The July/August issue of Foreign Policy includes a piece by George B.N. Ayittey that lists what he designates are the world’s worst dictators. The media is jumping all over his unapologetic account. Kim Jong Il places at number one in these “top 23,” and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Iran) is at number eight, but Raúl Castro is given a spot […]
President Obama did as good a job as was possible in his short speech to the country on Gen. McChrystal’s dismissal and the placement of Gen. Petraeus as the leader of all foreign military forces in Afghanistan. In his talk, President Obama emphasized that this was a change in military leadership and not one of […]
With all the problems that Israel has, ranging from terrorism to international bias to internal identity crises you would think Israeli officials would have some sympathy for problems here in the United States. Well, if you thought that, you clearly have never met an Israeli. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak met today with Secretary of […]
The incarcerated leader of Harkatal Jihad al Islam (HUJI), Mufti Abdul Hannan has implicated members of the BNP in a 2004 grenade attack against members of the Awami League. When asked whether they were guilty of the charges brought against them, Hannan, his brother and a deputy claimed they were innocent. Instead, they claimed local […]
Landon Donovan’s extra time goal drove the United States into the next round in the most dramatic way possible. At the Fanzone in Durban the response among the Americans and their other supporters (the locals seemed fairly split between the US and Algeria — not surprising, all things considered) exploded with joy and the sort […]
Timing is everything in the World Cup. Try, if you can, to think back two weeks. If you had an only partially clear crystal ball and you had been told that South Africa would draw Mexico and defeat France you’d have believed that South Africa would rejoice. And that is exactly what happened. Yet as […]
An early summer heat-wave has scorched the Gulf with record temperatures and terminal power-outages are leaving few Iraqis with any way to beat the heat, but plenty to complain about.
Afghanistan is so boring to cover. Sometimes I just sit at my desk screaming in my head ‘SOMETHING HAPPEN ALREADY!!!’ So Gen. McChrystal is now a goner and Gen. Petraeus is back to save the day yet again. Anyway you cut it, this is a sad situation that can only make a difficult situation even […]
As has been well documented over the last few years, anti-semitism is on the rise in Europe, often masked as anti-Israel sentiments. However, the anti-semitic mentality also emerges on its own, with Europeans desecrating Jewish graves, spray painting swastikas in Jew-heavy areas, and other acts. Well, not everyone is taking it lying down. The Dutch […]
Three months after international observers hailed Iraq’s parliamentary elections as a resounding success for sovereignty and civil society, the nation’s fragile democracy is suffering a withering swell of political violence.
Michael Hastings’s article about Gen. McChrystal and the Afghanistan war effort has not only created quite a stir, but may even cost Gen. McChrystal his job as the leader of all armed forces in Afghanistan. While, I will write more on this important story tonight, I’ll give a few thoughts now. First off, I think […]
Hot on the heels of WSJ’s Real Time Japan comes PanOrient News, a new Japan-themed internet service. According to its launch announcement: “PanOrient News is a collaboration between Shingetsu Institute Executive DirectorMichael Penn and the company’s founder, Khaldon Azhari, aiming to challenge the frail grip of the existing English-language news services in Japan with an […]
Cambodia: Corruption and illiberalism pays according to an article running at the Asian Times. The author believes that Cambodian foreign aid has continued to increase, despite Hun Sen’s continued political oppression of the opposition, due to the West’s fear that any decline in aid flows would create a void that will most certainly filled by […]
So I have made my way to Durban, on KwaZulu-Natal’s Indian Ocean Coast and South Africa’s favorite summer holiday getaway. Just a few hours in and I already feel rejuvenated. For a host of reasons — weather, the isolation of my B+B, an inability or unwillingness to adjust to a normal sleep schedule, typical mid-trip […]