WASHINGTON: Intense pressure and heat from the US and its allies has melted Pakistan's jingoistic tenacity to try an American national, who Washington maintains is a diplomat, for murder by shooting of two Pakistanis in Lahore. Islamabad is now preparing grounds to return Raymond Davis, the US official, after duly absolving him in a legal process that once threatened to convict him in a trumped up response to organized political and public pressure. The Pakistani decision follows high-level diplomatic activity, including a phone call from secretary of state Hillary Clinton to President Zardari, to resolve the matter. The Associated Press cited two Pakistani officials in the US as saying they expect Davis to be free in days, once a Pakistani court goes over documents US officials have submitted to prove his diplomatic status. But the officials said their government had to let the case proceed until the US produced the necessary documents on Davis' status, , in what appea...

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama called several world leaders to discuss the current situation in Egypt, emphasising the need for immediate beginning of an "orderly peaceful transition", the White House has said. Obama spoke to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the UAE, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the White House said. "The President discussed his serious concern about the targeting of journalists and human rights groups, and reaffirmed that the government of Egypt has a responsibility to protect the rights of its people and to release immediately those who have been unjustly detained," a White House statement said on Saturday. "The President emphasised the importance of an orderly, peaceful transition, beginning now, to a government that is responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people, including credible, inclusive negotiations between the government and the opposition," it said. N...

Even a modest price for carbon would encourage investment in green jobs and reduce dependency on foreign oil imports Any mention of climate policy was noticeably missing from President Obama's recent state of the union address. This is unfortunate because every day of inaction on climate policy by the United States government is another day that American consumers must pay substantially higher prices for products derived from crude oil, such as gasoline and diesel fuel. Moreover, a substantial fraction of the revenues from these higher prices goes to governments of countries that the US would prefer not to support. So, what is the cost of a single day of delay? US crude oil consumption is approximately 20m barrels per day and roughly 12m barrels per day are imported. An oil price that, because of climate policy uncertainty, is $20 a barrel higher than it would otherwise have been implies that US consumers pay $400m per day more, of which $240m per day is paid to foreign oil produce...

'Imagine waking up and remembering you're Mexican,' said presenter Richard Hammond. Imagine if he'd said 'Pakistani' When Top Gear presenters Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May mocked Mexicans in their introduction to a segment on a Mexican sports car the Mastretta MXT , by the way few in Mexico noticed, at first. Top Gear is not a programme found on local channels, few Mexicans watch British television, and the presenters' fame is mostly limited to the UK. But by adding a direct insult to Mexico's ambassador to the UK , the Top Gear hosts grabbed the country's attention and caused the now familiar diplomatic incident. Clips of the presenters' comments became instant YouTube hits, appearing under headlines such as "Top Gear Insults Mexico! BOYCOTT England!" , "RICHARD HAMMOND HATES MEXICANS" , and "RACISM TOWARD MEXICANS TOP GEAR" . Top Gear's comments were widely covered in the Mexican media and de...

I've taken huge risks to defy custom and pursue my education. Now I, and many women like me, need real help from the US The Afghan Women's Writing Project began in May 2009 with the goal of nurturing the often-silenced voices of Afghan women. This article is a call to the US government from one of the first writers to join the project. Dear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, My name cannot be shared here. I am an Afghan woman of many struggles, now in hiding in my own homeland. I finally had an opportunity to go to a university in the United States in January and continue my education. But at the US Embassy in Kabul, my visa was rejected after the interviewer asked me, "Do you have the intention to come back to Afghanistan?" When I said no, she told me, "I am sorry; it is against the law. We can't give you any visa." Secretary Clinton, I am against the law in my country, too. I am against the culture and customs of my country, against the respect of th...

Is Obama's New Start treaty on nuclear reductions enough to revitalise US resolve on disarmament? The long-awaited New Start treaty , securing nuclear reductions between the US and Russia, enters into force this weekend. Hillary Clinton and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov are exchanging "instruments" at a security conference in Munich today. This is an important moment for President Barack Obama, as despite the Republican resurgence in the US mid-term elections, he has finally been able to achieve the treaty, which has been one of his key foreign policy goals. Reducing the number of US and Russian deployed nuclear weapons, the treaty has been central to Obama's visionary goal spelled out in Prague in April 2009 of a nuclear weapons-free world. With the treaty's progress dogged by the vexed question of US missile defence plans and Russian hostility to them, the shift in the political balance in the US led to fears that it would fall at the ratification h...

A profit-driven recovery plan, devised and carried out by outsiders, can not reconstruct my country Haiti's devastating earthquake in January last year destroyed up to 5,000 schools and 80% of the country's already weak university infrastructure. The primary school in Port-au-Prince that I attended as a small boy collapsed with more than 200 students inside. The weight of the state nursing school killed 150 future nurses. The state medical school was levelled. The exact number of students, teachers, professors, librarians, researchers, academics and administrators lost during those 65 seconds that irrevocably changed Haiti will never be known. But what we do know is that it cannot end there. The exceptional resilience demonstrated by the Haitian people during and after the deadly earthquake reflects the intelligence and determination of parents, especially mothers, to keep their children alive and to give them a better future, and the eagerness of youth to learn all this des...

WASHINGTON: A US lawmaker deeply critical of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan asked the Pentagon on Friday to let him visit an imprisoned soldier held on suspicion of leaking secrets to WikiLeaks. Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich made the request in a letter to US defense secretary Robert Gates that echoed charges from rights groups that the soldier, Bradley Manning, has been held in unduly severe conditions. "As you know, I am concerned about reports of his treatment while in custody that describe alarming abuses of his constitutional rights and his physical health," Kucinich wrote. Amnesty International said late last month that the 23-year-old army private has been held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day in a sparsely furnished cell at the Quantico Marine base in Virginia since July. The group said last month it was worried that the conditions of his detention were "unnecessarily severe and amount to inhumane treatment." Manning was...

A profit-driven recovery plan, devised and carried out by outsiders, can not reconstruct my country Haiti's devastating earthquake in January last year destroyed up to 5,000 schools and 80% of the country's already weak university infrastructure. The primary school in Port-au-Prince that I attended as a small boy collapsed with more than 200 students inside. The weight of the state nursing school killed 150 future nurses. The state medical school was levelled. The exact number of students, teachers, professors, librarians, researchers, academics and administrators lost during those 65 seconds that irrevocably changed Haiti will never be known. But what we do know is that it cannot end there. The exceptional resilience demonstrated by the Haitian people during and after the deadly earthquake reflects the intelligence and determination of parents, especially mothers, to keep their children alive and to give them a better future, and the eagerness of youth to learn all this des...

Ingraham regrets Obama is US president, Limbaugh wishes he were Egyptian president and Michael Savage thinks he's Lenin As violence in Egypt escalates and the death toll mounts, conservative radio hosts are growing increasingly concerned about the crisis of leadership here in America. Laura Ingraham Laura Ingraham was nonplussed by what she felt was a wimpish response from President Obama to the uprising, and was wistful for bygone days when America knew her place in the world ( listen to clip here ). "What did I say on Monday: if you don't know who you are, then it's difficult to lead in a time like this. If you don't know really what your country's purpose is, whether really we're any better than any other country, then it's really hard in a situation like this where you have all these other moving parts." To demonstrate how things could be if we only had the right kind of president, she played a clip from a speech given by former President Ronal...

America's 40th president is revered by Republicans as a folksy cold warrior, but on this centennial, what is his true legacy? What's the real meaning of the Reagan "centennial"? Life Books and USA Today recently published special editions to celebrate the life and political career of America's 40th president. And a movement is afoot to name at least one major landmark in all 50 US states in his honour . But amid mass joblessness, and widespread fear about the country's economic future, political hero-worship isn't high up on most Americans' list of leisure activities. For conservatives, though, the former Hollywood actor and anti-communist union-buster remains an icon. Sarah Palin regularly invokes his name, and suggests that the father of the "line item veto" and the balanced budget amendment would be appalled at how much Republicans have come to resemble their "tax-and-spend" rivals. Really? In January 1981, when Reagan declared t...

The nature of any regime it backs in the Arab world is secondary to control. Subjects are ignored until they break their chains 'The Arab world is on fire," al-Jazeera reported last week, while throughout the region, western allies "are quickly losing their influence". The shock wave was set in motion by the dramatic uprising in Tunisia that drove out a western-backed dictator, with reverberations especially in Egypt, where demonstrators overwhelmed a dictator's brutal police. Observers compared it to the toppling of Russian domains in 1989, but there are important differences. Crucially, no Mikhail Gorbachev exists among the great powers that support the Arab dictators. Rather, Washington and its allies keep to the well-established principle that democracy is acceptable only insofar as it conforms to strategic and economic objectives: fine in enemy territory (up to a point), but not in our backyard, please, unless properly tamed. One 1989 comparison has some va...

Michael Tomasky wonders how far Barack Obama should go in facing down Hosni Mubarak, explores the reasons for Jon Huntsman's resignation from his role as ambassador for China and gives his prediction for this Sunday's Super Bowl Michael Tomasky

America's 40th president is revered by Republicans as a folksy cold warrior, but on this centennial, what is his true legacy? What's the real meaning of the Reagan "centennial"? Life Magazine and USA Today recently published special editions to celebrate the life and political career of America's 40th president. And a movement is afoot to name at least one major landmark in all 50 US states in his honour . But amid mass joblessness, and widespread fear about the country's economic future, political hero-worship isn't high up on most Americans' list of leisure activities. For conservatives, though, the former Hollywood actor and anti-communist union-buster remains an icon. Sarah Palin regularly invokes his name, and suggests that the father of the "line item veto" and the balanced budget amendment would be appalled at how much Republicans have come to resemble their "tax-and-spend" rivals. Really? In January 1981, when Reagan declare...

Michael Tomasky wonders how far Barack Obama should go in facing down Hosni Mubarak, explores the reasons for Jon Huntsman's resignation from his role as ambassador for China and gives his prediction for this Sunday's Super Bowl Michael Tomasky

WASHINGTON: Like any other father of a growing daughter, Barack Obama too has to sometimes summon the help of God. In fact, he says being president "has a funny way of making a person feel the need to pray." At the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday, Obama departed from an otherwise serious talk about prayer to poke a bit of fun at his elder daughter, Malia and wife Michelle. First it was the turn of the First Lady. "...Like all of us, my faith journey has had its twists and turns. It hasn't always been a straight line. I have thanked God for the joys of parenthood and Michelle's willingness to put up with me," said Obama. " In the wake of failures and disappointments I've questioned what God had in store for me and been reminded that God's plans for us may not always match our own short-sighted desires. "And let me tell you, these past two years, they have deepened my faith. The presidency has a funny way of making a person feel the ...

IOWA'S Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted 62-37 on Tuesday to approve a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would ban same-sex marriage, undoing the controversial 2009 Iowa Supreme Court decision. Iowans likely won't get a chance to vote on the amendment, as the proposal is expected to die in the Democrat-controlled state Senate. This sort of ineffectual conservative political theatre is all-too-familiar these days. Whatever it was Iowa House Republicans were trying to achieve, it certainly wasn't to offer a soapbox to Zach Wahls, a 19-year-old engineering student at the University of Iowa. This is what it looks like to win an argument: The vote in the Iowa House amounts to little more than the death throes of superstitious moral ignorance. Like it or not, Mr Wahls and his two moms are the future. I like it. I hope I run into this kid some day so I can buy him an illegal drink. Here's more good sense from Mr Wahls in a Daily Iowan op-...

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered support for Jordan Thursday in "difficult times" and said she looked forward to working with its new government when she spoke to King Abdullah II, her spokesman said. The king on Tuesday named as prime minister Maruf Bakhit, a career soldier and former premier, after sacking the government of Samir Rifai, following weeks of protests to demand political and economic reforms. Clinton made a 15-minute call to Abdullah indicating the United States is looking "forward to working with Prime Minister Bakhit and members of the new Jordanian cabinet," Clinton spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters. The chief US diplomat stressed "the importance that we place on the continued excellent relationship with Jordan. We are eager to continue to support Jordan during these difficult times." The protests in Jordan are part of a wave of anti-government unrest sweeping Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen. Bakhit b...

What we needed from Bush's former defence secretary was a recognition of responsibility. What we got was self-vindication The Abu Ghraib prison scandal is seared in the nation's memory. Across the Middle East, with the sole exception of the reckless invasion of Iraq, there are few matters that US soldiers would rather forget than the pictures of a hooded Iraqi man standing with his hands outstretched and wires attached. Now comes Donald Rumsfeld's memoir a hefty 800-page autobiography, Known and Unknown , out next week in which, according to the Washington Post , Rumsfeld remains largely unapologetic. "In a lengthy section on the administration's treatment of wartime detainees, Rumsfeld regrets not leaving office in May 2004 after the disclosure of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal," writes reviewer Bradley Graham. Regrets not leaving office? That's rich, but not surprising coming from the man who said, "Stuff happens" about the early looting in ...

JUST one quick followup to the point in my previous post about the reasons why Congress would never order people to buy and consume broccoli, regardless of whether or not it has the constitutional power to do so: I get very irritated by arguments of the form "If the government had the power to do apparently reasonable thing x, it could do crazy thing y." In many cases, the government really does have the constitutional power to do crazy things. Congress has the power to levy taxes and spend them on pretty much whatever it wants. Congress could tax all income at 98% and spend the money to build a golden palace for its pet toucan Horace. That would be pretty awful. But even though the courts cannot rule that taxing income at 98% or building golden palaces for pet toucans is unconstitutional, fret ye not! Congress is never going to do anything like that, because if it did, it wouldn't be re-elected, and because (our sometimes overheated commentary notwithstanding) members of...

What we needed from Bush's former defence secretary was a recognition of responsibility. What we got was self-vindication The Abu Ghraib prison scandal is seared in the nation's memory. Across the Middle East, with the sole exception of the reckless invasion of Iraq, there are few matters that US soldiers would rather forget than the pictures of a hooded Iraqi man standing with his hands outstretched and wires attached. Now comes Donald Rumsfeld's memoir a hefty 800-page autobiography, Known and Unknown , out next week in which, according to the Washington Post , Rumsfeld remains largely unapologetic. "In a lengthy section on the administration's treatment of wartime detainees, Rumsfeld regrets not leaving office in May 2004 after the disclosure of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal," writes reviewer Bradley Graham. Regrets not leaving office? That's rich, but not surprising coming from the man who said, "Stuff happens" about the early looting in ...

Barack Obama must accept the Muslim Brotherhood is likely to be part of Egypt's post-Mubarak government When chaos in Cairo gives way to a resumption of government, the United States will face a crucial test. For three decades American policymakers have vilified the Islamic Republic of Iran. Likewise they have supported the oppression of Islamist parties and leaders by the likes of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. They must now bring themselves to accept the reality of an Egypt in which the Muslim Brotherhood plays an important role in government. The spectre of Iran overhangs the Egyptian crisis, the Iran of Ayatollah Khomeini's bearded visage, frustrated street protests, nuclear ambition and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denunciations of Israel. But this is the wrong Iran. The right comparison is with the Iran of 1979-1980, which saw Cairo-like street demonstrations topple a dictator and endorse a makeshift revolutionary government. And which saw...