Nepal: A new beginning

Al Jazeera's interesting report on the ongoing political struggle in Nepal.

Karnali Highway: Deadliest Journeys docu

Nepalese are far too closely aware of the hellish condition of the Karnali region with no visible signs of civilization. We've seen their lives in drudgery and heard tales of survival. Deadliest Journeys visits Jumla, a place with about 10,000 people, and "virtually forgotten by the rest of civilization" that is accessible only by an "awful hellish and dangerous road." The documentary has compelling visuals of the most dangerous stretch of the road (Surkhet-Jumla) above 3,000 meters in the rugged Himalayas.



DEADLIEST JOURNEYS uncovers the world's most treacherous roads, skies and waterways, where intrepid travelers risk life and limb to reach their destinations.

US media goes gaga over 1-1 draw with England

Within minutes of the unexpected 1-1 draw with England, online media in the US flooded their front screen with pictures of the terrible goof by the English goalie and narrated the US "victory" as if it was all in the making. I tried to get screengrabs of few popular sites of the moment...

(Click to enlarge the images.)

World Cup 2010: Round 16 predictions

All the Group winners are the expected powerhouse in their own category. Except for Group G with Brazil and Portugal as FIFA World Rankings Top 10 teams, all other groups have one top-10 team from last year (sans Croatia). There are several high-powered matches I'm not going to miss -- such as today's England-USA, or Netherlands-Denmark, Brazil-Portugal, Spain-chile, even Italy-Paraguay. Since the top two in each group will move to Round 16, here's my prediction of who will move through: (Of course, you'll disagree!)


Group A
Mexico
Uruguay (France misses Zidane badly.)

Group B
Argentina (already ahead with 1-0 win over Nigeria)
South Korea (2-0 win over Greece is an impressive start)

Group C
England
USA (Unless Algeria does some miracle!)

Group D
Germany
Ghana (I'm betting on them this time.)

Group E
Netherlands
Cameroon (Just can't pick the Danes over them.)

Group F
Italy (Waka Waka Italia!)
Paraguay

Group G
Brazil (If anyone says they aren't going up to QF, it's blasphemy.)
Portugal

Group H
Spain
Chile


Round 16 rule: Group A winner plays Group B runner up, Group B winner plays Group A runner up, Group C winner vs. Group D runner up...and so on.

(A1) Mexico vs. (B2) South Korea

(B1) Argentina vs. (A2) Uruguay

(C1) England vs. (D2) Ghana

(D1) Germany vs. (C2) USA

(E1) Netherlands vs. (F2) Paraguay

(F1) Italy vs. (E2) Cameroon

(G1) Brazil vs. (H2) Chile

(H1) Spain vs. (G2) Portugal


More prediction to follow.....

Microsoft launches Office Web Apps

Finally, Microsoft throws the gauntlet to Google to launch its own browser-based popular Office applications. Until now Google enjoyed some dominance with its own version of Docs while also rolling out features through its Labs. Now Microsoft played a good catch-up with its own Office Web Apps prior to the launch of Office 2010 next week. Since Zoho isn't very popular yet and the open-source OpenOffice.org might take a while to jump in the cloud-computing wagon, Microsoft's latest roar would be heard loud and wide.

How can you access Office Web Apps?

You'll need an account with Windows Live to access the online suite. (Your Hotmail account works.) Once you are logged in, go to the link "Office" on top. You can use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote almost like the desktop version. You can try other products if you download the trial version.

I tried using all applications on both PC and Mac and tried it on IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome and didn't really notice any difference. It was a seamless experience, except when I tried to use on IE it wanted me to download Silverlight for better performance. I haven't opened an IE browser for more than a year now!

But I think the biggest bonus of this online experience is the 25GB free online storage space on SkyDrive. You can park your files, share, sync and also download them to a local drive. However, you still need to get online to edit documents. If only this generous space could be used for all-purpose no-size-limit upload/download files, it would be better than Dropbox or ADrive or any other free online cloud drive.

These Office Web Apps are a good start for Web-based computing if you have good connectivity. Perhaps, Microsoft could also add some features of Google Wave, such as simultaneous editing and play back. As of now, I am not complaining.

Nepali Comedy: छोरी को बिहे (Daughter's marriage)

A Nepali comedy by Shiva Hari Poudel and Niru Khadka. Video released after 50 days!

Oil Spill 4/20: An environmental 9/11?

Already into the 46th day of the oil spill, more vitriol continues to pour even as BP struggles to plug the Deepwater Horizon well that gushes about 5,000 barrels (1 barrel = 42 US gal) of crude oil daily. But some have estimated the spill could have been as high as 100,000 barrels a day. That's equivalent to all the water in seven Olympic-size swimming pools!
(Paul Rademacher, engineering director of Google Maps, has put the spill into excellent geographical perspective by allowing users to compare the area of the spill to that of their home town or a city they are familiar with.)

If the loss is converted to money, then it's billions of dollars loss at $85 per barrel. BP has already spent $1 billion containing and cleaning up the oil. Since it owned the responsibility of the spill, the expense could be much higher. President Barack Obama's administration has sent its first bill of $69 million for the US government's efforts in managing the spill response. It's too early to say whether this incident will lead BP toward bankruptcy, but the CEO of the London-based company has assured its shareholders that the company has "considerable firepower" to cover the cost. Amidst this assurance comes the time for BP to disburse dividends about which Obama has shown open displeasure.

In his third visit to the affected region, Obama assailed BP's plans to spend $50 million on an ad campaign to salvage its image and another $10 million on dividends for shareholders.

"What I don't wanna hear is when they're spending that kind of money on their shareholders and spending that kind of money on TV advertising that they're nickel and diming fisherman," Obama said.

Obama's strong words still didn't match with any visible anger that the American people want to see in him. People want to see emotion and rage and finger wagging for some cathartic relief, perhaps much like the way during the AIG bonus saga. But he has acted cool so far.

In the latest Larry King Live interview he said he is "furious." That's it! But that's not enough for the American people who want to see an enraged president taking stern actions, even questioning the corporate as to why BP's CEO Tony Hayward still in charge.

Despite this terrible environmental mess and loss of 11 lives in the rig explosion, Hayward enjoys the confidence of the board. He was apologetic to the shareholders as he continued to assure them.

"We will work tirelessly to rebuild the confidence of the American people, and of the world, in BP," Hayward said in his first update to shareholders after the rig explosion of April 20.

But not everyone can be assured. Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group with its 80,000 members, has started a campaign to boycott BP's products. It has asked people to boycott BP for "at least three months."

On the Facebook wall of Boycott BP page Kristin Royce Barsell wrote, "I went to BPs channel on Youtube and Gave a thumbs down to every one of their videos. Then, I flagged them for being innapropriat. For stuff like sexual content, violence, and a bunch of other really funny stuff. I found it very therapeutic. You should do the same. It will make you feel much better."

As the Gulf of Mexico oil slick approached coastlines and threatened people's livelihoods and damaged the ecosystem, more and more people have shown frustration with the federal administration. The public anger is aggravated further as they see live video feed of the oil spewing from the well. All the major media have given prime coverage of the pictures of pelicans drenched in oil, or images of plumes of partly dissolved oil flowing in the deep ocean.

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reports, "the mainstream media devoted 38% of its newshole to the spill during the week of May 24-30."

Despite such extensive media coverage and the amount of environmental impact the spill will create, it is still not yet the "environmental 9/11" as Melinda Henneberger of the Politics Daily argues. The present disaster has surpassed the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989, or is comparable in cleanup and response efforts to hurricane Katrina, but it is still not comparable to the 9/11 attack that not only took more lives but also pulled the rug of faith for a fellow human being.

The technology to overcome the present disaster is perhaps easier to devise sooner or later, but a soothing balm to heal the impact of 9/11 is difficult to create.


***

Here's a selection of media that have given dedicated coverage of the oil spill.

Online: White House, BP, PBS, Google News, Yahoo! News, HuffPost, The Daily Beast
Broadcast: CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, Al Jazeera, BBC, France24
Newspapers: NYTimes, WashPo, WSJ, LATimes, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, St. Petersburg, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Guardian

1. A brown pelican is seen on the beach at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast on Thursday, June 3, 2010. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon has affected wildlife throughout the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
2. Fire boat crews battle the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon late Wednesday. (U.S. Coast Guard)
3. Boycott BP Petition logo
4. May 6. An aerial view of the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. (Daniel Beltra-Reuters)
5. Screengrab of "Tracking the Oil Spill in the Gulf" from NYTimes.com Interactive

Images used without permission. Copyright infringement not intended.

Does the US encourage India's interference in South Asia?

“As India looks east, its role in its immediate neighborhood obviously remains crucial. We have complementary interest on the subcontinent, and United States supports India’s leadership in encouraging the emergence of a stable democratic government in Bangladesh, easing tensions in Nepal and promoting peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka. Neither of us intends [US and India] to outsource South Asia policy to the other, but more often than not our policy prescriptions converge.”

William J. Burns, U.S. Department of State's Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs speaking at the CFR's General Meeting on India’s Rise and the Future of the U.S.-India Relationship on June 1, 2010.

Audio Source: Council on Foreign Relations (17:16)