No point in talking

Pakistan wants unconditional talks with India according to Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi. He has also threatened that India's decision not to continue efforts to resolve issues like the Kashmir problem through the composite dialogue would have "consequences".

In the meantime, Pakistani Punjab IGP Tariq Saleem Dogar has said that the mastermind of Mumabi 26/11, Hafiz Saeed has neither been arrested nor put under house arrest, rather the police is providing an extra security cover to the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s (LeT) founder leader.

When will we learn that there is no point in talking with these people?

The Brides of Death

A 12-year-old Yemeni girl, who was forced into marriage, has died during a difficult delivery in which her baby also died, a children's rights organisation said on Sunday, demanding action to stop Yemeni men taking child brides.

Raised in an impoverished family with a father suffering from kidney failure, Fawziya was forced to drop out of school and was married off at the age of 11. Such marriages are widespread on Yemen's Red Sea coast. Since young girls fetch a good bride-price, almost half of all little girls and teenage females are married(sold) off before the age of 15 in rural parts of Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries despite its proximity to oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

Last year, a Yemeni court granted a divorce to ten year old girl whose unemployed father forced her into an arranged marriage with a man 20 years her senior, because of the bride price she fetched, but later saying he feared she might otherwise be kidnapped by the would-be spouse.

Zana Muhsen was a 15-year-old English schoolgirl of Arab-British descent when her Yemeni father sold her in England in 1983 for $3000 to a countryman as a wife for his 14-year-old son. Her sister, Nadia, also 14, was sold for the same purpose and bride price to another Yemeni, whose son was 13.

The two sisters were detained against their will in Yemen for eight years with husbands they did not want, having babies they did not want, before diplomatic pressure and assistance from the international media finally freed Zana. Nadia stayed behind because of her children, who, due to the bride price, always remain with the father in case of a divorce.

In her best-selling book, Sold: A Story of Modern-Day Slavery, Zana outlined the two British sisters’ years of suffering, physical abuse and primitive living and working conditions in Yemen.

This is the 2007 UNICEF photo of the year representing the plight of the millions of girls sold as child brides every year.

Karachi surpasses Mumbai

Mumbai has lost out to Karachi and handed over the crown for hosting Asia's largest slum. Orangi township in Karachi has surpassed Dharavi in Mumbai and now has the dubious honor of being Asia's largest slum.

Perhaps an aspiring film producer striving to be the next Danny Boyle, should now visit Karachi and portray Orangi Township in all its splendor!

China unilaterally cancels OTC derivative losses

From Jim Sinclair:

All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
--Sun Tzu

Reported Chinese actions to unilaterally cancel OTC derivative loss debts held by state corporations whereby they purchased hedge contracts written by major American OTC derivative manufacturers and distributors is legally a unilateral novation. A novation declares an item to be invalid. Invalid means not valid. A contract which is not valid infers a form of a fraudulent contract.

Actions by the Chinese tend to follow and can be understood by learning the tenets of the teachings of Sun Tzu.

Had the West acted exactly this way rather than financing them to pay the winners when the hedge fund, Long-Term Capital, failed on OTC derivatives, there would have been financial problems but this event today would only be a modest recession and not a catastrophic depression.

MOPE has blacked this event out while titanic pressure is being brought on the US to fall into line and pay off the winners in New York.

What happened here will pave the road of the future.

This is the most important economic event since the fall or shove into bankruptcy of Lehman.