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Rohan Venkataramakrishnan View photos Twitter humour can sometimes open a can of worms. Especially if you are a famous cricketer with more than eight million followers. Virender Sehwag, former batsman for the Indian men’s cricket team, on Sunday chose to mock the 20-year-old daughter of a soldier who died in Kargil because of her campaign against student violence. ‘I didn’t score two triple centuries,’ says the placard on Sehwag’s joke post. ‘My bat did.’ The text is a direct response to 20-year-old  Gurmehar Kaur’s campaign  against the right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s  violence  at Ramjas College in Delhi. Kaur had changed her profile picture to include #StudentsAgainstABVP, but the popularity of her campaign also led viewers to a silent video she had made last year, calling for an end to state-sponsored conflict from India and Pakistan. “Pakistan did not kill my dad, war killed him,” sh...

IS IT THAT SIMPLE TO EXPLAIN, OR, JUST ONE SIDE OF THE STORY The Middle East conflict is framed as one of the most complex problems in the world. But, in reality, it's very simple. Israelis want to live in peace and are willing to accept a neighboring Palestinian state. And most Palestinians do not want Israel to exist. As Dennis Prager explains, this is really all you need to know. In 5 minutes, understand how Israel was founded, and how, since that auspicious day in 1948, its neighbors have tried to destroy it, again and again When I did my graduate studies at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University’s School of International Affairs, I took many courses on the question of the Middle East conflict. Semester after semester, we studied the Middle East conflict as if it was the most complex conflict in the world – when in fact, it is probably the easiest conflict in the world to explain. It may be the hardest to solve, but it is the easiest to explain.  In a nutshell, i...

Pop Megastar Michael Jackson Dies at 50 By Hank Stuever Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 25, 2009; 6:51 PM Singer Michael Jackson, 50, died in Los Angeles today, various news sources reported. Jackson, a child Motown sensation who grew into a moonwalking megastar, sold millions of records, earning worldwide adoration in the 1980s. Later he came to be regarded as one of show business's legendary oddities, hopping from one public relations crisis to another. The Los Angeles Times, citing city and law enforcement officials, reported late this afternoon that the singer was dead after being rushed to UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles around 3:30 p.m. Eastern time. Other news sources and Web sites also reported the death. The Times reported that the singer was not breathing when paramedics arrived at the singer's home, at 12:26 p.m. Pacific time. Authorities were closing down the streets around UCLA and the hospital and were expected to make an announcement s...

Reliable sources in the Indian capital with links to Indian police told a Pakistani Web portal that senior Indian officials have discussed the elimination of Ajmal Kassab, the lone surviving terrorist in the Mumbai attacks, in a staged attack that would be later blamed on Pakistani intelligence. The Indian police went defensive after the report leaked into the mainstream media. But insider sources in New Delhi insist the plan is real. It's not clear why the Indian government might want to kill Mr. Kassab. The loopholes in the Indian story on the attacks have been increasingly highlighted since Nov. 28, when the Mumbai siege ended. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—In response to PakistanKaKhudaHafiz (PKKH)'s exclusive report about Kassab's death, the Maharashtra government on Friday said the lone terrorist arrested in 26/11 Mumbai attacks is very much alive. "Kassab is in Mumbai police custody and very much alive," state Home Minister Jayant Patil said. [Rediff] In ad...

It was not possible to sleep here for two nights now. The events and the images of death and carnage of children, of policemen, of people that look like my mother and my son and my sister and my friends were simply too much. Gaza has run out of stretchers and many are now carried to hospitals (which are running out of supplies) and morgues on commercial street signs, in blankets or simply by their limp limbs. Three mosques were destroyed. I recalled the Israeli attacks on the Church of Nativity which was minor compared to this. I was watching Israel shell the University in Gaza city including its faculty of science and a residence dorm for female students and was thinking of my university and my lab and office at Bethlehem University. I was then shocked into more horrific scenes and news. In one house five young sisters killed. In another six family members including four children killed while eating breakfast. In a scene that haunted me where four children were killed with their mothe...