Sarkozy announces cabinet - 50% women, first muslim minister

French President Nicholas Sarkozy announced his cabinet of 15 ministers today. For the first time in French history, a person of North African origin and for that matter a woman of Muslim origin has been appointed as a minister:

Rachida Dati - Justice Minister

The daughter of illiterate Algerian and Moroccan parents, Ms Dati is one of 12 children. She studied law at university and then accounting, working for oil giant, Elf.

She trained as a magistrate from 1997-1999 and joined Mr Sarkozy's interior ministry in 2002, playing a key role in improving relations with immigrant communities in the suburbs.

Ms Dati acted as Mr Sarkozy's spokeswoman during his presidential campaign. She is the first person from an ethnic minority to hold a senior French cabinet post.

Rachida Dati's appointment may come as a surprsie to many who remembers Mr. Sarkozy's anti-arab comment during the Paris riots in 2005.
Half of the members of his 15 member cabinet are women. This is also unprecedented in any democracy anywhere in the world.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs went to a very respected Medical Doctor who is a former Health minster and more importantly also happens to be one of the founders of the fine organization - Doctors without Borders:

Mr Kouchner is an outspoken former socialist health minister and UN governor of Kosovo.

Widely admired in France, he founded the medical aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and is convinced that countries have a moral duty to intervene in humanitarian crises.

He supported the US-led war in Iraq and has vowed to put human rights at the top of France's foreign policy.

Having appointed a diverse and capable cabinet, Mr. Sarkozy seems to be on the right path to bring about the reforms he promised to the French people during his election campaigning.
Good luck to him and his cabinet.

Paul Wolfowitz finally gives up

After stalling for weeks unashamedly, Paul Wolfowitz, the beleagured President of World Bank finally declared that he is resigning at the end of June:

Embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz will resign at the end of June, he and the bank said late Thursday, ending his long fight to survive pressure for his ouster over the generous compensation he arranged for his girlfriend.

His departure ends a two-year run at the development bank that was marked by controversy from the start, given his previous role as a major architect of the Iraq war when he served as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon.

"He assured us that he acted ethically and in good faith in what he believed were the best interests of the institution and we accept that," the board said in its announcement of his resignation.

This may look like a facesaver but in reality truth has finally caught up with the mastermind of Iraq invasion -- his character finally exposed. It will be interesting to see who offers Wolfowitz his next job.

Global Warming: Southern ocean around Antarctica cannot absorb any more CO2

Two very alarming news came out in last few days in the Global warming front as reported by CNN : this and this.

I am quoting from the first link:

The Southern Ocean is one of the world's biggest reservoirs of carbon, known as a carbon sink. When carbon is in a sink -- whether it's an ocean or a forest, both of which can lock up carbon dioxide -- it stays out of the atmosphere and does not contribute to global warming.

The new research, published in the latest edition of the journal Science, indicates that the Southern Ocean has been saturated with carbon dioxide at least since the 1980s.

This is very alarming because Human activity is the main culprit according to researcher of this study Corinne Le Quere.

The phenomenon wasn't expected to be apparent for decades, Le Quere said in a telephone interview from the University of East Anglia in Britain.
She says:

We thought we would be able to detect these only the second half of this century, say 2050 or so. But data from 1981 through 2004 show the sink is already full of carbon dioxide. So I find this really quite alarming.

The second aone is a study by NASA that reports that vast areas of snow in Antarctica melted in the summer of 2005.
NASA's QuikScat satellite detected extensive areas of snowmelt, shown in yellow and red, in west Antarctica in January 2005.

Bangladesh: Interim government scrunitizing source of income of former Prime ministers - Hasina and Khaleda Zia

Bangladesh media is reporting that Former PM Sheikh Hasina will delay her return to Bangladesh - is it because of her schedule in London or perhaps the uncertainity of what will happen if she returns to Dhaka immediately?

The caretaker government did not completely let her off the hook yet when they withdrew a ban on her return to Bangladesh and annulled an arrest warrant on charges of Murder earlier this week.
On the contrary, they are scrutinizing her personal bank accounts which apparently have a balance of $425000.
Hasina claims that this money is donated by people around the world to ‘Bangabandhu memorial fund’ - a fund that is named after her assasinated Father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman - one of the founding fathers of Bangladesh.
While that maybe true, it would have been proper to put it in a different type of account instead of a personal account.
So I believe Hasina has a lot of answering to do in regards to the source of this money. Potentially more trouble for her. On top of that, the CTG can conveniently reissue the arrest warrant against her once she is back in Bangladesh.

The other Begum - Former PM Khaleda Zia, apparently has 48 accounts.
I dont know why would anyone need that many accounts for personal finances but it seems while Khaleda may not be going for a permanent exile to Saudi Arabia, she may willingly prolong her visit there to avoid harassment at home.
This could also very well be her chance to smuggle out her younger son Arafat Rahman to safety in Saudi Arabaia.
So while politicans may be rather vocal lately after what many see as the fiasco by the Interim government of trying to exile the two ladies abroad, It has not necessarily weakened the interim government that much.
It still has much aresenal left in its disposal to go after the two ladies within the legal framework to sideline them in the Political picture of Bangladesh.

LT. COL. PAUL YINGLING accuses American generals as incapable and asks intervention of Congress

It is a remarkable assessment only in the sense that it is coming from a serving US army officer.
LT. COL. PAUL YINGLING predicts US will be defeated in Iraq (as if we didnt know this). But I must give him credit for writing very clearly the reasons why America will be defeated in Iraq.
Of the three ingredients of a successful war he mentions in this article:
Passion - is 100% absent in the minds of Americans.
Strategic Probabilities - Generals have failed to show the probablities of winning this war to the public and the government.
The last ingredient, Policy, is badly missing. If achieving better peace in Middle east was the policy - then that policy is deeply flawed. Presence of americans in Iraq has caused chaos and mayhem.
Now who will replace these incapable general corps that General Yingling so much wants? He wishes Congress to do that. Will the congress do it?

Bangladesh: former PM Khaleda Zia to go for Umrah

Khaleda is finally going for a Umrah, and not on exile to Saudi Arabia - so it seems.
Does it mean that the exile question is over? Not so soon..
In fact, Khaleda may choose exile on her own to save her younger son Coco from imprisonment.
Under the new rules to be declared by Election commission, anyone who is not a college graduate, would not be allowed to contest for a MP seat and no one will be allowed to become PM for more than two times. So Khaleda will be disqualified on that. Thats one Begum down!
But what about Hasina?
It seems the government would have to find another way to disqualify her.

Royal Bengal Tigers in Sundarbans

Bangladesh politics in the eyes of a villager

I was watching "Hridoye Maati O Manush" this morning on Channel I - a show on agriculture and on lives revolvoing around agriculture in rural areas of Bangladesh. This particular episode was shot in Narsingdi, a provinicial town near Dhaka. The presenter was chatting with farmers in a village tea-stall and inquiring about the price they got for selling their of products to the middlemen. During the conversation, obviously not happy with the conditions of the villagers, he asked one man what it would take the improve the lives of the villagers. "Not until the character of those 300 men in the parliament changes for better, the fate of this country will not change", the man answered promptly. Obviously he was referring to the current political turmoil in Bangladesh - the declaration of emergency in response to political deadlocks and amidst rampant corruption in every sphere of life. An accurate observation - and that too from an illiterate villager!