Nigerian anti-corruption officials arrested the outgoing speaker of the country’s House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, at his home in Abuja on Sunday, on suspicion of defrauding the country of undisclosed amounts. The arrest took place after a four-hour standoff. I am always curious as to what these sorts of high-profile arrests mean, especially in country’s […]
It’s hard to push off the already emergent, now growing belief that the Pakistani military, and indeed the Pakistani government, is not making strong enough moves against the insurgent groups. The recent news that Ilyas Kashmiri, a top terrorist aligned with al Qaeda who trained as a Pakistani special forces officer, does not diminish the […]
Since the Arab Spring the global media seems to have found a new obsession – a preoccupation with the remaining ruling dictators, their powers, legitimacy, impending revolutions, and the viability of totalitarian regimes in general. By the “global media” here I mean the news media (TV, radio, newspapers) and the Internet which also includes social […]
As was expected, during his farewell tour of bases in Afghanistan Secretary of Defense Robert Gates argued for maintaining the maximum number of combat troops feasible in Afghanistan well past the July drawdown. Just today, in Kandahar Province, Secretary Gates said that he’d advise the Obama administration to keep as many battle ready boots on […]
As I predicted, Bafana Bafana earned a 0-0 draw in Cairo, in their African Cup of Nations Qualifier, solidifying their chances of moving forward in the CAF while making Egypt’s odds of advancing virtually nonexistent.
Chapter 3: Indian Riddle and the SAARC Ripple Nothing sums up the Indian context to the UN Report (“Advisory Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka Allegations”) on Sri Lankan war than the two widely-held beliefs that lie at the opposite ends of the spectrum viz., India helped the rise of LTTE and India […]
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan survived the no-confidence motion that was submitted Wednesday. I figured he would survive by a small margin, but he actually came through quite well. Apparently some less-vocal members of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party didn’t think now was the best time for a change at the top. However, Kan plans […]
I wonder if something significant is brewing regarding the Karabakh issue. Yes, yes, I know: “something significant” has seemed to be in the offing year after year after year. And no breakthrough ever takes place. But I say this because the three OSCE Minsk Group presidents (Barack Obama, Dmitri Medvedev, and Nicolas Sarkozy) issued a very unusual […]
The disillusioned community of journalists in Pakistan is directly blaming the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI), a spy agency of the Pakistan army, for the killing of a renowned investigative reporter, Syed Saleem Shahzad, who worked as the Pakistan Bureau Chief of Asia Times. The reputed correspondent went missing on May 29th on his way to […]
So the outcome of the Syrian uprising is not as clear cut as I would have had you believe a few short weeks ago. The opposition has rallied and is once again putting some pretty serious pressure on the Assad regime. Protestors took to the streets in significant numbers today. The numerous arms of the […]
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent visit to Africa received extensive attention in the Indian media. Prime Minister Singh attended the second India-Africa Forum Summit in Addis Ababa on May 24th and 25th and visited Tanzania thereafter. The visit was used not only to demonstrate India’s commitment to Africa’s development needs but also highlight the strategy […]
Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal can qualify for next year’s African Cup of Nations (CAF) with victories this weekend. But the most compelling match may be South Africa taking on Egypt in Cairo. Egypt is the most successful team in the history of Africa’s greatest tournament, having won seven times, and they have won the last […]
Just a whole lotta stories clogging my internet tabs: Both First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have Africa trips pending in the next few days. This is great, and both trips have clear policy implications. You know what would be even better? If we started to get some sense of a […]
Africa’s last monarch King Mswati III of Swaziland reportedly has cancelled plans for a “silver jubilee” (estimated to be 1.2 million euros) amid warning from the IMF that the landlocked kingdom is teetering on financial collapse. Well, the truth is that King Mswati needs to cancel many things, including: • He should unban political parties, […]
According to Hurriyet News, Recep Tayip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, visited one of the main opposition parties’ office during his last tours for election campaign. I think it is a great accomplishment for Mr. Erdogan to stop, point fingers, and start a dialog with the “other” side of Turkey, the side that has […]