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The New Great Game: Part-2 Hassan Rizvi , Lahore Pakistan : This is a rather lengthy article, and I was delaying publishing it on Instablog for this reason. Yet I see that terrorism is on the rise in India too. Unfortunately my frequent predictions that after Afghanistan and Pakistan, India because of it again getting involved in Afghanistan would soon itself become a hot bed of terrorism appear to be coming true. This article is therefore being published to give a bird eyes view of the issues to the general public who blame Islam and Pakistan for the rise of global terrorism. Unfortunately the subject is such that despite my best efforts I could not make it any shorter. In Part-1 we studied the background to the US involvement in Afghanistan. Essentially Curzon's great game of containment of Russia had been turned on its head by the India. It decided that it's interests would best be served by allying with the Russian. The resulting rise in Afghan militancy against Pakist...

A Student of Government High School, Okara District bagged second position in matriculation and received a prize of Rs 3 million from Punjab chief minister LAHORE:THE Government High School, Nehranwala, Okara District is a typical village school beset with numerous problems but it made headlines recently when one of its students bagged the second position in matriculation examination and received a prize of Rs 3 million from Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif. Muhammad Naveed Asif clinched the second position in Humanities Group of matriculation examination of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Lahore by scoring 919 marks. He might have topped the Science Group provided science subjects were taught in his school which could not be offered there owing to shortage of science teachers. The school is located around 25 kilometres from main city of Okara while its distance from Naveed's residence is around seven kilometres. At least 18 students from this school ap...

January 14th, 2010 A joint statement from Todd Shea and Ethan Casey : Dear Pakistani-American friends, The aftermath of the October 8, 2005 earthquake was Pakistan's finest moment. The nation's citizens, government, military, and expatriates stepped up together and contributed money, material, time, professional skills and other resources to alleviate the suffering of the survivors of the devastating quake that killed more than 80,000 people. You know both of us as staunch friends of Pakistan. After doing urgently needed relief work in Manhattan after 9/11, in Sri Lanka after the tsunami, and in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Todd Shea responded to the humanitarian emergency in Azad Kashmir and was so affected by his experiences and friendships there that he has stayed, founding CDRS Pakistan to address the longer-term needs of people in Azad Kashmir. He also responded in the spring and summer of 2009 when nearly three million people were displaced by the figh...

We asked a half-dozen insiders to expose little-known facts the airline industry would rather you didn't think about. They shared some pretty eye-opening stuff. By Alexander Basek, Thursday, September 3, 2009 1. "Airport luggage scales often lie." It's bad enough that the airlines charge a fee for overweight luggage, varying from $39 to $300 per bag industrywide. But it's galling that they may also hit you with the fee by mistake. At JFK last November, New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs found that 14 percent of the airport's scales were not properly calibrated. At Boston's Logan airport, 10 percent of the scales recently inspected gave incorrect readings. The South Florida Sun – Sentinel has discovered numerous busted scales at area airports. And the list goes on. What to do? Stand up for yourself, especially when a scale barely tips the balance into the "overweight" category. Brandon Macsata, executive editor of the D.C.-base...

By JASON DEPARLE and ROBERT M. GEBELOFF Published: January 2, 2010   CAPE CORAL, Fla. — After an improbable rise from the Bronx projects to a job selling Gulf Coast homes, Isabel Bermudez lost it all to an epic housing bust — the six-figure income, the house with the pool and the investment property. Now, as she papers the county with résumés and girds herself for rejection, she is supporting two daughters on an income that inspires a double take: zero dollars in monthly cash and a few hundred dollars in food stamps. With food-stamp use at a record high and surging by the day, Ms. Bermudez belongs to an overlooked subgroup that is growing especially fast: recipients with no cash income. About six million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid — no welfare...