I would just like to highlight this amazing story: A British Army explosives specialist who became a legend by risking his life to defuse more than 60 Taliban roadside bombs was killed in Afghanistan during his final mission before he took leave, the Times of London reported Tuesday. The specialist’s name was Staff Sergeant Olaf […]
The Israeli war with Iran wages onward, even though no official declaration from either country has yet to be issued or even a single bullet officially fired from the army of one of the states at the other’s military. The most recent event accentuating the war came today as Israeli Navy Seals commandeered a boat […]
As recently as April and the eve of the South African elections, prominent and controversial former-ANC clergyman-turned Congress of the People-leader Alan Boesak was trying to persuade Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille to abandon her ultimately non-viable party and to join forces with COPE. Zille had no interest of course and instead leads the […]
By now we are all well aware of China’s “Scramble for Africa.” But did you know that Brazil is also heavily involved with trade and investment across Africa? Many observers fear that the new wave of involvement in Africa will result in another stage of neocolonialism or clientelism. But there also exists the possibility that […]
South Africa has announced that it will miss a self-imposed deadline of 2014 to redistribute a third of the country’s land from white to black farmers. There is much to lament in this decision. Land reform is necessary, many of the black masses have not seen the benefits of the New South Africa that have […]
After twenty years of post-Communism, it’s time to ask: cui bono? According to a sweeping Pew Research Center poll of Eastern Europeans released yesterday, “the prevailing view in Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary is that people were better off economically under communism. Only in the Czech Republic and Poland do pluralities believe that […]
It feels like the last couple of days, each morning bought a new story about the Iranian nuclear program. Is Iran cooperating or not? How did their meeting with the IAEA go? What are the Iranian leaders saying about the ElBradei deal? How is the United States responding to Iran’s equivocation? Here is a quick […]
The Economist reports that Mexican business leaders envy Brazil. Mexicrats must have been miffed when Goldman Sachs anointed the ‘BRIC’ without including a ‘M’. At the time (2001) there was reason to protest. In the previous half decade Mexico’s GDP growth more than doubled Brazil’s: 4.5% versus 1.9%. Mexico had just joined Chile as the […]
On the eve of the assassination of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Israelis and the world’s leaders remember the deceased champion of the peace process and Israeli hero. Rabin, who shepherded the Oslo process from an idea to a historic signing of principles, strove for the implementation of a solution to the conflict that guarantees Israel’s […]
Presumably bringing to an end one of the more bizarre chains of events in recent African history (and yes, I am well aware of just how brazen that assertion is) President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equitorial Guinea has pardoned the conspirators in the 2004 coup plot in his country. Simon Mann, a shady British (via […]
If you thought that you kept Kosher by refraining from eating pig and shellfish and separated milk and meat products, you’re clearly wrong. A group of orthodox rabbis want to expand Kahrut laws to the Internet, particularly the use of mobile phones to surf the Web. Many religious and non-religious residences place filters on their home computers […]
The kidnapping and murder of at least nine Colombians along Venezuela’s border region during late October once again increased tensions between the two countries, which are already on shaky diplomatic terms. An article within El Universal gives a nice overview of recent political exchanges between Caracas and Bogotá. The Venezuelan vice president, Ramón Carrizález, declared […]
Would be presidential runoff challenger Abdullah Abdullah is out and Hamid Karzai is staying in. Everything is now all cleared up. Right? What? There are issues still left to settle? Even solve?!? The near and long term future hold the answers to….President Obama’s new Afghan strategy decision and implementation? Will a second term Karzai be […]
Those of you interested in learning more about young people in the Middle East may want to check out this new publication from Brookings Press, Generation in Waiting: The Unfulfilled Promise of Young People in the Middle East, by Navtej Dhillon and Tarik Yousef. Both parties have ties to the World Bank, and Yousef to […]
Terrified German officers called them Night-Witches. ‘Night’ because of the way they idled their engines to glide silently over German cities in daring night-time bombing raids. And ‘witches’, because they were women. Today, the BBC aired an unmissable documentary about the legendary Soviet 46th Night Bombers Guards Regiment, the first female combat fighter pilots in […]