Malaysia and Thailand should stop their petty bickering and restore their traditionally warm relations. The barbed rhetoric that Thailand and Malaysia have indulged in since late August – when 131 Thai Muslims fled to Malaysia, reportedly out of fear of getting caught up in the southern violence – has come at the expense of normally good bilateral relations, which have now plunged to a new low.

THAI TALK: Who says it’s impossible? Just call the PM

PM Thaksin Shinawatra says he likes to turn “near-impossible” challenges into “possible realities”. That’s welcome, because Thailand has been recently flooded with all sorts of impossible problems that defy all the bold and threatening statements of the super-CEO.

Overcoming tragedy on many fronts

Along with a group of professors, staff members and students from my university in Islamabad, I journeyed to Balakot, close to the centre of the Kashmir earthquake. This mountainous town, situated on the banks of the Kunhar River, has been destroyed. There is rubble and the gut-wrenching smell of decaying corpses. The rats have it good; the one I accidentally stepped upon was already fat.

Saddam Hussein before the law

What is at stake in the trial of Saddam Hussein, which begins today? Coming just four days after the referendum on Iraq’s constitution and touted as a “constitutional moment” akin to the trials of Kings Charles X and Louis XVI, the proceedings are supposed to help advance Iraq’s transition from tyranny to democracy. Will they?