justanotherhack on Xanga

Weblog

Wednesday, 19 March 2008

I'm bringing Xanga back - drop a comment if you're with me!

Wednesday, 21 March 2007

A Thousand Words

The picture depicts a famine stricken child crawling towards an United Nations food camp, located a kilometre away.
The vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat it. This picture shocked the whole world. No one knows what happened to the child, including the photographer Kevin Carter who won the 1994 Pulitzer prize for this picture. He left the place as soon as the photograph was taken.
Three months later he committed suicide due to depression.

The photograph was taken by Tim Fadek who covered the Qana airstrike in Lebanon by Israel in 2006.

A good samaritan. Taken by an unnnamed photographer in 2007 in Iraq, just outside Basra.

Jason Hayes took this picture in Beslan after the 2004 school massacre by Chechen rebels, which killed more than 180 children.

Washington Post, Dec 12, 2005. "No nation in history has made the transition to a free society without facing challenges, setbacks and false starts, " proclaimed US President George W. Bush.

Fair enough. And what may you ask, defines the word, "challenge"? How about the experiences yet to be had by the young girl above, grieving, screaming silently over the corpse of her dead daddy, gunned down by American forces. A perfect example of "facing challenges" the American way.

Monday, 12 March 2007

Understanding the Future

It's detractors call it 'Casino Capitalism', a brand of capitalism that espouses the worst of free market theory. The private equity industry has been facing a massive amount of flak in recent times from politicians, trade union workers and employment groups, who have accused them of asset stripping, dubious employment practices and avoiding any corporate social responsibility practices.

The Financial Times in it's March 1 issue has a number of articles on the trials and tribulations faced by the various private equity groups, especially those based in the UK, ever since a number of them targeted some of Britain's most high profile retailers such as Sainsbury's and Boots. In the same issue, Ed Balls the City minister has stated that though unlisted companies are not subject to the same scrutiny as public companies, perhaps the time had come for the private equity industry to regulate itself in a more transparent manner.

However, I do feel that some of the criticism is quite unfair and uncalled for. Having worked for one of the top global private equity firms myself, I do feel that most fail to take into account the fact that private equity firms more often than not invest in loss making companies that have not been in the black for quite some time or never at all. Restructuring the workforce is one way of bringing the company back into profitability, and handing it back to the shareholders in a healthier state. Also, private equity groups don't get interest relief on equity loans that are put into the companies.

The industry has been doing its bit by introducing a number of safety regulations but more time is needed. Let's stop calling them names and support them in their initiative to generate greater wealth creation.

Monday, 26 February 2007

The New Deal?

In an interview to the New Statesman in its issue dated 19.02.2007, Hilary Benn, a candidate for Deputy leadership of the Labour party, spoke out against any sort of military intervention against Iran, a statement that makes for interesting reading, especially if one considers the fact that he voted for the war in Iraq. So will this signify a drastic change in British foreign policy if Benn’s statement are taken in to consideration?
Benn has said that the current situation with Iran is very different from the 2003 Iraq scenario and the process of dialogue and debate must be followed in order to reach any sort of understanding. Tony Blair has declared himself at odds with hawks in the US Administration by saying publicly for the first time that it would be wrong to take military action against Iran, in spite of the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that Iran had expanded its nuclear programme, defying UN demands for it to be suspended. This followed his announcement that 1,600 British troops would be withdrawn from Iraq in the near future.
Blair will be desperate to leave Downing Street on a high note and has nothing to lose by opposing US supported military action against Iran. Members of his cabinet have also denounced any form of armed conflict, which has no doubt angered the White House.
The Labour party knows that it will have to come up with something special to retain power in the 2008 elections, and there’s no other way to do that than to start with a clean foreign policy state. So, will this be Gordon Brown’s version of the ‘new deal?’. Only time will tell.

Tuesday, 20 February 2007

Operation Kill, Maim and Destroy

Time magazine has come out with an interesting lead story in its issue dated 19.02.07, where they have managed to draw parallels between the ongoing US-Iran diplomatic war (which is expected to escalate into a full blown military strike by the US in the very near future), with the proxy war led by Pakistan supported militants against India. The author, Mark Kukis, has said that political hardliners in Iran would find supporting insurgency in Iraq more attractive than by courting a major conventional or assymetrical military conflict with America, a war they would simply have no chance of winning. While Mr Kukis's article does make for interesting reading, it is quite amusing in its own way.
The way things seem to be taking place in the Middle East, America needs just a flimsy excuse to launch a military offensive against Iran and it seems that they have it.There is no way theUS will allow Iran or for that matter any other Arab nation to spread their tentacles in Iraq. The embattled Bush administration, which is haemorraging men, morale and money in Iraq at the moment, has already accused Iran of supplying bombs that have gone on to kill 170 US soldiers in Iran. This comes after the Americans captured four Iranian agents, allegedly members of of the Quds force, Iran's paramilitary arm.
Although Robert Gates, the new US defence secretary has said that America is not interested in entering into a war with Iran, President Bush has announced that the US will respond "firmly" if Iran escalates its military action against US/Iraqi troops. As we all know, what Mr Bush wants, he gets and right now he's simply itching for a fight..Guerilla warfare be damned, there isnt going to be any pussy-footing around this time.