tan sólo en junio de ese año morían 90 civiles en diez días debido a los daños colaterales. En lo que va de 2008 hay contabilizadas 4.300 víctimas civiles.

Supongo que hay dos razones para estar ahora ocupando Afganistán, una ocupación de la que España es parte. Una es que en el mismo Afganistán no se cometan atrocidades en contra de la mujer, las niñas, y todos los habitantes en general. Todos sabemos los horrores y abusos que cometieron los Talibanes (en su mayoría Pashtuns). Pero francamente aunque entiendo que nos preocupen los derechos humanos en Afganistán no me parece fácil explicarle a un padre o una madre española que su hijo/a murió defendiendo los derechos de las niñas afganas a ir al colegio. La otra razón para invadir es porque si nosotros nos vamos vuelve Al Qaeda y desde ahí exporta terrorismo como ya lo hizo controlando el gobierno. Esta justficación es más razonable y probada históricamente porque así hizo Osama Bin Laden, se adueñó del gobierno y atacó occidente. Pero el coste de quedarse ahí, según lo que aprendí ayudando a Isabella, será muy alto. Las posibilidades de realmente reformar Afganistán y transformarlo en algo parecido a una democracia, diría que muy bajas. En mucho de estos casos me pregunto si no será más sencillo tener más seguridad en la frontera e interna que tratar de mantener invasiones como las de Irak y Afganistán.

Termino recomendando el artículo del profesor Zidane Zeraoui publicado hoy por el periódico online de mi fundación sobre el tema de qué puede hacer el gobierno de la India luego de que se sabe que el ataque a Bombay viene de Pakistán.

Compártelo

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The Latest Idiocy

Life is a street car named Desire

- 21 hours and 13 minutes ago

Apparently, the latest brainwave is to boycott elections and refuse to pay taxes. This is from people who have divested from the Indian state and generally consider the democratic process a task best left to the unwashed masses. What was the voting % in South Mumbai last time? Now, the terror has hit home a little too close to comfort, the cocooned Indian elite is suddenly discovering that state matters.

I am no fan of Indian politicians but politicians matter. Ultimately, this country is going to be run by someone–an elected politician remains our best bet. This generalized anger against politicians led by the rampaging anchors of CNN-IBN and NDTV is not only meaningless but dangerous. By vitiating the atmosphere against the politicians, it attempts to rob India of one of her true strengths–democracy.

Also, it wastes the citizen’s best weapon: Accountability. Not all politicians are equally culpable–the ones who rule at the center and state government bear direct responsibility. When Gujarat 2001 happened, the fingers were rightly pointed at the man at the helm–you did not blame the Congress opposition because it did not run the government. It is also amusing to see TV anchors like Bakrha Dutt who were usually seen marching in candle light vigils nears Wagah border and have done as much as the politicians–and here the blame must be equally apportioned across both Congress and BJP–to delegitimize the Indian state suddenly turn into warriors for the terror hit. I guess when your regular hangouts are hit, terror does seem more real.

Anyway, two lessons are important. a) Accountability needs to be fixed not just at the political level but must embrace every facet of the government–from intelligence bureau to NSG for running an unprofessional rescue mission. Second, institutions matter. When has the Indian philanthropist contributed to schools of public policy and national security?

Individuals are responsible and need to be fired. But that is no answer for a wide-spread institutional malaise.

Posted in Views On News

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India: Business Almost as Usual

Strange funeral customs from around the world

MetaFilter

- 23 hours and 9 minutes ago

Funerary rites differ widely across cultural time and space, and customs that seem normal to their practitioners can seem bizarre and macabre to outsiders. Certain Zoroastrian sectsâ€”such as the Parsis of Indiaâ€”famously a href="http://greenupgrader.com/4629/green-zoroastrian-funeral-vultures-and-the-towers-of-silence/"place their dead/a atop emdokhmas/em, or quot;a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Tower_of_silence.jpg/800px-Tower_of_silence.jpg"towers of silence/aquot;, to be devoured by vultures. In recent years, the decimation of India's vulture population due to diclofenac poisoning small(a href="http://www.metafilter.com/15799/"previously/a)/small, and the construction of modern high-rise buildings which provide an unintended view of the process, a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,904059,00.html"make the future of this custom uncertain/a. (If you're feeling morbid, you can get a vulture's-eye view from a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4940832091426589177"this video/a.) The Tibetans sometimes practice a similar custom known as quot;a href="http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/blog-7890.html"sky burial/aquot; (warning: graphic photos). br / In southern China, the ancient Bo people a href="http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_curiosity/2004-10/26/content_62632.htm"hung the coffins of their dead on the sides of cliffs/a, where they can still be seen today. Similar customs have been practiced in the a href="http://damncoolpics.blogspot.com/2007/11/hanging-coffins-of-sagada.html"Philippines/a and a href="http://www.whereisevan.com/indonesia00-2.html#toraja"Indonesia/a.br / br / Cultures from around the world have practiced endocannibalism, or eating of the dead. The Aghori of India retrieve decaying, incompletely cremated bodies from the Ganges and a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PknfxJHwpuI"eat them/a. Several culturesâ€”the a href="http://users.rcn.com/salski/No18-19Folder/Endocannibalism.htm"Yanomamo/a of the Amazon, the Amahuaca of Peru, and some African tribesâ€”grind up the bones of their dead, and cook the bonemeal into foods which are then consumed by members of the tribe.br / br / I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to unusual and interesting funeral practicesâ€”post your own links!

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Cocaine's a helluva drug.

World Disability Day in South Asia

Global Voices Online

- 1 days ago

December 1st is observed around the world as AIDS Day and the occasion is largely publicized. Unlike the attention World AIDS Day receives, World Disability Day barely registers on the world media’s radar.

Circle of friends by Flickr user Jimee, Jackie, Tom and Asha and used under a creative commons license

Celebrated every year on December 3rd, World Disability Day honors the contribution made to our world by those with physical and mental handicap. In case of South Asia, there is severe stigma attached any kind of physical and mental handicap. World Disability Day is an opportunity to spread awareness about the rights of the handicapped and that being differently able is not a sin or something to be ashamed of.

In India, activist Javed Abidi, the country’s leading advocate for the rights of the handicapped, will lead an event called “Dilli Chalo” or “Lets go to Delhi” to mark the occasion. It will be held at the historic India Gate.

Mr. Abidi says that India has made some progress in securing rights of the disabled but more needs to be done.

“Now, in India, as we are aware, we have had the Disability Act for the last 12 years. Last year we thought was a momentous year for two reasons. One was that our country ratified the UN Convention, and the second was that we also got the XI Plan. And in the XI Plan.....for the first time, there is a distinct chapter or a section on disability. And we thought that things were going to change. ......if we were look at the last one year, we find that things have not really moved the way we had expected them to move....”

Along with addressing legal issues related to the rights of the disabled and the opportunities they deserve, efforts are also needed to help those living in abject poverty because of their physical condition.

A news report published by the The National shows how urgently India’s poor disabled citizens need their government to take steps to insure that they are able to live in dignity.

Shaikh Azizur Rahman reported this November that an elderly father taking care of two severely disabled bed ridden daughters has asked the Indian President that they be allowed to be euthanized. He said that he is too poor to take of his daughters who need round the clock care and attention. Fatema, one of his daughters, says that she too wants her life to end.

“I told my father many times to bring poison for me. Nobody is helping me to kill myself.”

Across the border in Pakistan, there is still the mountain of odds facing citizens with disability. Writing for Dawn, Zahid Abdullah, who works for the Center for Peace and Development in Islamabad, says that country still has a long way to go before those with different ability can feel that society values them too. He also expresses frustration at slow pace of legal reform regarding the rights of the disabled.

Like in India and Pakistan, the society in Nepal too views physical and mental handicaps as a result of past life’s sins. Handicapped are usually treated as sub human; they have very limited access to education and meaningful employment. Often you can see a person with physical disability begging on the streets to sustain life.

Meen Raj Panthi says that families hide those with a disability to protect their honor and prestige:

“The notion that people with disabilities have equal rights and duty as any other individual, is largely absent from the popular mindset.”

Children are most vulnerable to discrimination. National Disabled and Helpless Upliftment Association in Nepal cites an example of a little girl named Manisha held captive by her parents because she is blind:

“While her parents work at fields, she is often locked in her own room and tethered with rope by her parents because she has no one to look after her at home. But her elder brother and sister go to school.”

Thumbnail image by Flickr user Shizhao and used under a creative commons license

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