It is amazing how fast the news stream from the Middle East. Less than a day after the Arab league approved another round of indirect talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, the indirect talks that were at the behest of the U.S. mediator in the region. Israel snubs the world and declares it will […]
Foreign Policy magazine posted a very interesting feature about Iraqi refugees in Syria. An excerpt from a book by Deborah Amos describes the underground economy many Iraqis were forced into after Sadaam’s fall. The refugees are prohibited from working in many jobs in Syria, therefore, many women have turned to prostitution as their only means […]
If Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were to make a list of countries that he loves right now, I would imagine his list would be very similar to this: 5. Iraq: For stealing the spotlight away from Iran. This week, Iran and its nuclear program took the backseat as the American policy makers watched the Iraqi […]
In what could potentially be a significant step towards women’s empowerment in India, the Rajya Sabha* yesterday passed the ‘Women’s Reservation Bill’ with 186 votes. Also known as the Constitution (108th) Amendment Bill 2008, it seeks to reserve 33% of the seats in the national and state legislatures for women. The Manmohan Singh government had hoped to have it passed on March 8, International Women’s […]
East Timor: The would be assassins of Timornese President José Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão have been given sentences ranging from 16 to 24 years in prison. This would-be junta rebels was mostly composed of disaffected police and military. This blog detailed the events that preceded this trial in more detail, here. Indonesia: Another […]
The Awami League government has promised that it will not halt any ‘pro-people’ public policy works that were initiated by the previous BNP led coalition government. Speaking to Dr. Margaret Chan, the Director General of the World Health Organization, the Prime Minister reaffirmed her commitment to social development in far-flung villages. To cite just one […]
The Awami League released the following after CNN rated Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed as the sixth most powerful woman in Asia. More important that the fact of her rating is the reasons she was rated as such. “Awami League President & Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been rated as the sixth most powerful women […]
The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington D.C. think tank, has a new project on its research agenda: Tocqueville On China, an intellectual experiment that channels the penetrating observations of the French political observer Alexis de Tocqueville in order to elucidate the current state of China’s civil society. According to the project’s mission statement, this […]
Vice President Biden has arrived in Israel with the express purpose of restarting peace talks. So far, Vice President Biden has assured Israelis of the unshakable ties between the U.S. and Israel and has remained positive at the prospect of indirect peace talks. Most news media outlets have reported that the Palestinian Chief Negotiator, Saeb […]
Texas in Africa (who is in Georgia) has a thoughtful, perceptive post on an alarming (and surprising) upsurge of violence, specifically a spate of grenade attacks, in Kigali.
On International Women’s Day, March 07, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared that the Awami League “will eradicate gender discrimination from Bangladesh by 2021, the golden jubilee of the country’s Independence.” Speaking in Dhaka, she reminded her audience that though Islam secures women’s procedural and property rights, the BNP-Jamaat coalition, the previous government in power, made […]
Foreign Policy Association’s Water’s Edge series currently features an article by Daniel Widome analyzing President Obama’s surge strategy by taking a closer look into the Marja offensive and recent arrests of high ranking Taliban members inside of Pakistan. Here’s an excerpt: Taken together, the operation in Marja and the arrests in Pakistan could signal an […]
With the announcement that Israeli and Palestinian officials intend to resume peace talks, stakeholders and analysts are chiming in with their interpretation of events. Because the Palestinian Authority agreed to drop peace talk preconditions that would entail a complete settlement freeze, the two sides will resume postponed talks through a negotiator. The resumption of talks […]
The elections in Iraq are over with relatively lower number in violent incidents and attacks against the voters. A positive sign indeed of the progress Iraq has achieved, manifesting jubilation and declaring the beginning of a new era, however, is premature. We must keep in mind that the government in Baghdad is operating from behind […]
