Yesterday, May 3rd, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S. Husain Haqqani went on Charlie Rose to defend his government’s inaction on the set of circumstances and events surrounding the near capture and, ultimately, targeted killing of Osama bin Laden. It was a revelatory chat. For, during that time in one move Ambassador Haqqani tried to quelch […]
The past few days have been telling in the ongoing struggle to determine Syria’s future. At this stage last week, momentum seemed to be building for the opposition as demonstrations gained numbers and force by the week. Certainly there are still significant elements working towards the downfall of the Assad regime, both in the streets and […]
Just like the United States, India too has a host of enemies who have taken shelter or been given sanctuary deep inside Pakistan. So how likely is it that New Delhi could pull off a daring commando assault against them? The short answer is not at all.
A few days ago Egypt facilitated and hosted a meeting between Fatah and Hamas in Cairo. It was largely viewed as a public relations move to legitimize the Palestinian push for statehood through the United Nations, as well as boost Egyptian image. There is serious doubt about the sincerity of the unification attempt and many […]
On May 3, 2011, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry or the Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission (KIC) released its final report on the interethnic violence and clashes between the country’s ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities last year. The KIC was formed based on an initiative from the Nordic countries for an independent international inquiry and was […]
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party will no longer have to experience the frustration of being a minority government. In today’s elections in Canada, the Tories won 167 seats in Parliament, easily surpassing the 155 necessary to form a majority. This will be Canada’s first majority government in nearly 10 years, which should make it […]
The documentary program “Frontline” aired a comprehensive set of documentaries on the occasion of Osama bin Laden’s capture and death. It is an excellent collection, a much better resource for this throbbing, restless time than most newspapers and broadcast journalism outlets. (Though the broadcast is not yet available in its entirety, please find an excerpt […]
The outcry is global, the West made a strategic mistake by going to Libya. The humanitarian desire to protect civilians in Libya from their deadly dictator has shifted to a political desire of regime change. NATO and its allies are getting seriously bogged down in Libya raising several points. First, France is no longer the […]
Germany and Austria opened their labor markets for the EU class of 2004 over the weekend, the last EU nations to do so. However, based on press reports from Germany and Poland, there appear to be divergent views regarding how much labor will actually transfer. The Frankfurter Allegmeine Zeitung believes that any Pole seeking work […]
Bin Ladin is dead. Again. In the last ten years he has been reported “killed” at least four times. The only difference this time was that the President of the United States announced the death of the number one terrorist in the world. Above all, this time he was killed not in Tora Bora, not […]
The Internal Affairs and Communication Ministry announced Monday that the number of children under 15 in Japan has reached a record low of 16.93 million after the 30th straight year of decline. Children account for 13.2 percent of the population. On the other hand, seniors 65 and older account for a record high of 23.2 […]
The following piece was written by Reza Marashi, Director of Research at National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and a former Iran Desk Officer at the U.S. Department of State. The Iran Working Paper Series is supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ploughshares Fund and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. Against a backdrop of international internet freedom […]
AFGHANISTAN: ALREADY AT UNEASE FOR POST-WAR Afghanistan may be one place, where its people have legitimate worries after the elimination of one of the strongest points of the U.S. war on terror. Now that the “terrorist” is gone, the war might be shortened, making the Afghan lands abandoned once again. No surprise that there were […]
Are Museveni’s sins less despicable than Mugabe’s or Kaddafi’s? Yoweri Museveni’s violent response to mass protests in Uganda – sparked by rising food and fuel prices –-is just one of many such traits found in most dictators in the world (if not in Africa). Media reports suggest that Museveni will stop at nothing but a […]
The death of the most wanted Islamic militant – a soft spoken, bearded man – came ten years after his most audacious and deadly terrorist act. His killing in a special forces operation placed a giant question mark over the future of the insurgency he had led, but lent an equally big boost to the President’s […]