As France and the world continues to absorb the developments surrounding IMF Director and shadow 2012 presidential frontrunner Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest for sexual assault, Arret sur images, a French website, brings to light some damning evidence involving a previous instance of sexual violence that was little-reported in certain parts of the French media when it […]
Japan’s largest crisis is neither the ongoing disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant nor the recovery from the March 11 earthquake/tsunami. The Japanese will eventually overcome and move on from both these problems. The crisis Japan is facing is one of demographics. Japanese women are obsessed with fashion. I commented last week that […]
As a new generation of Arabs in the Middle East continues to jolt the region into a new, tumultuous, and yet-to-be-defined era, Iran’s internal politics is undergoing its own transition that has recently become increasingly vocal. The assertion of independence in decision making on the part of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a theocratic system known for […]
Thousands of Turks gathered in some 40 cities and towns around the country on Sunday, May 15th, to join marches organized on Facebook against state Internet censorship. The trigger for the protests was a decision by Turkey’s Internet regulator, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority, or BTK, to introduce a selection of filters that Turkish […]
Port-au-Prince, Haiti – Power failure inside the Haitian parliament shortly before the inauguration did not deter President Michel Martelly from making history. In fact, the novice head of state was a fountain of smiles waving, spraying charisma to fans, reporters and dignitaries. President Martelly’s oath of office landed on the thunderous applauses of Legislators, national and […]
This year’s Palestinian Nakba Day, the holiday in which Palestinians mourn the creation of Israel, has been particularly active. Aside from the violence that has erupted in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, pro-Palestinian protestors from both Lebanon and Syria have confronted the Israeli northern border. A group of Palestinian refugee’s stormed and crossed the […]
It has been a little more than one year since the street protests which rocked Bangkok and resulted in at least 50 deaths took place in the heart of the Thai capital. After stalling for months since the unrest when he had announced a reconciliatory roadmap for the main political parties with elections to follow […]
The Following piece is written by a Yemeni-based journalist who writes for Foreign Policy Association (FPA) and, due to serious security concerns, remains anonymous. In recent weeks the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh has been accused of organizing mass kidnapping of protesters to destabilize the revolutionary movement and instill fear within the population. According to […]
Another friday of protests has come and gone: Assad is still in power, however, many protests continue. The past week has seen a raising of rhetorical stakes from the West, despite the fact that the West is pretty much powerless to do anything. US Secretary of State Clinton suggested that the US is closer to declaring […]
Has U.S. military aid to Pakistan over the past 50 years helped that country in any desirable way? Or is U.S. aid partly the cause of Pakistan’s dire security and development situation? Has aid to the military, and the ill-advised redistribution of that aid to other, less savory agents, fundamentally crippled governance and social and […]
Miyu Uehara, a Japanese celebrity known locally as a “tarento” (talent), hanged herself early Thursday morning. (Some news sources are mistakenly reporting her name as Miyui or Miyuki.) She had just turned 24 on May 2. Uehara was a model who had been “discovered” when she was 18 working at a hostess club (a pricey […]
“The First Grader,” a new movie that is making its way into select theaters (read: New York and Los Angeles) , tells the story of Kimani Ng’ang’a Maruge, an illiterate Kenyan who enrolled in primary school at the age of 84. I’m always wary of intentionally “uplifting” tales, and The New York Times’ review is […]
George Mitchell, the former Senate Majority Leader and Obama administration’s lead Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiator, resigned, effective next week, but his true impact on the peace process will only emerge when the memoirs are written years from now. On the face of it, though, Mitchell, who managed to secure a northern Ireland peace deal, was not […]
Washington is an interesting town. You never know who you may have lunch with on a day which seems quite ordinary. As part of my quest in following Turkish policy makers, today I found myself in a room with Ian O. Lesser from the German Marshall Fund and Semih Idiz who is a senior […]
Earlier this week President Calderón appeared on the Charlie Rose Show. In his usual technocratic fashion, Calderón ticked off the security challenges posed by drug violence in Mexico, then detailed the countermeasures: taking on the criminals, building better law enforcement institutions, and addressing the socioeconomic roots of crime in Mexico. Also of interest, the president […]