Word: swatted
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that she means all those Pakistanis who do not belong to her class and who have as much to do with the Taliban as she does, which is to say nothing at all. But her sweeping wave inadvertently encompasses a part of Pakistan she has failed to address - the Swat valley, where the army has embarked on a campaign to rout out Islamic insurgents who threaten to destroy the Pakistan Haye knows and cherishes. (See pictures of Pakistan beneath the surface...
...country, one of religious and political diversity, fractured by class and ethnicity. Pakistanis like to quip that they have a population of 170 million - and as many different opinions. Which is why defensiveness sets in when outsiders attempt to reduce the country to a terrorist statistic. The problems in Swat don't define Pakistan, says Haye. It's not that she doesn't care - she does - but that Pakistan has very little to do with her Pakistan. "What is all this talk of Talibanization? Not once have these maulvis [religious leaders] complained that a woman is flying their plane...
...government, at last, seems to be fighting back. On May 7, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced a military operation in Swat. "The armed forces have been called in," he said, "to eliminate the militants and terrorists. We will not bow before extremists." Only weeks before, the government had finalized a peace deal with the militants in which their principal demand - the establishment of Islamic law in the area - was granted in exchange for giving up arms. At first officials defended the deal, even as the militants moved on a neighboring district and their leader announced that democracy was contrary...
...fighting in Swat masks far more serious problems. In Waziristan, a region on the Afghan border, security forces have ceded control to the militants. Outlawed sectarian groups are gaining a foothold in Punjab province. And in the financial capital of Karachi, where Pakistani Taliban insurgents raise funds, ethnic clashes claimed more than 30 lives last month. When U.S. President Barack Obama commented during an April news conference that the Pakistani government did not "seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services - schools, health care, rule of law, a judicial system that works for the majority of the people...
Some critics might swat Angels & Demons with tepid adjectives - "bustling" and "fumbling" spring to mind - but the only review that really matters came in last weekend. L'Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of Vatican City, described this sequel to The Da Vinci Code as "more than two hours of harmless entertainment, which hardly affects the genius and mystery of Christianity" and "a video game that first of all sparks curiosity and is also, maybe...