Friday, November 28, 2008

Watch a run down of the Initial Attack on Mumbai !

143 dead ! Associated Press on Yahoo Video !

http://news.yahoo.com/video/3119;_ylt=At2Ft9Pjyurx3wGud4XBb0Cz174F


Watch the Horror on video - Click- :

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/79256/war-on-mumbai-day-3-sequence-of-events-so-far.html


Time Line of the Attacks. second view :
http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/79152/watch-timeline-map-of-mumbai-multiple-terror-attacks.html

Indian Commando speaks on what he saw at the Taj :

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/79275/at-least-12-dead-at-taj-hotel-navy-commandos.html



How they got there ? :

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/79242/let-terrorists-trained-to-carry-out-marine-terror-ops.html

Jerusalem Post :' India Mishandled Hostage Situation' !

Israeli defense officials have criticized the way Indian security forces initially handled the hostage situation in Mumbai, claiming on Thursday that the forces prematurely stormed the besieged areas.

At least three buildings in the Indian port city were taken over by terrorists - the Taj Mahal Hotel, the Oberoi Hotel and the nearby Chabad House.
The Israeli officials said that Indian counter-terrorist forces were well trained but failed to gather sufficient intelligence before engaging the terrorists.

"In hostage situations, the first thing the forces are supposed to do is assemble at the scene and begin collecting intelligence," said a former official in the Shin Bet's security unit. "In this case, it appears that the forces showed up at the scene and immediately began exchanging fire with the terrorists instead of first taking control of the area."

Defense officials said that Israel was not planning on sending commando units but had offered the Indians any assistance they required.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke with Indian National Security adviser Mayankote Kelath Narayanan, who briefed him on recent developments.


Barak expressed concern over the fate of the Israelis caught up in the attacks and thanked the Indian government for its efforts. He also stressed that the attacks were part of the wave of global terror with which Israel was all-too familiar, and expressed support for the Indian people.
Barak offered Israel's help in an advisory capacity and in any other way it could be of assistance, be it humanitarian or professional.

The two countries have close defense ties. India is the Israeli defense establishment's top customer in annual defense exports and has bought more than $5 billion worth of Israeli equipment since 2002. Two weeks ago, a senior Indian defense delegation, led by Defense Secretary Vijay Singh, visited Israel to discuss the purchase of AWACS planes and missiles from Israel Aerospace Industries.

Israel is also training Indian military units. In September, Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi, OC Ground Forces Command, paid an unscheduled visit to the disputed state of Kashmir to get a close look at the challenges India faced in its fight against Islamic insurgents. Mizrahi was in India for three days of meetings with the country's military brass and to discuss a training plan the IDF is currently drafting.

Under the proposed agreement, the IDF will send highly-trained commandos to provide instruction in counter-terror, urban warfare and anti-guerrilla tactics.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Sister of Prime Minister !

Here is a Sifarish Letter from the Sister of Prime Minister ! W/o Additional Secretary National Assembly ! I tried to expand the font on it but the blog settings wouldnt let me do it !

By the way this letter starts with "Bismillah.............."

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Stores going bankrupt or closings in the US this year !

Store going bankrupt in the US !
Below is a partial list of stores that you need to be cautious about.


Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)
Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide closing
Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine's to close 150 stores nationwide
Eddie Bauer to close stores=2
027 stores and more after January
Cache will close all stores
Talbots closing down specialty stores
J. Jill closing g all stores (owned by Talbots)
Pacific Sunwear (also owned by Talbots)
GAP closing 85 stores
Footlocker closing 140 sto res mo re to close after January
Wickes Furniture closing down
Levitz closing down remaining stores
Bombay closing remaining stores
Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January
Whitehall closing all stores
Piercing Pagoda closing all stores
Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.
Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( New Brunswick )
Macys to close 9 stores after January
Linens and Things closing all stores
Movie Galley Closing all stores
Pep Boys Closing 33 stores
Sprint/Nextel closing 133 stores
JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.
Wilson Leather closing down all stores
Sharper Image closing down all stores
K B Toys closing 356 stores
Loews to close down some stores
Dillard's to close some stores

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

What will W.A.S.P. do ?

Republican Party NEXT pick will be Bobby Jindal ?

I have been reading into the republican party strategy for 2012.
Republican party is in a big predicament here

They do want to defeat Obama in 2012 and they are planning to pick Bobby Jindal.
He is a conservative Christian convert of
Indian descent. Bobby Jindal is the present governor of Louisiana.

This will divide the minorities and thus the vote. this is a very Interesting because
this will be the first time for a minority in the republican party.

2012 ! it will be Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal ................

against OBAMA ?

US is going to change forever in 2012 ! Lets wait and watch the show !

read on :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Jindal

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Pakistan 8th Biggest Gold Consumer


Lack of hallmarking resulting in country losing exports



Pakistan is the eighth biggest consumer of gold in the world and annually imports 127 tonnes gold but unfortunately there is no consumer satisfaction and Pakistani jewellery industry suffers from unfair competition by those who under-carat gold and therefore sell at a lower price.

Non-existence of hallmarking results in Pakistan’s increasing loss of exports, self-dependence and less acceptability of Pakistani jewellery products in local and global markets. These views were expressed by the speakers at a seminar titled “Latest Trends in Jewellery Hallmarking”, organised by Pakistan Gems and Jewellery Development Company (PGJDC).

Speaking on the occasion Project Director (PITMAEM), PCSIR Dr Shahzad Alam said that in order to improve the quality of jewellery products, complete quality assessment and hallmarking of gold is imperative.

He informed that hallmarking refers to physically marking a piece of jewellery according to specific laws to certify the purity of metal. Hallmarks are small markings stamped on gold, silver and platinum articles.

A hallmark means that the article has been independently tested and guarantees that it confirms to all legal standards of purity (Fineness). These tests are carried out only by an assay office. A number of successful jewellery industry in the world use hallmarking both as a marketing tool and to ensure consumer confidence, he added.

PGJDC CEO Fawad H Khan informed that the decision to develop hallmarking in Pakistan is part of national strategy submitted by SWOG and ministry of industry’s support. It was aimed at helping Pakistan’s small and medium sized enterprises to reposition themselves on a more competitive footing in the domestic and global markets.

Fawad said that apart from other countries of the world implementation hallmarking law in Pakistan would help country increase its export to approximately 18 signatories’ countries of Vienna convention. He said that the main objective is to create awareness among common people and to improve the image of our local jewellery industry at international levels.

He informed that PGJDC is working on setting up an assaying and hallmarking system with the help of government organisations like (PITMAEM, PCSIR Labs complex) and to develop a strong cooperation between local and international manufacturers of gold jewellery.

Monday, November 17, 2008

"Bouraq" Obama 50 Facts

Barack Obama: The 50 facts you might not know



• He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics

• Barack means Fast as Thunder In Arabic. It was the name of Mohammad's horse. Barak is also spelled as Bouraq.

• He was known as "O'Bomber" at high school for his skill at basketball

• His name means "one who is blessed" in Swahili

• His favourite meal is wife Michelle's shrimp linguini

• He won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams From My Father

• He is left-handed – the sixth post-war president to be left-handed

• He has read every Harry Potter book

• He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali

• He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can't stand ice cream

• His favourite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars

• He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia

• He can speak Spanish

• While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on instead

• His favourite drink is black forest berry iced tea

• He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president – he didn't

• He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia

• He can bench press an impressive 200lbs

• He was known as Barry until university when he asked to be addressed by his full name

• His favourite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

• He visited Wokingham, Berks, in 1996 for the stag party of his half-sister's fiancĂ©, but left when a stripper arrived

• His desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy

• He and Michelle made $4.2 million (£2.7 million) last year, with much coming from sales of his books

• His favourite films are Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

• He carries a tiny Madonna and child statue and a bracelet belonging to a soldier in Iraq for good luck

• He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee.

• His favourite music includes Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach and The Fugees

• He took Michelle to see the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing on their first date

• He enjoys playing Scrabble and poker

• He doesn't drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol

• He would have liked to have been an architect if he were not a politician

• As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine

• His daughters' ambitions are to go to Yale before becoming an actress (Malia, 10) and to sing and dance (Sasha, 7)

• The meaning of the name Malia (Maliha) is Attractive, Beautiful.The origin of the name Maliha is Arabic. http://www.babynames.com/name/MALIHA

• The meaning of Sasha is Helper ! The orgin of Sasha for a girls name is Arabic. (Russians also have this name but its a mans name). http://hamariweb.com/sasha_name-meanings.aspx

• He hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the backside

• He repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal

• His house in Chicago has four fire places

• Daughter Malia's godmother is Jesse Jackson's daughter Santita

• He says his worst habit is constantly checking his BlackBerry

• He uses an Apple Mac laptop

• He drives a Ford Escape Hybrid, having ditched his gas-guzzling Chrysler 300

• He wears $1,500 (£952) Hart Schaffner Marx suits

• He owns four identical pairs of black size 11 shoes

• He has his hair cut once a week by his Chicago barber, Zariff, who charges $21 (£13)

• His favourite fictional television programmes are Mash and The Wire

• He was given the code name "Renegade" by his Secret Service handlers

• He was nicknamed "Bar" by his late grandmother

• He plans to install a basketball court in the White House grounds

• His favourite artist is Pablo Picasso

• His speciality as a cook is chilli

• He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were "street urchins"

• He keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol of the fragility of life

• His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan government

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Old Wine in New Bottles in the new 'Team Obama'

The New Team Obama !

As Barack Obama, the US president-elect, prepares to take over the White House after his inauguration on January 20, work has begun on shaping his new cabinet.
With only one position - the White House chief of staff - so far confirmed, there has been widespread speculation about who Obama will bring in, from seasoned veterans of the Bill Clinton administration to relative newcomers from his own campaign.

Here is at the possiblities for some of the most important positions within the future Obama administration.

White House chief of staff
Rahm Emanuel, Obama's White House chief of staff, is the only person to have been confirmed as a member in Obama's pending administration to date.
The son of Israeli parents whose father fought against the British during the British Mandate of Palestine in the 1940s, the Chicago-born-and-raised Emanuel was a senior adviser to former US president Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1998.
He is most notable for organising the famous signing of the Oslo peace accords in the White House rose garden in 1993.
He is considered socially liberal, although some analysts have pointed to his firm support of Israel as potentially problematic when the new Obama administration begins to turn its attention to the Middle East conflict.
Emanuel ran for congress from Chicago in 2002 and quickly became a power-broker on Capitol Hill.
He is credited with masterminding a successful Democratic effort to retake the House of Representatives from Republican domination in 2006.
A tough, hard-nosed and highly partisan political operative, he is known for his fiery temper and penchant for profanity.

Secretary of state

One of the most coveted positions within any US administration, a host of names are reportedly being considered for this role.
However, whoever is granted the position will face a slew of problems - including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a resurgent Russia and the ongoing turmoil in the Horn of Africa and Pakistan.
Names mentioned so far include John Kerry, the former Democratic presidential candidate and current senator for Massachusetts.
The Vietnam veteran's record as a senator is said to be "patchy" but he is highly regarded for his knowledge and international experience.
However, he may be considered too much a part of the Democratic "old guard".
Bill Richardson, the Latino governor of New Mexico and a Nobel peace prize nominee, is considered by many to be the frontrunner for the position.
He has a long and illustrious history of international political arbitration, formerly serving as a US ambassador to the United Nations.
A friend of Bill Clinton, he has travelled to Iraq and other nations to secure hostages' freedoms in often delicate negotiations.
Other names floated by the media include Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator for Nebraska and a member of the key senate foreign relations committee.
Hagel has been highly critical of both the Iraq war and its chief architects, in particular Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.
In addition Richard Lugar, the Republican senator for Indiana and former chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, and Richard Holbrooke, the former US ambassador to the United Nations and assistant secretary of state under Bill Clinton, have also been mentioned as possibilities.


Defence secretary

Robert Gates, the current defence secretary is respected on both sides of the political divide and there are reports Obama may consider keeping him on as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq rumble on.
The Republican served under George Bush as the Director of Central Intelligence before taking on the position vacated by Donald Rumsfeld.
Despite a misstep earlier this year when he criticised Nato forces in southern Afghanistan which led to angry protests from nations whose forces were serving under the organisation in the region, he is widely respected.
Other possibilities include Hagel and also Jack Reed, the senior senator for Rhode Island with impeccable military credentials, having graduated from the famed West Point military academy and having served in the army and reserve.
Reed is also a member of the senate armed services committe and is considered one of the most liberal senators serving in the senate.
Other names mentioned include Richard Danzig, former secretary of the US navy and current security adviser to Obama, who has also been mooted for the role of national security adviser.

Treasury secretary

Whowever takes on the role of treasury secretary faces some of the toughest economic challenges the US has faced since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
One of the most frequently mentioned names is Larry Summers, a US economist at the prestigious Harvard University and the institution's former president.
Summers, who strongly favours free trade and globalisation, has sparked controversy for saying women did "not have the same innate ability as men" in science and engineering.
The remarks, which led to his resignation as president of Harvard, have created concern among women's groups about any possible position he may be offered in the Obama administration.
Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve and a current economic adviser to Obama, has also been mooted as a possibility, as has Timothy Geithner, the current president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Attorney general

The next US attorney general inherits, among others, the thorny issue of what to do with the detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.
The reported frontrunner is Eric Holder, a former deputy attorney general under Bill Clinton and senior legal adviser to Obama, has been mentioned over the role.
Holder, who was the first African-American to hold the deputy attorney general position, also served on Obama's vice-presidential selection committee.
Another strong possiblity, as mentioned in the US media, include Janet Napolitano, the well-regarded current governor of Arizona, who has also been mentioned as a possiblity for the secretary of homeland security position.
Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts, Artur Davis, the congressman for Alabama and Tim Kaine, the governor of Virginia, have also been mentioned, as has Jamie Gorelick, another Clinton veteran, who served in his administration as deputy attorney general.

Homeland security secretary

Aside from Janet Napolitano, candidates for the position of homeland security secretary, a role created following the September 11, 2001 attacks, include Bill Bratton, the police chief for the Los Angeles Police Department and former commissioner of the New York police department - where he was credited with reducing crime.
In addition, Jamie Lee Witt, the former director of the troubled Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been mentioned, as has Tom Kean, the former governor of New Jersey and chairman of the commission investigating the September 11 attacks.
Reports have also linked Jane Harman, a congresswoman for California and chairwoman of the Homeland Security intelligence subcommittee, to the role.

National security adviser

One of the frontrunners is Susan Rice, a US foreign policy expert who served in Clinton's adminstration on the National Security Council and as assistant secretary of state for African affairs and was also a senior foreign policy adviser to Obama during his presidential campaign.
Other names include James B Steinberg, another Clinton veteran who he served as deputy national security adviser in his second administration.
He was also the co-author of Obama's address to the Aipac pro-Israeli lobby organisation earlier this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Richard Danzig, the former US navy secretary, has also been linked to the position.

Senior economic advisers

Obama already has several economic advisers working with him as he prepares to take on the US economic crisis.
Jason Furman, a Harvard graduate and World Bank economic adviser, is Obama's senior campaign aide on economic policy and was also a former adviser to John Kerry.
He is known to be a close ally of Robert Rubin, the US treasury secretary under Bill Clinton. The pair worked together at the Hamilton Project, a research organisation that promotes free trade among other policies.
Furman's position has angered Democrat-supporting trade unions who are concerned about the impact of free trade on jobs as the US faces a recession and global financial crisis.
He has been criticised for describing Wal-Mart, the giant US retailer partly known for its low-wage and anti-union practices, as a "progressive success story".
Obama also has Austan Goolsbee, the economics professor at the University of Chicago, known as the home of free-market economic ideology.
The economist is a supporter of free markets and trade but he is also a tax specialist who has written extensively on the role of the internet and technology.
Although he is not on the staff ofh the Obama campaign, Goolsbee has been a major influence on Obama's economic plans.
But an article he wrote for the New York Times in 2007, in which he defended the high-interest subprime mortgages which sparked the recent global financial crisis as a way for poor Americans to get into the housing market, appeared to contradict Obama's recent attacks on predatory lending.
He sparked controversy after a memo from a meeting with Canadian officials suggested Goolsbee played down Obama's opposition to the Nafta free trade agreement.
The Obama campaign said the memo was inaccurate.

Senior White House adviser

David Axelrod, a former political journalist and chief strategist for the Obama campaign, is widely tipped to become senior White House adviser.
Axelrod, a good friend of Rahm Emanuel, is credited with shaping the Obama campaign's message and has known the Illinois senator from his Chicago days.
After spending years as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune newspaper, Axelrod joined a local political campaign and worked towards the successful re-election of Harold Washington, the city's first African-American mayor.
He also worked on former North Carolina senator John Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign and has worked with Hillary Clinton, Obama's former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.
He is also credited with harnessing the web to galvanise Obama's young supporters.

White House press secretary

Robert Gibbs, currently Obama's communications director, is mooted as the president elect's White House press secretary.
Gibbs, who is originally from the southern state of Alabama, was the press secretary for John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 and he worked on Obama's senate campaign in 2004.
He is reported to be a proponent of swift responses to percieved smear tactics by opponents, perhaps mindful of the "swift-boating" which destroyed John Kerry's presidential hopes.
Kerry's communications team was widely criticised for failing to respond rapidly enough to accusations over his war record.
Some reports have accused Gibbs of excessively restricting media access to Obama.