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Circus performers can twist themselves into pretzels and somersault through rings of fire, but even they are struggling to jump through new hoops set up by the U.K. immigration authorities. In November, the British Home Office introduced a points-based system to crack down on illegal immigration and create what its website describes as "a significantly more straightforward and transparent structure." It's easy enough for foreign trapeze artists and acrobats to secure the requisite points for entry into Britain based on their unique skills. But ringmasters say various problems with the new system - including faulty computer software and poorly...
Mutannabi Street, in central Baghdad, has had many names. In the second Abbasid period, it was the Paper Market. Under the Ottomans it was Military Bakery Street. Under the British it was Hassan Pasha Street. The current name dates from 1932, when the Ministry of the Interior renamed much of the city. In all its guises, the street has been famous for booksellers - and much beloved. Informally, it is often called the "artery of Baghdad." On March 5, 2007, it was largely destroyed by a car bomb...
...That sounds reasonable enough, except that historically it has proved to be impossible. "People talk glibly of 'the total disarmament of the frontier tribes' as being the obvious policy," wrote the young Winston Churchill, who gallivanted, a bit too gleefully, with a 19th century British expeditionary force through the areas where al-Qaeda and the Taliban are now ensconced. "But to obtain it would be as painful and as tedious an undertaking as to extract the stings of a swarm of hornets, with naked fingers...
...Through sheer brutality, the British were able to manage the area - now called Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province - but never quite subdue it. The chances of subduing it today are even more remote. "Obviously, we're not going to invade Pakistan," said a senior member of the Riedel review. "We have to convince the Pakistanis to do the job. But we haven't had much luck with that in the past." In fact, the Pakistani army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency have supported the Taliban as a counterforce against India's influence in Afghanistan, just as they supported jihadi...
...visit Europe. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has flown west for her first foreign trip, spending a week in Asia last month before traveling to the Middle East. Meanwhile, Obama has returned the Winston Churchill bust that sat in the Oval Office for the past eight years to the British. Indeed, some Europeans brood that the new President's only nod toward them came with the family decision to adopt a Portuguese water dog. (See pictures of presidential dogs...