One of Ours

PAMELA BONE wrote:

I am sent a newsletter from a women's rights group in Pakistan, which lists items from Pakistani newspapers. The following is a recent selection (I checked the items on the newspapers' websites):

Lahore: A girl, Kauser, 17, was strangled by her elder brother because she had married of her own will. She returned home and asked her family to forgive her but her brother strangled her with a piece of cloth. - The Daily Times.

Ghotki district: Two women were killed over Karo-Kari (honour killing). One Nihar Jatoi tied his wife to a bed and electrocuted her. One Bachal axed his wife Salma to death and fled. No arrests were reported. - The News.

Sargodha: A woman is in hospital after having both legs amputated because of severe injuries inflicted by her brother-in-law and mother-in-law, who clubbed her for her alleged illicit affairs. The woman, who was fighting for life, said the real reason was that her brother-in-law was trying to force her to arrange his marriage to her younger sister, but her sister had instead eloped with her paramour. - Dawn.

What chance of this woman becoming an international symbol, as has the boy who so tragically lost his arms during the invasion of Iraq?

Why is international public opinion not outraged at the treatment of women in Islamic fundamentalist societies? Why is it easier for millions of people around the world to see America as the great evil, rather than the countries in which governments ignore such horrific abuses of women?

Because elites around the world see American culture as a more immediate threat to their power than Islamic fundamentalism.

In the latest development in what has become a chaotic inaugural month, Air America Radio is losing two of its top executives, including the network's co-founder.

Mark Walsh, the former AOL executive and Democratic National Committee operative who announced the network's launch to much fanfare five months ago, said Monday that he has stepped down as chief executive officer.

Separately, the network confirmed that Dave Logan, Air America's vice president for operations and programming, has been replaced...

A week after his triumphant inauguration, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is finding that making Spain a satellite state of the Franco-German axis is not bringing the rewards he hoped for...

...Zappo might have hoped that his decision to abandon his former allies in Iraq would have been welcomed by the "international community" too. Sadly for him, outside Spain the unseemly haste in which he ordered the withdrawal has been met with cynicism and anger.

Germany, Vinocur claims, did not approve - and did not comment on Spain's withdrawal. The president of the Vatican's peace council, a severe critic of the US-led war, complained that Zapatero's hurry to pull out of Iraq was rushing the United Nations and made it clear that he did not agree with the Spanish premier's strategy.

Displeasure at Spain's decision to rush the withdrawal was echoed in the UN, where diplomats whispered that Zapatero ordered the instant retreat because it was becoming clear that the United Nations would be able to agree on a transfer of power - thus keeping Spain's troops in Iraq on the very terms that Zappo himself had set.

Zapatero hurriedly ordered the pullout before the UN gave the Spanish troops the "legitimacy" he craved.

One would expect Washington to react with anger - and, by all accounts, it did - but Zapatero hoped that presidential candidate John Kerry, a man he has publicly pledged to support - might weigh in on his side. No such luck. Kerry made his disapproval clear.

Zapatero's foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos fared even worse when he went to Washington to explain Spain's hurried retreat.

The chastened Moratinos returned to Madrid with a cock-and-bull story about how the Americans had asked him to mediate between the Israelis and the Palestinians. He later confessed that he had merely been asked to contribute to the process.

If the Iraq withdrawal has become a farce and the EU has been less than forthcoming with the Socialist PM's much-needed cash, what does Zapatero stand to gain internationally?

The upcoming constitutional negotiations offer Spain little. Signing up to the treaty might confirm the nation as a tame member of the EU's inner circle. However, Zapatero has already said that he will not fight Spain's corner for voting powers: Spain is likely to have to accept diminished influence...

...in Gaza, an unusual confrontation late Monday resulted in the deaths of three - a Hamas militant and two armed men who tried to steal the militant's explosives, according to Hamas and Palestinian security officials.

Hamas said the two gunmen were collaborators with Israeli intelligence, while Palestinian security officials said they were criminals who were involved in a car theft ring that brought stolen vehicles from Israel to Gaza.

Hamas said the bomber was on his way to try to infiltrate Israel, accompanied by another Hamas member and a guide, when they were stopped by the armed men.

The robbers forced the bomber to lie on the ground and tried to steal the bomb, but the militant detonated it, killing all three. The other Hamas man and the guide escaped.

There have been cases of rival groups stealing each other's explosives, but no group claimed the two gunmen. Their families did not go to the hospital to retrieve the bodies, indicating that the two were not militants, who are revered in Palestinian society.

A Hamas official said that whatever their intention, the two should be considered agents of Israel. "Anyone who tries to stop a fighter from doing his work is a collaborator,"