Sometimes you might find yourself in a situation where you have recently been to a convention and came home with a fistful of cards with numbers scrawled all over them. It can get confusing. You might remember talking to someone and writing down a phone number, but now you can’t remember what the person’s name is or what the business was. This doesn’t have to be a concern when you use Canada 411. Thanks to reverse lookup, you can find the contact information for a business by typing in a phone number or address.

Businesses with listings in a Canada 411 system find that consumers have a much easier time contacting and locating them. This is because in addition to getting phone numbers and addresses, sites offering Canada 411 information also provide driving directions and maps for people who use their sites. Site users can even track and narrow their searches by hunting for businesses in a specific location. They can look for a business by category, by city, by proximity to a specific landmark, or by address.

Whether you own a business and want to have potential clients find you, or whether you are a potential client looking for a specific business, it could greatly benefit you to use the Canada 411 lookup services. Get information out or locate other businesses with ease. You never even have to leave your home.

Let us take a look at some of the benefits of cash advance loans. If you go to a bank to apply for a loan, the bank executive asks for your credit history. If everything goes well, you are asked to fill a loan application. Most banks take 2-3 weeks (or more) to process a loan application, subject to terms and conditions. In short, it’s a time consuming task. Financial companies offering Payday loans, on the other hand, do not even look at your credit history. In order to qualify for a payday loan, you need three things- a bank account (current or savings), a job, and a citizenship. Generally, a payday loan is sanctioned within a few hours into the applicant’s bank account.

Do Asian countries offer payday loans as in the US? Most Asian countries have started offering cash advance loans to salaried people. However, compared to the US, Asian countries are yet to make the cash advance loan system a part and parcel of their financial (banking) infrastructure. Developing countries in the Asian region have not completely embraced the payday loan system. However, as these economies enter the ‘developed’ League of Nations, cash advance loans would become an important part of the financial system.

Takatoshi Kato, IMF Deputy Managing Director, believes that the economic crisis has had the effect of exploding three common Asian myths:

Myth #1) the emerging economies of the Asian continent are insulated from the business cycles of the developed economies because intraregional trade has shown a sharp growth. We see that, in reality, the global demand is still a major engine of the export growth for Asia. Asia has become an integrated supply chain for exports to Europe and America and much of the intraregional trade is ultimately reflected in exports to these countries. Because exports form such a large part of Asian economies, Asia has become more vulnerable to the business cycles of the developed world.

Myth #2) Asia is relatively insulated from global financial markets. While Asian financial institutions may themselves be prudent investors, overseas investors held large investment positions in Asian financial markets. The outflows from Asian markets when these investments were liquidated were believed to be of the order of $70 billion, enough to impact these markets severely.

Myth #3) large stockpiles of foreign currency reserves are the insurance against adverse movements in international financial markets. This has proved true only up to a point.

Large stimulus packages in India and China and exchange-rate management in the case of China are beginning to have their effect and these economies are rebounding. But Asia will almost certainly never again succumb to the three myths that have just been exploded.

Gold Commodities – Needless to say, with a billion people, there are most likely a HUGE number of wedding bands in China. But that barely scratches the surface of what this glittery metal is used for. Since gold does not tarnish, it is the perfect conductor for any kind of sophisticated electronic device. And in a high tech nation with a burgeoning middle class, there are electronics aplenty… and a demand for more that makes the Cookie Monster look like Richard Simmons.

Silver Commodities – Everybody knows that silver is used in things like jewelry, fillings and silverware. However, not everybody knows that silver is also almost as good of a conductor as gold is. Silver also carries some antifungal and antibacterial properties, which make is useful in wound dressings. And because silver is THE catalyst for turning ethylene into ethylene oxide, it is crucial in polyester (which is still widely used in clothing… and a billion people need lots of clothes.

Of course, this question brings with it a whole host of issues. Number one among these is the fact that one person’s religious or theological opinions may differ considerably from the next, whether or not they follow the same basic religion. This of course begs the question whether it is right to impose the thoughts and ideals of one individual on another just because the aforementioned thinks that their ideals are correct.

It also brings up the question as to whether a single religious body should be allowed to govern the laws of others because it is the majority or has some other high degree of influence - indeed this may become the case in many instances, whether it is right or not.

It is obvious that there is no reason why a group of people with one belief should be allowed to impose their beliefs on others who do not share in their ideals. However, this argument can only stand for as long as neither of the two groups exercises their beliefs in such a way that they infringe upon the rights or the beliefs of others. In this case, it then becomes allowable for one group to set boundaries that the other should not cross.

If we take the question at hand, this means that if Islam says that smoking is forbidden, then they should be allowed to forbid it to anyone who intends to smoke while occupying the same space as a Muslim. It still remains to be asked whether or not these laws would hold for electronic cigarettes, since with many religious laws; there can be a variety of factors that play a part in the prohibition.

We are at the edge of our freedom struggle. Our journey has been short and superficial. We run away from our destined fate, something which no other freedom movement had to face.

A decade of lazy talking to fix an out of the box question of Tamil nationality has changed the mindset of Sinhalese leadership. They have soundly dealt with our baseless act bringing hope and justice to the ever deceitful Tamils.

Had it not been for the quick and fast Sinhalese deliverance, the Tamils in my Foxy kingdom would still be served with a daily diet of rape, sexual harassment, murders and military offensive to fulfill my immortal megalomaniac instincts.

We have always preferred war to a peaceful solution thereby digging our own grave. Our atheistic, ravanistic dogmas and refusal to broaden our thinking has left us buried in the muck, to hear the foot thumping of peace loving, victorious Sinhalese dancing above.

Our double dealings began the day we were born. How can I forget our honeymoon with the RAW that continues still but remains under wraps? Our foot dragging with the Norwegian Mediator and peace loving regimes of Wickeramasinghe, Bandaranayake and Rajapakse were all measures meant to buy time for our crafty designs. We never allowed the dove of peace to fly freely.

I must say thanks to Rajapakse for bringing to an end this fundamentally flawed dual war and peace approach propagated by me. I have finally been spared this political absurdity, the credit for which goes to the brave, courageous and farsighted approach taken by the President. I shall also be spared that useless expenditure on raising a good for nothing army, navy and tiny air force which couldn’t hold its ground in face of roaring Sinhalese. Most importantly, I’ll whisk away under the shadow of RAW and dig a new ultra modern bunker somewhere in the backyard of 7 Race Course road.

A long time has elapsed since I embarked on this journey to satiate my dream of creating a Tamil Tiger kingdom. Folks I’m old and need to take a break from constantly swearing for the Tamil cause…

At this historic point of time, when the Sinhalese rejoice their victory and I prepare to hole out a bunker, I would like to express my gratitude to all the Tamil simpletons whom I bamboozled for so long. It’s high time they get their picture clear: There is No Tamil Land, There never was One, and there was only me Prabhakaran wrapped in his own self centered world…

Chill Folks...it’s just a spoof!

A few days after well-armed men mowed down scores of helpless people in Mumbai, an American commission released a report on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. “World at Risk” is one of those conscientious, bipartisan efforts, whose sober findings and pragmatic recommendations momentarily give you the sense that every problem—even one as alarming as the likelihood that “a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013”—has a common-sense solution. The report includes chapters on biological and nuclear risks, and one titled “Pakistan,” which would seem to suggest that the nation itself is a kind of W.M.D.

According to intelligence reports, the attacks in Mumbai were carried out by terrorists who had received extensive training from the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, or Army of the Pure. Its agenda has been to force India to give up control over the disputed northern mountain region of Jammu and Kashmir. More recently, the group’s leader, Hafiz Saeed, spoke of creating a Muslim south Asia—thus, the band that carried out the killings called itself the Hyderabad Deccan Mujahideen, implying a holy war extending down to the south-central Indian region that, in the late eighteenth century, marked the farthest limit of the Mughal empire.

The name has the ring of nostalgic grandeur common among jihadist groups elsewhere, with their historical claims on far-flung places like Al Andalus, also known as Spain. And the designated targets in Mumbai suggested an ambition on the terrorists’ part extending well beyond the local troubles of Kashmir: hotels, a café, a hospital, a train station; foreign visitors, well-heeled Indians, Jews. The terrorists tortured their Jewish victims. They demanded to know the caste and home state of Indians. They held conference calls with their superiors in Lahore and Karachi to determine whether or not a certain hostage should be killed. When the goal is a Muslim south Asia, the answer is almost always yes.

The operation was so skillful and deadly, complete with a maritime landing by inflatable craft, that one security expert said that Navy SEALs would have had a hard time pulling it off. The sophisticated tactics, as well as electronic evidence, point to the involvement of top Lashkar figures, and also, according to Indian sources, of current or former officers of Pakistan’s intelligence and military. So the murders have led to a familiar volley of accusations, denials, counter-accusations, and threats between the nuclear-armed governments of India and Pakistan. They have also inspired a degree of restraint on India’s part and pledges of coöperation on Pakistan’s that are less familiar and more encouraging.

In one sense, the most appropriate response—articulated by commentators and ordinary people after the terror was over—is to express solidarity with the victims, and also with the idea of Mumbai, which, like the idea of New York, represents a vision of society that is the opposite of the vision behind names like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hyderabad Deccan Mujahideen: impure, secular, modern, open. But moral revulsion doesn’t suggest an intelligent course of action. The attacks in Mumbai reveal the vexing complexity of the interconnected conflicts throughout south Asia. At the urging of the United States, Pakistan had moved six divisions from its eastern frontier with Indian Kashmir to fight militants on its western border with Afghanistan; now the terrorists have succeeded in inducing Pakistan to threaten to cut back its pressure on the tribal areas and redeploy its troops to the east. Islamist radicalism is the main spark that keeps inflaming these conflicts.

Some commentators have simply demanded that Pakistan rid itself of the virus of extremism that threatens its own security as well as its neighbors’. But which Pakistan is going to do it? The weak civilian government of President Asif Zardari? The two-faced security services? The tribal leaders along the Afghanistan border? The huge, overwhelmingly poor, tumultuous population? The core problem is that Pakistan is no longer really a country, if it ever was. “Our Pakistan strategy is hopelessly at odds with reality,” David Kilcullen, a former counterinsurgency adviser to the State Department, said. “We treat it as an earnest but incapable ally in the war on terrorism.” In fact, some civilian elements of the government are American allies; some military elements are American enemies. The wild northwest, where Islamist militants have extended their control and created a safe haven for Al Qaeda, has thwarted those who would govern it for a long time. Lord Curzon, the British viceroy of India at the turn of the last century, fumed, “No patchwork scheme—and all our present recent schemes . . . are mere patchwork—will settle the Waziristan problem. Not until the military steam-roller has passed over the country from end to end, will there be peace. But I do not want to be the person to start that machine.”

American policymakers must be tempted to agree. Years of U.S. efforts in Pakistan—military aid, air strikes, Special Forces operations, bilateral diplomacy, coaxings, warnings—have been patchwork, and they have failed. Different approaches, including ones suggested in “World at Risk,” such as putting more effort into development and governance in Pakistan’s northwest, or bringing other regional countries to the table, offer some promise. But, in Kilcullen’s words, “Iraq might be easier than this. It’s a very, very difficult problem, and we don’t have much leverage in it.”,

In the days after the Mumbai attacks, the Washington Post reported that the Obama transition team was considering Richard Holbrooke as a special envoy to the region. The position would create a kind of civilian counterpart to General David Petraeus, the head of Central Command, filling a diplomatic void in U.S. foreign policy that the military has occupied throughout the Bush years. The Administration has always regarded terrorism in the narrow terms of war, and this myopia led it to deal with the region’s countries in isolation from one another, so that the policy in Kabul sometimes contradicted the one in Islamabad, which in turn was undermined by the growing partnership with New Delhi, and all of them were hampered by the refusal to talk to Tehran, whose role in the affairs of its neighbors to the east receives little attention. A special envoy would have to see the problem whole.

Holbrooke is the most experienced diplomat in the Democratic Party, and the aggressive negotiating skill he showed in brokering the Dayton accords that ended the war in Bosnia is badly needed in south Asia. But a legacy of the Bush Administration is that America can no longer sweep in and impose a solution on a crisis. The answers for Pakistan lie largely in its own hands—that’s the most frightening thing of all.

LINK: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/12/15/081215taco_talk_packer

A. whereas a Polish citizen working as an engineer in Pakistan was arrested by Islamic terrorists,
B. whereas despite a democratic government in Pakistan there is confirmed evidence of Pakistan hosting several terrorist groups and using them as an instrument of terrorism, particularly against India,
C. whereas Pakistan’s secret service ISI is closely aligned to the Taliban and Al Qaeda and is protecting them from international peace forces,
D. whereas the madrassas of Pakistan continue to provide cadres for terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda,
E. whereas despite Pakistan’s claim of participating in the war against terror, it continues to host terrorist leaders of the Khalistani Movement, Hezb ul Mujahideen, Lashkar e Taiba and criminal masterminds like Dawood Ibrahim, who live and operate freely.
The European Parliament has also called upon the Government of Pakistan to take immediate action to extradite to India the leaders of the Khalistan and other terrorist groups who acknowledge their role in terrorist activities in India;
2. Calls upon the Government of Pakistan to stop all cross-border infiltration and take immediate measures to reform the teaching imparted in the madrassas;
3. Calls upon the President of Pakistan to monitor these matters personally;
4. Calls upon the Government of Pakistan to take urgent action to transform its polity to prevent the continuing calls for violent jihad against its neighbours and its partners.
It has also instructed its President to forward this declaration, together with the names of the signatories, to the Council, the Commission and the Government of Pakistan.

British Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) - the joint civilian and military organization which is in charge of the rebuilding projects has been facing series of roadblocks. Most of British funds have been cleverly siphoned off by Afghan counterparts and contractors even before the reconstruction began. These contractors gave parts of projects to subcontractors. The sub contractors who undertook actual construction work used poor quality materials so the roads and buildings have crumbled much before completion. These include main bazaar road in Musa Qala, a health clinic and a mosque.

Most of utopian dreams of rebuilding Musa Qala have crumbled but yet the spirit of British troops is upbeat. They feel the attempt and planning itself is a big step forward in a place like Afghanistan. Musa Qala is strategically a good place to begin a positive peace process along with Afghan government and to keep Taleban away. The troops can slowly move inwards once confidence is established. Efforts are being made at all levels to bring in the change. Local commerce has improved, military stabilization team has established local governance and an Afghan civil secretariat. Local militiants are being inducted in to local police force.

In destroyed lands, first of all it is important to rebuild the spirit of people. Local community must realize that their life is being rebuilt for their own sake. Building utopia without solid foundation is bound to crumble.

Image

source: timesonline

Rukhma’s case is not a stray incidence but the social condition of the women in Afghanistan, which has not changed even after the US led NATO invaded the country overthrowing the Taliban regime. Under the new Afghan constitution, women have the right to education, can get a job and are to be always protected by the law, but in reality, women especially in rural Afghanistan are as vulnerable as before. Violence against women has in fact risen in the last one year. According to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, there were 2,374 reported cases of violence against women in 2007 while the figure in 2006 was 1,651. In 70 to 80 percent of these cases often the woman is charged of criminal activities for running away from the home and committing adultery. In incidences of rape, where it is very difficult to prove the allegations, the victim is accused of adultery and thrown into the jail.

After the fall of the Taliban, condition of the Afghan women has hardly improved. 80 per cent of them are illiterate, 54 per cent of the girls are forcefully married off before they are 18. Afghanistan has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world with 15,000 mothers dying every year from preventable pregnancy related complications. The ongoing militarism has increased the incidence of violence over women. Ever since the US invaded Afghanistan, attacks on women have increased. There has been rise in kidnapping, murders of women engaged in community work, forced and honor killings, self-immolation and trafficking.

via:MSNBC