 | | Game in Washington | | DESPITE all the bluster about an impending default on the government's debt, most observers in Washington and on Wall Street still believe the two parties will reach a crisis-averting agreement.
That's because the practice of American politics assumes that all players will negotiate according to predictable patterns _ that they will realise they can get more from compromise than by demanding everything and winning nothing.
Under that assumption, President Obama is right to keep pressing for a compromise, because eventually the Republicans will fall in line. But as two wildly different fields _ game theory and the study of elephant mating patterns _ show, there are limits to the usual assumptions: Sometimes players simply refuse to play the game, and when that happens, the best advice for their opponents is to do the same.
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|  |  | | CAN'T THE US DO THIS RIGHT? | | THERE is only one thing worse than Republicans and Democrats failing to agree to lift the debt ceiling, and that is lifting the debt ceiling without a well-thought-out plan and with hasty cuts totalling trillions of dollars over a decade. What business do you know _ that is still in business _ that would operate this way: making massive longterm cuts, negotiated by exhausted executives, without any strategic plan? It certainly wouldn't be a business you'd expect to thrive.
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Officer killed in Kashmir border shooting
AFP
SRINAGAR An INDIAN army officer died in a battle with rebels along the de facto Kashmir border, the army said on Thursday, a day after India and Pakistan declared their troubled ties were back on track.
The army officer was shot dead after Wednesday’s first meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries in a year as part of a comprehensive peace dialogue.
“The fighting in Kupwara (north Kashmir) erupted when a group of heavily armed militants tried to infiltrate into our territory from the Pakistani part of Kashmir,” Indian army spokesman J.S. Brar said.
The clash, in which two Indian soldiers were also wounded, ended early Thursday after erupting the previous day. Indian soldiers were hunting for the militants.
India says it regularly intercepts Islamist rebels sneaking into Indian Kashmir to fight New Delhi’s rule in the scenic Himalayan territory. Pakistan denies Indian allegations it helps the insurgents cross into Indian Kashmir.
The latest fighting came after Indian foreign minister S.M. Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart, Hina Rabbani Khar, outlined in New Delhi the countries’ commitment to fight militancy, boost trade and sustain the peace process.
Krishna said ties were back “on the right track,” while Khar spoke of a “mindset change” that had ushered in a “new era of cooperation”.
Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah described the meeting as a “good step” but hardline separatist Syed Ali Geelani termed the outcome as “superficial” and urged the two sides to address “the core issue of Kashmir.” Among agreements concluded between the sides, the two countries said they would increase the frequency of trans-Kashmir bus service from fortnightly to weekly and strengthen telephone communications between the two sides.
India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Muslim-majority Kashmir which each country holds in part but claims in full.
The peace process was resumed after being suspended by India following the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which Pakistani Islamist militants killed 166 people.
The insurgency against New Delhi’s rule has left more than 47,000 people dead since 1989, according to an official count.
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