Global Voices Online

Light Within on a day in Istanbul. Filled with a lot of sights and food. “Walking down the tram line from Sultanahmet to Aksaray, there are burial sites on both sides of the street. Caliphs, Pashas and other important dignitaries rest here. Sultans also, but their tombs are within separate building which were of course closed at the time we were there.”

Recent Links also in South Asia

Adil Najam discusses about a recently released list of 8000 persons including the president of Pakistan and 34 Pakistani politicians who have benefited from the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), promulgated by former president Pervez Musharraf on Oct 5, 2007. This ordinance “grants amnesty to all those against whom politically-motivated cases were registered between Jan 1, 1986, and Oct 12, 1999.”

“Over a span of about 30 odd years, the Pakistani military and its establishment allies in the intelligence agencies, the politicised clergy, conservative political parties and the media have, in the name of Islam and patriotism, given birth to a number of unrestrained demons which have now become full-fledged monsters threatening the very core of the state and society in Pakistan,” comments MB on the use of Islam in Pakistan politics. Read the two part series “Hijacking Pakistan (Part 1, Part 2)” for more.

Bangladesh Open Source Intelligence Monitors blog analyzes the story behind the arrest of the chairman of an Indian separatist movement - United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) from Bangladesh territory.