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Pakistan's generals got the message - the message being that Washington expected them to push back. On April 27, Pakistani security forces launched an offensive to "eliminate and expel the militants from Buner," as army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas noted. Two weeks ago, Pakistan's parliament had endorsed a peace agreement that involved the imposition of Islamic Shari'a law in the Malakand Division, which includes Swat and Buner. The Taliban insist that it allowed them to maintain an armed presence; the military rejects that claim and made clear its intention to limit the Taliban from further advances...
...Lezana says Mexican and international virus sleuths are "much closer than we were a week ago" to determining the geographical, animal and human origins of the swine-flu outbreak - which may not even be in Mexico. (Until late last week, most media reports speculated that Hernandez's village in Veracruz, La Gloria de Perote, where large pig farms are located, was ground zero, but many Mexican and international health officials now say it could be in California or even Asia.) But it could take weeks if not months for a final answer...
Vietnamese artist Nguyen Trong Niet, an 85-year-old painter who has lived most of his life in a rundown flat in Hanoi's Old Quarter, proudly says he painted Muong Kuong Market years ago in his living room, which is also his bedroom and kitchen. The vibrant lacquer brushwork of the piece exquisitely captures the bustle of market day in a Vietnamese village. The Vietnam Museum of Fine Arts, the country's national art museum, thought so too. Officials there snapped up the painting for their collection, and for the past 40 years, Niet's work has been hanging...
...Niet was stunned when he came across a photograph of Muong Kuong Market in a Russian art book several years ago - the painting was allegedly hanging in the Oriental Museum in Moscow. Niet says he sent a letter to Oriental Museum officials, who confirmed that they owned the original. When Niet went back to the Vietnam Museum of Fine Arts to complain, "they told me that I painted two paintings and that I had sold one to Russia," he says. Sitting by her husband's side on a plastic stool, Niet's wife says she wishes that were true...
...Vietnamese art, since collectors are never sure if they are buying the real thing. Tiep accuses the museum of failing to properly display and preserve its collection, resulting in irrevocable damage and loss. "I have had to swallow my tears," says Tiep, who resigned as deputy director two years ago to protest what he claims is mismanagement. "We have a duty to raise our voices...