The Egyptian Stock Exchange’s main index rose a bit over 1% today, one day after a terrorist attack targeted tourists in Cairo. Perhaps investors judge the attack an aberration and are confident that the government will stabilize the situation and reassure tourists. On the other hand, investors could be responding to a $10B bond purchase […]
Toby Jones, history professor at Rutgers and expert on Saudi Arabia, assesses King Abdullah’s cabinet shakeup of last week in Foreign Policy. Jones argues that the King’s sacking of the head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice – i.e. the morality police, or mutawa’een – and his appointment […]
One of the key questions posed by the formation of the Congress of the People in South Africa is what the likely consequences are going to be for African National Congress dominance. A short term answer will arrive soon enough when the results of the 2009 election are announced. Present indications are that the ANC’s […]
*Update: Here is my review of Adeeb Khalid’s ‘Islam after Communism’ on the CA site. Josh Hammer of FPA’s ‘Terrorism‘ blog, wrote a fierce criticism of the Pakistani governments move to grant the Swat region autonomy. Hammer rightly fears that this may lead to other such claims of autonomy in the tribal areas of Afghanistan/Pakistan […]
(By Matthew Axelrod and Joseph Simons) Here’s a first-blush report on yesterday evening’s bombing in Cairo: The attack targeted a café in a tourist area and was clearly aimed at foreigners. The bombs were rudimentary, which means they were either manufactured by amateurs or perpetrators posing as amateurs. Mainstream Egyptian media and a number of […]
Multinational corporations’ commitment to China In a recent survey conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce and the consulting firm Booz&Allen ten percent of multinational corporations said they were planning to relocate their manufacturing facilities from China to lower cost countries like India or Vietnam. This number, down from 17 percent last in last year’s […]
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ousted the lead negotiator for an Egypt-brokered truce deal with Hamas. Negotiator Amos Gilad criticized the government’s strategy last week, stating that preconditioning the release of abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit is an insult towards the Egyptians. Conversely, Olmert continues to assert the need for Shalit’s release before any truce could […]
When I read today’s Kyrgyzstan piece from Joel Brinkley, a former foreign policy hack for the NYT, I was convinced it was a spoof. The article, entitled “Why is Russia Bribing Kyrgyzstan?”, laments “the sheer gall behind Russia’s open challenge to Washington”, “Russia’s hostile intent”, “Russia’s determination to show Obama that Russia controls Central Asia”, […]
Now that Manas was officially ordered to be closed this past Friday, the US has 6 months to close up shop. On Tuesday, General Petraus visited Tashkent to discuss alternative supply routes. As you likely know, in 2005 the US base in Uzbekistan was closed after Uzbek authorities machine gunned 500 people in Andijon and […]
With ominous irony , Obama’s deployment of 17000 additonal troops to Afghanistan coincided with the 20th anniversary of the Soviet pull-out from that country. “They have repeated all our mistakes”, said Russia’s Ambassador to NATO Dmitri Rogozin. Soviet troops in Afghanistan called the mujahedeen fighters “dukhi”, or ghosts, for their ablity to spring up out […]
The Wall Street Journal has posted an in-depth look at the controversy surrounding Norwegian energy company StatoilHydro’s Snoehvit project. Since 2002, the company, of which the national government owns a majority stake, has been trying to procure natural gas from the seafloor beneath the Barents Sea. Operations at Snoehvit, whose name means “snow white” in […]
A bomb went off about an hour ago in downtown Cairo near the Hussein Mosque in the popular tourist area near the open air market Khan Al-Khalili. Major news sources have reported that at least one person, a French tourist, has been killed. The Egyptian Ministry of Health has only reported up to 15 injured, […]
The LA Times had a piece yesterday on Lebanon’s thriving banking system. Riad Toufic Salame, the central bank’s governor, imposed very tight regulations on Lebanese banks during his tenure, and made it illegal for the banks to invest in mortgage-backed securities. Staying away from those investments has made Lebanon a safe investment – a pleasant […]
While the Christians felt the Syrian regime hassle and abuse, the Sunnis minded their own business and the Shias had to deal with Israeli aggressions and the lack of state involvement in their areas. That was the general framework and things moved within this paradigm for too many years. In 2005 it was Sunnis turn […]
Alexandria is truly something special. Egypt’s finest national museum is housed in a villa there, nearby a stunning opera house nestled almost imperceptibly between courtyards of the city’s streets. The seaside cafes serve the best cappuccinos in the country and the no-frills fish restaurants need no enhancement. Alexandria marks itself with tasteful elegance. Add to […]