As Iraq enters its post-parliamentary election phase, the situation resembles that which Lebanon faced after its own parliamentary elections last June. The two countries have much in common and it might be useful to compare them. Their Shia Iraq and Lebanon have similar heterogeneous sectarian breakdowns. For Lebanon, the Shia, Sunni, and Christians represent the […]
100 mile per hour winds hit parts of the Indian states of Bihar, Assam and West Bengal and claimed at least 130 lives. Bangladesh wasn’t spared. The raging cyclone hit Rangpur and killed at least five people and injured over 200 people. Meanwhile, over 100,000 houses have been demolished by the storm throughout the effected […]
Recent scuttlebutt around Zimbabwe had the government abandoning its ill-conceived recent laws demanding that at least 51% of all businesses in the country be owned by Zimbabweans. From whence did the scuttlebutt come? A spokesman for Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. On Wednesday that rumor was squashed. Who did the squashing? President Robert Mugabe. This tells […]
The government of Bangladesh will not register the Rohingya who are currently living in squalor outside the bandustani refugee camps in Cox Bazaar. There are already some 28,000 registered refugees in the two camps that comprise the state sanctioned shelter that has been provided the Rohingya. That space–whatever its hue–has been set aside for […]
Facing the prospect of Greece’s financial woes destabilizing the European economy, EU finance commissioner Olli Rehn proposes that national budgets in the euro zone are to be subjected to a regulatory system akin to the German Finance Planning Council. In this system, German budget policies are co-determined by the federal government and the states. Stating […]
In the past week, there have been announcements from several science agencies regarding projects and missions in the Arctic. On Thursday, April 8, the European Space Agency launched the CryoSat-2 satellite from Kazakhstan. CryoSat-2 cost €140 million to manufacture and was a replica of the first CryoSat, which crashed unspectacularly into the Arctic Ocean in […]
First, please understand that it does not matter if you are pathan or belong to Hazara. It is not a linguistic issue – it has become an ethnic issue. So, not everyone living in Hazara speak Hindko and there is a respectable chunk of population that converses in Pushto, but, these Pushto speaking people too […]
Economic development in the West Bank has largely been used as an indication that rejecting terrorism and accepting Israel’s legitimacy can transform Palestinian society into a viable independent state. The economic situations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip differ substantially, in part because the Gaza Strip has no economy, complicated by the closure of its borders […]
Micro-finance has become the darling of developmental economics—and many charities—over the past few years. But greater awareness doesn’t always translate into greater effectiveness. As reported in today’s New York Times, for nations with a dearth of traditional lenders new operators have begun to step into the fray, offering micro loans with what turns out to […]
Two recent news stories out of Nigeria continue to keep me on edge about the near future of that country. First, the United States has called for the removal of Independent National Election Commission (INEC) chairman Maurice Iwu. Basically, the Obama administration thinks Iwu is incompetent. But more to the point, they worry that he […]
In honor of the momentous events occurring in nearby Kyrgyzstan, this weeks Afghan-related map will be of the regional variety. It is an ethnicity map of Central Asia. Click on the previous link or the map to get a larger version. The map’s legend is in French, but can still be followed. Here’s a great […]
It has been known for a while that people in Hazara are not going to accept the proposed name Pukhtoonkhwa and they made it clear, repeatedly, that the people of Hazara don’t consider themselves to be Pukhtoons, and residents of Hazara are interested in protecting their language, their culture, and their heritage and any attempt […]
While Medvedev and Obama were negotiating nuclear quotas and ways to protect the world from atomic terrorism, back home, some wondered whether they would have been better off talking adoption quotas and ways to protect Russian kids from their American foster parents. That’s because more adopted Russian children have died at the hands of their […]
Israelis tend to love vacationing in Sinai, a small peninsula situated in Egypt that was once occupied by Israel before its return as part of a peace deal. Sinai is somewhat like the Israeli beach town of Eilat — they’re both on the Red Sea and boast some of the world’s best scuba diving. But, that’s about […]
The African National Congress continues to meet with coalition partners the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), to try to smooth over some rough edges revealed in a series of techy exchanges last month. It sure seems as if the ANC and COSATU are in a permanent state of assessing the status of their […]