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BOOKS, TRAVELS and INTERNET. See our new INYT
sections devoted to books, travel and internet
sites. |
| This
extraordinarily good book by Upamanyu
Chatterjee should be read by all those
interested in modern English literature.
English, August was published in 1988.
How would August figure 20 years on in
the India of today? |
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'Death in Kovalam' by John Francis Kinsella
The
story is set in an Indian beach resort, popular
amongst British tourists, over the Christmas
vacation period. Tom Barton, a City mortgage broker, arrives
in Kovalam after abandoning his business in
the wake of the subprime crisis. In his luxury hotel he meets Emma, the wife
of Stephen Parkly, the CEO of a London bank,
West Mercian Finance. Stephen Parkly falls gravely ill with a
mysterious infection and is hospitalized in
a local clinic.
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His situation rapidly
declines and he is put into intensive care. At
the very same time his bank is caught in a
Northern Rock style run. Dr. Ryan
Kavanagh, a specialist in internal medicine, on
holiday with his mother and sister Sarah,
discovers an attempted cover-up by the Indian
authorities. The disease is diagnosed as cholera, panic sets
in when tourists start to fall ill with the
deadly infection, just as the tourist season is
getting into full swing. Thousands of British
tourists enjoying the sun on the beaches are
unaware of the pending epidemic. Many of the
same tourists, ignorant of the crisis facing
West Mercian Finance, are about to see their
life savings wiped out in the collapse. For all
details please contact:
sumpinein@gmail.com |
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EURO2008 Dutch beat France 4-1 to qualify for
next round |
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France was severely beaten
by the Dutch who now qualify for next round
leaving Italy France and Romania to fight it out
over who drops out. |
| Over the coming three
weeks Europe will be football crazy as the
qualifying countries' teams battle it out for
the cup. For the first
time England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are
absent from the finals of the competition. The
countries that will be watched by hundreds of
millions of fans will be:
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The Independent New
York Times will be pleased to receive your
articles and comments. Please contact our
editorial desk at the following address
sumpinein@gmail.com
and we shall endeavour to answer you promptly. |
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IRELAND SAYS NO TO TREATY |
After
the euphoria of saying NO,
Ireland has woken up to a
headache. What is their future
in the EU? Will they be left
standing on the sideline? Whilst
the German Chancellor Angela
Merkel was conciliatory, her
coalition partners, the Social
Democrats, were more blunt. The
party's foreign minister, Frank
Walter Steinmeier, said the
result was a severe setback
while a party colleague called
it a catastrophe. 'With all
respect for the Irish vote, we
cannot allow the huge majority
of Europe to be duped by a
minority of a minority of a
minority,' said Axel Schäfer,
SPD leader in the Bundestag
committee on EU affairs. 'We are
incredibly disappointed. We
think it is a real cheek that
the country that has benefited
most from the EU should do this.
There is no other Europe than
this treaty.'
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Italian
President
Giorgio
Napolitano was
equally
critical,
calling for
states
obstructing
integration to
be left out of
the EU. 'Now is the
time for a courageous choice by
those who want coherent progress
in building Europe, leaving out
those who despite solemn, signed
pledges threaten to block it,"'
he said in a statement. The
Croatian president, Stipe Mesic,
expressed disappointment in
Ireland. 'Now that they have
used the accession and
structural funds, when they have
developed enormously, I'm a
little surprised that the
solidarity is at an end,' said
Mr Mesic. |
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Which one of these is dangerous? |
| A Mustang or
Isurus oxyrinchus. Can the
world afford cars like this, the 2008
version of the Mustang, as oil hovers in
the $130 plus range. The Mustang V6
coupe with its 4.0-liter generates 210
horsepower. |
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In the
meantime the Mediterranean Sea: most dangerous
place on Earth for sharks and rays |
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More than 40%
of shark and ray species in the Mediterranean
are threatened with extinction, according to a
new report from the World Conservation Union (IUCN)
The first complete IUCN Red List
assessment of the status of all Mediterranean
sharks and rays has revealed that 42% of the
species are threatened with extinction.
Overfishing, including bycatch (non-target
species caught incidentally), is the main cause
of decline, according to the research. |
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The largest flying animal
ever known reached down with
their massive beaks to
snatch prey – only they
probably preferred dinosaurs
to frogs. The azhdarchids
have puzzled
palaeontologists since their
fossils became reasonably
well known in the 1970s.
More than 5 metres in
height, they stood taller
than a giraffe, and had
wingspans of 10 metres or
more, dwarfing any known
birds. So how did they feed? Most smaller pterosaurs
probably grabbed fish from
the sea, like modern gulls
or pelicans. Yet azhdarchids
had exceptionally large
skulls (2 metres), long
toothless beaks, and
unusually long and
inflexible necks, pretty
much ruling out aerial
fishing as a feeding method.
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| Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is
reported to be establishing
a new fighting force to confront U.S.led troops
in Iraq, according to a letter read in Iraqi
mosques Friday. |
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Iraq is contemplating
pulling out of security talks with the United
States and developing their own legislation that
would dictate the shape of the American military
presence in the country.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
says both sides in the security
talks are putting new ideas on
the table.
The Iraqi government is considering this new
tack out of frustration over the lack of success
in negotiations with the United States over a
long-term security agreement Haidar Abadi, an aide to Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki, told CNN on Thursday
of talks, which have sparked concern
among Iraqis that a bilateral security pact will
compromise the sovereignty of Iraq. Abadi said this issue must be broached with
Americans, who are here, making sacrifices, and
defending the country. But, he said, we can go now to the
parliament, instead of reaching a bilateral
agreement. He said there is precedent for Iraqi
authority over foreign troops from a Coalition
Provisional Authority measure cobbled together
at the start of the occupation. 'We can have our own law in Iraq to regulate
the existing U.S. forces in Iraq,' Abadi said. |
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