Timothy Garten Ash, duly celebrated author of Free World, needs to pay his web hosting fees. Here's the message I got when I went to his site, FreeWorldWeb.net:

This Web site is temporarily unavailable, please call back later.

The Web hosting account holder should contact the server administrator at Hosternet immediately.

Better get on that, Timbo.

It only recently came out, so I hadn't been able to order a copy with the rest of my recent book orders, but Stephen Cohen's The Idea of Pakistan was one of the books recommended to me by Professor Haqqani at the start of my Islam in South Asia course. Seeing that Pervez Hoodbhoy has a major review of it in the current issue of Foreign Affairs (which I have just inadvertently found out I can read for free online when connecting through the university network.. sweet!) I've got hopes that I can successfully order a copy now and place it somewhere on my pile.

Ominous declarations of imminent chaos in Pakistan abound in the United States. Cohen aims both to raise warnings and to soothe fears. Although he acknowledges that profound problems plague both the idea and the reality of Pakistan, he distances himself from apocalyptic "failed state" scenarios. Catastrophic failure of this nuclear-armed state is surely a possibility. But Pakistan's fate will ultimately depend on whether its leaders can find an answer to the fundamental question that has plagued their fellow citizens for more than half a century: "How can we make the idea of Pakistan actually work?"

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An OnPoint discussion of the state of journalism in Iraq, spurred by the famous Farnaz Fassihi letter and the shocking bombing attack in the Green Zone.

Somehow, the first person narrative lends reporting a special urgency that you don't get from antiseptic newspaper filings. Michael Ware, the intrepid TIME Bureau Chief, has some particularly stark words. For instance:

Zarkawi’s terrorists control part of Baghdad in sight of US forces. The Iraqi government is a hollow shell unable to exercise any authority. There are terrorist safe havens, Al Qaeda-linked safe houses, bomb-making facilities, organizations, that exist here in Iraq now that did not exist a year ago and did not exist under Saddam. By invading this country, the U.S. administration has given birth to, has fostered, the very terrorist threat that they said they came here to prevent. Jihadis now come here to prove themselves, and we’re now seeing that exported within the region. Is that a success? We’re getting no traction here, we’re losing the population, and … and … Allawi, Allawi’s government is unable to move themselves. So what are we left with?

And later

Well, I don’t think there’s too much historical precedent for this nature of warfare for journalists. Journalists have always been in the firing line in one form or another. But here, we’re now seeing increasingly, we’re specifically targeted. There’s nooooo, not even a vague sense of neutrality for us anymore. We’re seen as a Western interest that, according to Zarqawi’s people, who I’ve talked to, we are legitimate to take and literally behead. So, they’re looking for us. We’re a prized asset.
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In May 2003 the OECD hosted a workshop to compare projects launched by OECD countries and International Organisations to extend the economic accounts schemes to environmental and social phenomena. The workshop papers have been collected in this newly published book by the OECD, Measuring Sustainable Development.

The focus on measurement concepts and techniques is the next key stage in trying to make "sustainable development" a meaningful policy objective and analytical tool. As the OECD blurb says:

Sustainable Development has been defined by the Brundtland Commission as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". However, converting this definition into manageable policy objectives is a daunting task encompassing the economic, environmental, and social realms of society. The delicate trade-off decisions that must be undertaken by policy makers necessitate a working framework to measure sustainable development comprised of appropriate ...   more »