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Xi Jinping: Cave dweller or princeling?   Will Xi Jinping be China's next leader? Damian Grammaticas reports on what we know of the man in line to steer China through the coming years Who is Xi Jinping? It's not an easy question to answer. The man the Communist Party is busy grooming to be China's next leader can be read in so many ways. He is a communist "princeling," the equivalent of royalty in the Party, born into power and privilege but who then lived in a cave. He is a man who has spent his life in the Communist Party but who knows what it is like to be outcast. He has convinced businessmen he is their champion, while overseeing a system where the state controls huge chunks of the economy. He has shown himself to be irritated with foreign criticism of China but has sent his daughter to study at Harvard under a false name to hide her identity. His wife, Peng Liyuan, a singer, has, for m...

ALLAH DINO JUNIJO -- JANT UL FIRDOS AAHIN BAI KANDHIYOON MEHRAN JOON

10 things we didn't know last week Friday, 10 February 2012   Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. The last chocolate in the box really does taste better. 2. Diogenes extended his middle finger as a gesture of contempt in 4th Century BC Athens. 3. A severed head was a Valentine's gift in 19th Century Taiwan. 4. Hitler was embarrassed about a photograph showing him wearing lederhosen. 5. Cabbages can talk to each other. 6. Lizards can survive a spin in the washing machine. 7. A source in an FBI report described Steve Jobs as a "deceptive individual who is not completely forthright and honest". 8. David Beckham has only three close friends. 9. Seagrass is the oldest living thing on earth. 10. Having an easy-to-say name makes you more likely to get promoted.   With Courtesy of  BBC

امریکہ میں بلوچ بازگشت حسن مجتبیٰ بی بی سی اردو ڈاٹ کام، نیویارک کتاب ’بلوچستان ان شیڈو آف افغانستان‘ بلوچ قوم پرستی اور بلوچ سرکشی کی تاریخ پر ایک بائیبل سجھی جاتی ہے ’ہم لوگ آزادی لینے جارہے ہیں، آپ لوگ ہمارا ساتھ دیتے ہیں تو تھینک یو ویری مچ ۔ اگر نہیں تو تب بھی ہم اپنی آزادی لے کر رہیں گے۔‘ یہ الفاظ کہنہ مشق بلوچ دانشور اور شاعر و قوم پرست نظریات کے حامل ڈاکٹر ملک ٹوگی نے کوئی آٹھ برس قبل امریکی سینیٹ کی اسی عمارت میں ایک سماعت کے دوران کہے تھے جہاں اب گزشتہ بدھ کو بلوچستان پر عوامی سماعت ہوئی جس میں کئی امریکی سینیٹرز اور دانشور و تجزیہ کار کسی نہ کسی طرح ڈاکٹر ملک ٹوگی جیسوں کے خیالات و جذبات کی عکاسی کرتے لگے۔ لفظ بلوچ، بلوچستان، اور بلوچستان کے ساتھ زیادتیوں کی باز گشت امریکی ایوانوں تک کوئی ایک دن یا چند برسوں میں نہیں پہنچی، ان کے پہنچانے میں کئي برس، عشرے اور بلوچ اور بلوچوں کے ہمدرد و دوست امریکیوں کی عمریں لگی ہیں۔ بلوچ دردِ دل کا بیج بونے والوں کا یہ درخت اسے لگانے والوں کو ابھی سایہ تو نہیں دے رہا لیکن تناور اور ...

Surge in anti-China sentiment in Hong Kong By Juliana Liu BBC News, Hong Kong   A recent advert has brought simmering tensions to the fore The full-page colour advertisement depicting a giant locust overlooking Hong Kong's skyline is a striking representation of the recent surge in anti-China feeling here. A group of Hong Kong residents raised money online to fund the advert, which was published in the popular Apple Daily newspaper. It depicted mainland visitors as locusts, amid growing tension over an influx of visitors. Fifteen years after Hong Kong rejoined China, the gulf separating citizens in the former British colony and those on the mainland appears to be widening. The two groups share a common written language and culture. But differences in the spoken dialect, politics, economic standing and even personal hygiene have ignited a series of very public disagreements. These have ranged from who gets prefer...

Stand-up comedy Qatari-style By Kevin Connolly BBC News   Qataris have a great deal to smile about, with enormous wealth and increasing diplomatic clout Here is a sophisticated comedy research tool which will help to identify your location anywhere on the planet as surely as any tracking of your IP address or triangulation of your nearest 3G masts. Why did the chicken cross the road ? If you answered "to get to the other side" you are in Britain - and were given away by the gentle subversion of expectation which is the hallmark of a good joke there. If your reply was "to see Gregory Peck" you're probably an American - and given the trajectory of his career you're likely to be more than 60 years old. If your answer was "because in his wisdom and kindness the Emir has decided to provide poultry-friendly pedestrian crossings" then I'd say there's a good chance that you're...

Spying on Europe’s farms with satellites and drones By Laurence Peter BBC News   Farmers who claim more EU subsidies than they should, or who break Common Agricultural Policy rules, are now more likely to be caught out by a camera in the sky than an inspector calling with a clipboard. How do they feel about being watched from above? Imagine a perfect walk in the country, a few years from now - tranquillity, clean air, birdsong in the trees and hedgerows, growing crops swaying in the breeze. Suddenly a model plane swoops overhead. But there is no-one around manipulating radio controls. This is not a toy, but a drone on a photographic mission. Meanwhile, hundreds of kilometres up in space, the same patch of land is being photographed by a satellite, which clearly pinpoints individual trees and animals. What is there to spy on here? No secret military installations, just farmland. “They thought we had an additional b...