We should have expected this

No sooner have the Maoists got into power in Nepal then they start clamping down on religious freedoms by ruling that Goddesses have to go to school!

Stop - it burns

As anyone who has, like me, dropped some chilies into over hot oil knows you don't want to be around when chilies are burning. I once lost a pair of contact lenses burning some dried chilies in a wok. I could never clean them enough to get them back in my eyes.

Religion makes strange bedfellows

The inestimable Christians Unite website tells that the Maoist success in the recent Nepalese elections will be good for religious freedom. Perhaps that may come to pass but I suspect that in this case these folks take "religious freedom" to mean "freedom for proselytising Christians"; but that's just a guess!

What a relief

I almost panicked when I read the news that India was prohibiting the export of rice with immediate effect. Then I found out that the ban applies to non-bashmati varieties only. Close one. (Hey - I eat a lot of rice. The problems with the US try to poison us with unapproved GM rice a year or so ago left me scrambling to find brown rice.)

Of course the ban in and of itself is terribly bad news and yet another sign of the problems that the world is facing with reduced food supplies, especially of staple grains, and a burgeoning population.

Misplaced anger

India's Tata Motors, the currently favoured bidder for Jaguar by the way, plans to produce an inexpensive car, priced at around £1,300, for the country's burgeoning middle class and the environmental lobby is not happy. Now I agree that private transport is a large part of the greenhouse gas problem and needs to be addressed but for prima donnas in the West to say to the emerging and third world that you cannot have what we have in order to save the planet is simply not acceptable. Case close, OK?

"And don't forget to get their consent first!"

The Indian state of Himachal Pradesh is to utilise unemployed young people to sterilise monkeys who are running rampant and causing mayhem. Surely this is a task better left to the private sector.

Today in infamy - Dow Chemical / Union Carbide edition

Twenty three years ago today the city of Bhopal in India suffered a tragic, horrendous and preventable industrial accident that saw a release of nearly 40 tonnes of a pesticide from a Union Carbide plant and that lead to the deaths of between 2,500 and 5,000 people and the continued suffering and pain of countless more.

By the way if you live in the Hamptons you have a look about for Warren Anderson, Union Carbide's former chairman, who is still wanted on criminal charges by the Indian authorities. He is believed to be "hiding" in plain sight in your neighbourhood as the United States government refuses to act on India's extradition request. Should you spot him you might wish to notify the Indian authorities. Perhaps they have the same right to kidnap anyone who is wanted in their country, anywhere in the world that the US claims it has.

Spare a prayer

The death toll continues to shoot upwards in Bangladesh after it was struck by Cyclone Sidr with over three thousand now confirmed dead and millions homeless.

The only reasonably good news for the Bangladeshi people is former American FEMA head Michael Brown is not believed to be included in the assistance being sent by the US.

Spare a thought for Bangladesh

The death toll has already reached 500 after the category 4 Cyclone Sidr struck the lowlands of Bangladesh yesterday. Nearly a million people have had to be evacuated and 1,000 fishermen are still listed as missing. The situation will undoubted grow much worse over the coming days. The only thing they have going for them is that they don't have to rely on "Heckuva Job" Brownie.

Catastrophe in the making?

The delta region of Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable areas in the world, it is home to tens of millions of people and it is about to be hit by Category 4 Cyclone Sidr. This does not bode well.

Maybe routine but certainly not torture

Sri Lanka's Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe has dismissed comments by a special rapporteur on torture for the UN Human Rights Council, Manfred Nowak that said that the government was routinely using torture against suspected members of the Tamil Tigers.

An unnamed source in the Sri Lankan government said off of the record that "we've got the CIA manual right here and according to their rules none of this is torture".

The Freedom Agenda

Pakistanis demonstrating against the enlightened rule of President Pervez "The General" Musharraf strayed outside of the designated, if tiny, free speech zone and were quite rightly beaten by the police. Captain Codpiece is believed to have rung The General and offered his congratulations.

Whatever you do don't mention Kashmir!

Oops. The CIA did it once but I doubt that they'll get away with it!