Regions

In June 2010, the Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed 367 senior executives, all of who had direct input into their company’s decision-making regarding business in the Middle East, about their perceptions of investment in Iraq. All major industries are represented, with energy, manufacturing and financial services having the strongest representation. The ensuing report, titled Iraq Through Investors’ Eyes, details the refined perspective of investors who are already operating in Iraq and the perceptions of others that are either weighing their options or have decided not to invest for the time being.

India is getting ready for U.S. President Barak Obama’s visit to the country beginning on November 4th. Apart from the political and diplomatic dimensions of the visit, the most interesting aspect is the Indian media’s pre-visit coverage. Editorials in leading news dailies and comments by strategic observers in the run up to President Obama’s visit […]

Proving that scientists are a resourceful bunch, researchers from the University of Washington and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources tagged 14 narwhals in Baffin Bay with satellite-linked time-depth-temperature recorders to monitor ocean temperature in a previously little-studied region. The thermometers recorded data over the course of three winters from 2005-2007, and the results of […]

Pakistani community in America is watching the mid-term elections in the United States with fascination as for some of them, it is a great exercise in human freedom. For this community, this election is also the source of anxiety because of its impact on Washington’s relationship with Islamabad.  Some argue that it will further complicate a very […]

I’m back from my trip to Israel and am pulling together my thoughts. When I do so, I’ll surely write something and will guide you as to where to read them. I plan to resume normal Africa-related posting duties in the next day or so.

The challenge of being gay and lesbian in Uganda, a highly religious and deeply conservative Christian country, is constant isolation, insults, threats and violence. That’s exactly what a Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone, an anti-gay newspaper, did when on November 1, 2010 again published pictures of 14 men it identified as the “generals” of the gay […]

One is a telegenic billionaire turned dissident, and the other is a bunch of fog-sodden volcanic rocks at the edge of the earth. But the Khodorkovsky case and the Kuril islands dispute have more in common than meets the eye. The Kuril islands, like Yukos, were strategic assets seized by an emboldened Russian state from […]

The post-election turmoil in Iran and the enormity of the threat it posed to the regime’s stability forced the Iranian government–under a new and still emerging makeup—to put great emphasis on social stability and, as a result, to divert its resources toward the containment of the Green Movement and the ensuing unrest that gripped the […]

As President Obama prepares to go to India for a three-day state visit, U.S. policy pundits are busy proffering ideas for the bilateral agenda.

The Islamic State of Iraq, an branch of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), took credit for last night’s massacre at a Baghdad church that killed 52 Iraqi, claiming the attack was designed to avenge the treatment of Muslim women in Egypt.

Tomorrow voters in California will decide whether or not to approve Proposition 19, legalizing marijuana in the state. The Atlantic magazine just published a transcript in which they ask five Mexico experts what they think the result might be on Mexico. Initially, the respondents’ opine on the parallel between Colombia and Mexico. Robert Bonner, former […]

The Future This dispute could be settled with a classic “land swap”, such as China’s Western claim  for India’s eastern one;  which is already the international accepted status quo.  In fact China has already proposed this twice, once in the the 1950s and again in the early 1980s.   Russia struck a similar deal with China […]

I’d written earlier with some thoughts on how to cut apart the Taliban in Afghanistan from their Al Qaeda counterparts. Broadly, I’d argued that one needed to separate out the incentives and motivations (en bloc) of the Taliban from their foreign, multi-national, globalist counterparts.  Separated out– as hanafis (nationalist jihadis)  and salafis (globalist jihadis)– NATO […]

Europe in the past has seen its fair share of successful (and unsuccessful) mass movements descending in the street and clamoring for justice of course. The 1968-69 demonstrations spectacularly failed (Prague) or led to ambiguous changes in the social life styles of society difficult to measure (Germany, France). The 1989 mobilizations were an unequivocal success […]

Most of us writing and following the Middle East can easily describe the region and its politics as dynamic. Priorities can change anytime and without anticipation. This can be attributed to the vast pool of players in the region and their ideologies and interests. A decade ago, after Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon, Hezbollah announced […]