One should not be surprised if New Delhi's enthusiasm for laying the US$4.5 billion gas pipeline between Iran and India via Pakistan begins to take a downturn.New Delhi may cite a number of reasons for the shift, such as the high price of Iranian gas and the endemic security problem of laying the pipe through less-than-reliable Pakistan, among others.That India, a country that aspires to global-power status, got itself into the position of having to backpedal on this important matter in the first place is telling -Ramtanu Maitra/Asia times

It's a rarity for the United States to lend its ear to Indian human rights campaigners, let alone take any action on their petitions.But Washington's cancellation Friday of a US visa given to right-wing politician Narendra Modi, blamed by human rights groups for the deaths of more than 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat state in 2002, was an exception -Ranjit Devraj/Asia Times

North Korea's premier has arrived in China, a day after the US hinted at sanctions if Pyongyang did not return to talks on nuclear disarmament.Pak Pong-ju's trip comes just hours after his country announced that it had increased its nuclear arsenal to counter any enemy invasion -BBC

U.S. law enforcement agents working at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, concluded that controversial interrogation practices used there by the Defense Department produced intelligence information that was "suspect at best," an FBI agent told a superior in a memo in May last year.But the Justice Department, which reviewed the memo for national security secrets before releasing it to a civil liberties group in December, redacted the FBI agent's conclusion -Washington Post

Paul Wolfowitz's candidacy to head the World Bank seemed set for approval at the end of the month without a major battle, after he won endorsements from Germany and Canada and other members appeared likely to follow.German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's support on Monday for the U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary, one of the main architects of the war in Iraq, was the first by a leader of a major European country and came after a wary response in Europe to President Bush's controversial choice

THE US today brushed off a call by the top UN nuclear inspector that it give Iran security assurances in return for Tehran renouncing suspected efforts to develop a nuclear bomb.The State Department reiterated Washington's support for efforts by its European allies to negotiate an end to Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions and said the ball was in Tehran's court -The Australian AU

Two years after being shocked and awed into "freedom", freedom on the ground is a meaningless concept for large swathes of the Iraqi population.Sunnis and Shi'ites alike tell Asia Times Online of a brutalization of every-day life.In contrast, life inside the Green Zone bubble is totally virtual.There's no government yet - the elections were on January 30 - so the Sunni guerrillas keep up the pressure, while popular disillusionment with the political process is on the rise -Pepe Escobar/Asia Times

The United States flaunts the banner of democracy in the Middle East only when that advances its economic, military or strategic interests.The hi of the past six decades shows that whenever there has been conflict between furthering democracy in the region and advancing US national interests, US administrations have invariably opted for the latter course -Dilip Hiro/Asia Times

A pro-democracy movement sweeping across the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan secured its first political concession from the country's president yesterday when he ordered a review of results in recent disputed elections.But the situation in Kyrgyzstan is potentially more volatile -Telegraph UK

France is at the centre of a blistering eve-of-summit row over the future direction of the European Union, with political leaders in Paris accused of failing to do their job in explaining plans to revive the continent's sluggish economy.The dispute concerns a new piece of British-backed legislation that has crystallised fears in France that the European Commission supports a neo-liberal economic agenda inspired by Tony Blair -Independent UK

After a five-month hiatus due to thyroid cancer, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist returned to oral arguments at the Supreme Court yesterday, walking under his own power as Marshal Pamela Talkin introduced "the honorable, the chief justice and the associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States." Rehnquist's precise medical prognosis remains uncertain -Washington Post

The European Central Bank yesterday issued a stinging condemnation of the latest EU plans to water down the Stability and Growth Pact, warning that laxer fiscal rules could undermine public market confidence in the eurozone.The rebuke comes as EU leaders meet today in Brussels to put the finishing touches to a weekend deal by finance ministers to rewrite the spending rules -Telegraph UK

The BBC said Monday it would axe another 2,050 jobs, including large numbers from its regional and news operations, paring total staff by 19 percent when taking into account earlier moves.The BBC, Britain's publicly funded broadcaster, is undergoing a massive restructuring ahead of its once-a-decade government review.It also follows a top management shake-up after criticism of its journalism in the run-up to the Iraq war

Closing a difficult chapter, Time Warner Inc. said Monday it would pay $300 million and restate three years of financial results to settle civil fraud charges stemming from its accounting of online advertising revenues and subscriber counts at its AOL unit

In what might be categorized as preparation for severe civil strife just short of civil war, the government will be conducting an exercise tomorrow at Ashkelon’s Barzilai Hospital in preparation for executing the government’s plan to expel 10,000 Jews from their homes in Gaza and Northern Samaria.

"We can take someone's thought and put it on a screen," said Tim Surgenor, chief executive of Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems, manufacturer of the device, which is called BrainGate Neural Interface System.

A gunman opened fire Monday at a high school on an Indian reservation, killing six people, with the suspect believed among those dead, authorities said. Before the school shootings, a man and a woman were shot in their home and died later.

Referring to his meeting with an unnamed al-Qaeda expert at the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization in the U.S., Leonid Shebarshin, ex-chief of the Soviet Foreign Intelligence Service, who heads the Russian National Economic Security Service consulting company, said: "We have agreed that [al-Qaeda] is not a group but a notion."