Worldview

Having a cola is no big problem, however secretive Coke and Pepsi may be. Experts offer quite a range: just taste one, like it and you can be making cola, not war.

Qibla Cola is produced in Yorkshire by a company set up in Derby by a group of Muslim professionals. "We have sold half a million bottles since our launch in February," Qibla Cola’s Abdul-Hamid Ibrahim told Outlook. Two-litre bottles priced at 99 pence, that is. Now even 500 ml bottles are being produced, to be exported to West Asia. Already, Mecca Cola is being sold in Palestine and Zum Zum Cola in Saudi Arabia.

The three companies make different colas "but we have good relations and we need one another from time to time", says Ibrahim. The colas are distributed through a network of Muslim-owned outlets. "People are very agitated about mncs that support US foreign policy," says Ibrahim. "So we are providing an alternative. Ten per cent of profits will go to Third World charities."

"Has oderint dum metuant (Latin for let them hate so long as they fear) really become our motto?", asked John Brady Kiesling, a loyal soldier of US diplomacy, in his resignation letter to secretary of state Colin Powell. Quoting Caligula, he drew a parallel with Bush’s US. He even dared to suggest that Powell’s loyalty to the president "goes too far" in supporting this war-at-any-cost policy. The US is squandering the international legitimacy, the country’s most "potent weapon of both offence and defence". Kiesling was joined by John H. Brown, another US diplomat, who resigned on March 10, saying that Bush’s "disregard for views in other nations is giving birth to an anti-US century". Although diplomats "lie" for their country, there is clearly a line.

Slowly the lights of the Indian Civil Service are going out: the death of veteran diplomat Samar Sen is a recent instance. Joining the ics in 1937, he conducted himself with aplomb in the many posts he held.He was India’s permanent representative to the UN during the ’71 war and then became high commissioner to Dhaka. There was an assault on him towards the end of his tenure; Sen refused to be evacuated to India, winning Bangladeshi hearts.