As Russia replayed its glorious WWII past in Red Square, a darker history repeated itself just miles away. “The Russian Prime Minister has called for tougher safety measures after one of the country’s worst mine accidents in a generation” reads the lead paragraph of a BBC article entitled “Russia’s Mine Safety Woes. The article appears […]
The Israeli economy has defied all odds. A mere 60 years ago, most Israelis were farmers, living on kibbutzim and cultivating the land, transforming swamps and deserts become a world leader in science, with high-tech booming and Israeli companies taking the lead on military technologies. Similarly, Israeli drug maker Teva has become a generic pharmaceutical […]
In a fitting end to the much publicized trial of Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving terrorist of 26/11, a death sentence was awarded to him on five counts, including waging a war on India. Judge M L Tahiliyani sentenced him to five life terms and five death penalties for his display of “exceptional depravity” during […]
There’s quite a bit of information out there on Israel-related issues and its often hard to weed out the nonsense from the biased to the legitimate (and, many of this blog’s readers might label me in the former two categories). An assortment of news sites, ranging from the Jerusalem Post to Haaretz to Ma’an to […]
Today is Victory Day. I remember eating dinner at my grandparents’ austere Voronezh apartment as a kid with real silver silverwave, butter knives with hollow bulbous handles and faded ornate monograms featuring a giant, unslavic letter: W. It was ‘trophy’ silver my grandfather brought back from Berlin 65 years ago. A long time, but not […]
Below you will find a topographic map of Afghanistan and its neighbors. The dense colors of the map showcase the high elevation and dry climate of the country and contrast greatly with southeastern Pakistan. Check out the full size of this map and others at www.afghan-web.com.
The ramifications of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are now hitting home in the Arctic. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has ordered a temporary nationwide freeze on issuances of new permits for exploratory oil well drilling. The freeze will last until the White House has evaluated the Department of the Interior’s study on the […]
The Cable, a blog about the inner workings of the U.S. foreign policy machine run by Foreign Affairs magazine, has posted a sort of “who’s who” of America’s Arctic policymakers. There is no one person in charge of Arctic policy in the U.S. government, and instead, policymaking responsibilities are scattered throughout various departments. This confusion […]
A substantial piece of the politics and history–perhaps, shall I say, the political history –of Bangladesh has now been definitively relegated to the rumor-mongering heaps of badly fashioned narratives and outright lies that have for long run the public discussion of Bangladesh’s founding. It seems India had erased the records of the much of its […]
Police broke up a commemoration in Baku last Friday of the murders of twelve people—most of them students—at the State Oil Academy on 30 April 2009. The perpetrator of last year’s massacre, Farda Gadirov, was a Georgian of Azeri descent who shot students and staff indiscriminately once he gained entry into the academy. As police […]
The chill in US-Azerbaijani relations may be thawing soon. After months of perceived snubs from Washington and acrimony out of Baku, which included a recent announcement by Azerbaijan that they have pulled out of a scheduled military exercise with the US, a Turkish newspaper reports that the two countries have discussed a possible visit to […]
There is a big debate in Jewish/pro-Israel circles on whether being anti-Israel is inherently antisemitic. The basic argument is that no other country has its legitimacy questioned and every other ethnicity/religion has its own country. The concept of Mexico is not generally called illegitimate nor is the concept of New Zealand, albeit some fringe groups […]
Here is a brief look at the stories making headlines this week: Iraq vote winner asserts right to form government [AP] The leader of the top vote-getting coalition in Iraq’s inconclusive March 7 elections insisted his bloc still has the right to form the next government despite an alliance forged this week between two rival […]
I’d earlier written about Rushanara Ali, the Labour candidate from the Bengali enclave of Bethnal Green and Bow. The latest news from the BBC shows that she’s won her seat handily, winning twice as many votes as her nearest competitor, the Liberal Democrat candidate. This is a good day for many, a bleak one for […]
When President Obama announced that he was sending an additional 30,000 American troops to work under Gen. McChrystal’s leadership in Afghanistan, his very next sentence stated that US forces would be starting a withdrawal 18 months later on July 2011. I was critical of this at the time and still am. The US and the […]