The Thai authorities are desperately trying to deny an authoritative report published in a leading U.S. daily newspaper that CIA personnel used a secret facility in Bangkok to torture a terror suspect.

The suspect, according to the Washington Post report, was a Saudi-born Palestinian called Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, code name Abu Zubaida, who was captured in Pakistan. FBI reports at the time said he was suspected of participating in a failed attack on Los Angeles airport and various tourist destinations in Jordan.

U.S. law does not permit torture on U.S. territory, but those restrictions do not apply to illegal interrogations carried out in foreign countries, hence the decision to fly Abu Zubaida out to Bangkok where he could be put through his paces by American interrogators using harsh torture tactics.
What is even more surprising is that the Thai authorities, whose public image is that of a gentle and compassionate people, effectively connived in the misery to which Abu Zubaida was subjected.

The U.S. media report says American experts had discussions about dumping him in a room full of dead bodies, surrounding him with naked women (live ones), or simply giving him a series of painful electric shocks. In the end it was decided to subject him to sleep deprivation as well as what is known as 'water boarding'.

Human rights activists have described water boarding as a cheap and disgusting form of torture where a hooded victim has his hands tied behind his back while water is poured on his face. The experience is said to be similar to that of drowning.

On arrival in Bangkok the wounded Abu Zubaida went into septic shock. The American interrogators who were waiting for him dabbed his lips with ice and told him to pray for God's help. Later he was transferred to the interrogation and torture chamber that the Thai authorities say does not exist.
The Thai foreign ministry has flatly denied that the country hosts any U.S. secret prison facility for international terrorists.

'The report may be aimed at discrediting Thailand, as the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations,' said Thai Foreign Ministry official Vitavas Srivihok.

A spokesman for Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya also insisted there was no such torture facility but added that even though the report was groundless, 'this issue must be clear as it is discrediting the country.'

Confessions of a dangerous kind

Days after he admitted his role in last year's Mumbai terrorist attack that left 166 innocent people dead, the question on every Indian's lips is whether Mohammed Ajmal Kasab will still be sent to the gallows.

Kasab is the baby faced gunman who was picked up on closed circuit Indian television cameras as he roamed around India's financial capital, shooting and killing at will at the behest of Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group.

The other nine members of his gang were all killed, but Kasab, who survived, has been charged with murder and waging war with India. The charges carry the death sentence, so Kasab's sudden decision to change his plea to guilty has inevitably led to speculation that the killer is hoping for some kind of deal.

Plea bargaining is not part of the Indian legal process, yet some previous perpetrators of terrorist attacks have managed to avoid execution. For example a member of another Pakistani terrorist gang who attacked India's national parliament in 2001, Jaish-e-Mohammed group supporter Mohammed Afzal, is still awaiting implementation of his sentence of execution.

In another case ruling Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi successful intervened to save the life of Nalini Murugan who was found guilty of plotting the assassination of Sonia's late husband, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Murugan had her death sentenced commuted to life imprisonment after Sonia appealed to the court to show mercy.

In Kasab's case state prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam believes the self-confessed terrorist is playing a clever game to save his life and protect the identities of his controllers back home in Pakistan. 'Very shrewdly, very cleverly Kasab has tried to save his own skin by showing he was acting as a subordinate,' Nikam recently said. 'He knows that by denying a major role no Indian court is going to award the death penalty.'

Kasab himself appears to be indifferent to what might happen after he changed his plea to guilty. 'If the punishment is hanging then go ahead and hang me,' he said in the court room, shortly after the judge in charge of the special Mumbai court asked if he understood the implications of his late-in-the day confession.

Bilawal in White House!

Pictures of Bilawal Bhutto in the White House, sitting cheek by jowl with his father President Asif Zardari of Pakistan, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and U.S. President Barack Obama, have aroused caustic comments from overseas Pakistanis.

Before she died, Benazir Bhutto anointed Bilawal as her political heir and future head of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. But as Bilawal at 20, a student at Oxford University, is too young and inexperienced, the affairs of Pakistan and the PPP are being managed by his father Asif.

Nevertheless, Zardari in recent months has taken the first cautious steps of introducing Bilawal to the nuances of international diplomacy. This included taking him to the White House and introducing him to senior U.S. officials.
A picture of Bilawal in the White House, sitting next to his father, apparently as a member of the visiting Pakistani delegation, has provoked howls of protest from other Pakistanis.

'What on Earth is Bilawal doing in this meeting???' one anguished Pakistani says in a widely circulated email. 'Please see this picture closely because, for the life of me, I can't get over Bilawal Bhutto accompanying his father to a high-level meeting with Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai. (Can you ever imagine Obama bringing one of his daughters to a meeting like this?...) I know there are more important crises in Pakistan right now (the refugees, the economy, the Taliban), but I can't let this go, even though I probably should.

I just have one question: Why is Bilawal Sitting There? A 20 year old who does not even know how to tie his shoes — but then come to think of it neither does his father. Actually, I have one more question: what does it say about Zardari's priorities that Bilawal is sitting closer to his father and Barack Obama than either Pakistan's Foreign Minister (Shah Mahmood Qureshi, on Bilawal's left) or Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's Ambassador to the U.S. (to Qureshi's left)?
There is no rational reason why Bilawal Bhutto should be sitting in on an extremely important meeting with extremely important leaders. Could this be the 'Divine Right of the Kings' doctrine being implemented? Are these the new King and Crown Prince for us poor miserable Pakistanis???'

Britain's pro-Pak bias

Newly arrived U.S. Marines in Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province have won the kind of praise and support from local Afghans that has so far eluded their British allies who have been fighting the same battle in the same province against the Taliban and their allies.

More than 5,000 British troops dug into Helmand have also been suffering a high rate of attrition ever since they arrived. Yet, despite their best efforts to win hearts and minds, not too many Afghans are willing to stand up and be counted in their support of the British.

New strategies implemented by the arriving Marines have seen them distributing leaflets asking for local help and occupying empty local houses rather than setting up forbidding bases surrounded by barbed wire.
Earlier in July Marines local commander General Larry Nicholson said in an interview, 'This fight must not be focused on the Taliban but on the people. The key is how to quickly reach into a community that has been terrorized, that is not sure whether the Taliban will come back and whether we will stay.'

Judging by local reactions, this kind of softly approach has found a ready local welcome. 'When the American forces first came to our village, we were very frightened,' local Helmand province resident Mohammad Isaa was quoted as telling the foreign media.

'But there was no fighting, and no Taliban. The soldiers are just walking around, but they haven't bothered anybody yet. They are not searching houses. They tell people that they are here for our security, so we can participate in the (presidential) elections. They also said, 'If you don't make problems for us, we will never make problems for you. We are very happy now.'

Similar positive reactions to the Americans have been emerging from Afghan government officials in Kabul who say the Americans have managed to achieve in Helmand in less than a month what the British have been unable to achieve in years.

The Afghan officials, who do not want to be named, are reacting in particular to what they see as a consistently pro-Pakistan bias among British diplomats and top commanders. These officials who blame Pakistan for most of their country's ills say the bias in favour of Islamabad may be partly attributable to the traditional links between London and its former colony.

Thus, they argue, Britain must try even harder to keep a perspective and balance when it comes to dealing with Kabul and Islamabad.

One example of Britain's oft quoted insensitivity is the decision to post a senior UK diplomat to Kabul who has too close-for-comfort links to Pakistan. The senior diplomat, currently in Kabul, is married to the daughter of a Pakistani general. No wonder, say Afghan officials, that London sees Afghanistan from a Pakistani perspective

Dalai Lama's next-in-line?

A bespectacled 25 year old Tibetan Lama is gaining widespread recognition as a spiritual leader of great authority among his fellow exiles based in India and other parts of the Tibetan diaspora in Asia and the West.
Ogyen Trinley Dorje, who fled Tibet for the safety of India in 1999, is the third most senior Lama in Tibetan Buddhism and, increasingly, a hero for his fellow exiles who yearn to one day return to a Tibet free of China's colonial domination.

Public interest is focused on Dorje because the Dalai Lama, the current spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists and head of the Tibetan government in exile, is 74 years old. Logic and common sense dictate that efforts are made to search for a suitable successor for the day he is no longer able to guide his flock.

The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, is also extremely popular among Tibetans. The Chinese authorities, however, have repeatedly denounced him as a 'splittist', a 'saboteur' and a 'tool' of anti-China forces in the West.

Dorje is the head of the Karma Kagyu, or Black Hat sect. whereas for the last few centuries the Dalai Lama had been drawn from the rival Yellow Hat school of Tibetan Buddhism.

The differences between the two schools of Buddhism, and the likelihood of Dorje having to give way to a Yellow Hat as the next leader of the Tibetan community, has not prevented crowds of well-wishers arriving from as far away as Taiwan to pay their respects to Dorje in the Indian city of Dharamsala.

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