Kala Pani in Pakistan, Children of Dust, When the cat is away, Goldman Sachs,

Book "Children of Dust": From madrasahs to middle America - Junaid Afeef - Ali Eteraz is a wonderful storyteller. His memoir “Children of Dust” (HarperOne) is an engaging story of life as a child in Pakistan to his adolescence and young adulthood in America with several pit stops in between. Children of Dust is very well written. Eteraz’s life story provides a startling look inside the painful lives led by many Pakistani children. Subtitled “A Memoir of Pakistan”, billed as creative nonfiction, and promoted as a “searing memoir revealing the truth about militant Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan”, Children of Dust is more a story of child abuse and neglect, a horribly deficient primary education system in rural Pakistan, perverted and sadistic religious teachers and their devastating impact on a young man’s life. Islam certainly played a role Eteraz’s narrative, but what really stands out is the psychological damage that abuse and neglect had on his life and the behavioral issues that stem from them.

SPENGLER : When the cat's away ... With the cat in semi-retirement, the mice are not only playing, but growing to cat-like stature. From Iran, Turkey, Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia, the Barack Obama administration so far has shown no action except lockjaw; the great decisions of the world are being taken outside Washington.

Goldman Sachs and US demise - Goldman Sachs showed only contempt in offering an annual US$100 million to help small business while setting aside $16.7 billion for bonuses. The US government must stop frightening Americans by saying that the sky will fall if they take action against the financial institutions that have been responsible for the country's economic crisis. - Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene

Kala Pani in Pakistan - If there is one quality that has defined Blackwater over the past decade, it is the ability to survive against the odds while simultaneously reinventing and rebranding itself. That is most evident in Afghanistan, where the company continues to work for the US military, the CIA and the State Department despite intense criticism and almost weekly scandals. Blackwater's alleged Pakistan operations, said the military intelligence source, are indicative of its new frontier. "Having learned its lessons after the private security contracting fiasco in Iraq, Blackwater has shifted its operational focus to two venues: protecting things that are in danger and anticipating other places we're going to go as a nation that are dangerous," he said. "It's as simple as that."