The opposition candidate, John Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), appears to have won a slim margin of victory in Ghana's runoff election held last week. Both optimistic and pessimistic observers now hope that the results hold up and that no violence springs up in the wake of the final tally. Place me in […]
As the worldwide economic downturn continues it is showing its frightful face in many ways. The World Bank has just reported that worldwide remittances, money sent from immigrants back to their homeland, are drammatically slowing down and causing further impoverishment for the families back home. This is especially serious for the Central Asian states as a […]
LAHORE, Pakistan ‚ When Muhammad Saad Iqbal arrived home here in August after more than six years in American custody, including five at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, he had difficulty walking, his left ear was severely infected, and he was dependent on a cocktail of antibiotics and antidepressants. In November, a Pakistani […]
NEW DELHI ‚ Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India accused unspecified official agencies in Pakistan on Tuesday of supporting the gunmen who struck in Mumbai in late November. He was speaking one day after India handed Pakistan what it said was the first comprehensive evidence linking Pakistan to an alleged "conspiracy" hatched on Pakistani soil. […]
I am currently working on a longer piece for the Foreign Policy Association's main page and newsletter on the spread of terrorism and extremism in Afghanistan and Central Asia. It will concentrate on the recent influx of Islamic militants from the Stans’ into the Pakistan-Afghanistan shared border region. The recent make up and activities of […]
ISLAMABAD: The top US diplomat for South Asia will visit Pakistan this week amid simmering tensions between Islamabad and India in the wake of the deadly Mumbai attacks, Pakistan's foreign minister said Sunday. Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a press conference broadcast live from Multan that he would meet US Assistant Secretary of State for South […]
KARACHI: The government of Sindh has banned a controversial novel about Hazrat Aisha, calling it offensive. The novel 'the Jewel of Medina,’ written by Sherry Jones, is said to contain objectionable material which can "create a law and order situation in the country.' The department of interior in an order said all copies of the […]
KABUL: A strong earthquake shook northeastern Afghanistan and Pakistan early Monday, sending people running from their homes, but there were no immediate reports of damage, witnesses and officials said. The 6.0-magnitude quake struck at 3:43 am, around 275 kilometres northeast of the Afghan capital Kabul and near the border with Pakistan, the US Geological Survey […]
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) ‚ A suicide bomber attacked police officers in northwest Pakistan on Sunday as they treated civilians wounded by an earlier explosion, killing seven people and wounding at least 25 others, a police official said. The officers were struck as they investigated a blast in Dera Ismail Khan, near the Afghan […]
In 2006, Kazakh President Nazarbayev made an impressive speech promoting the idea that the country he ruled would continue to grow in the years ahead and soon be among the world's top 50 economically competitive nations. Unfortunately, the economic downturn and lowering of energy prices have made this promise unfulfilled as of yet as Kazakhstan […]
Two articles on religious programming in Arabic on Islam are out this week: The New York Times profiles Saudi moderate host Ahmad al Shugairi and the Los Angeles Times profiles Egyptian moderate Mostafa Hosni. Both pieces are concerned with a. highlighting a trend within the Arab world toward using television as a religious outreach tool, […]
(UNRWA stands for UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees). The donation announcement from DoS came in the midst of, well, this. The press release made sure to include the following: The United States reiterates its deep concern about the escalating violence in Gaza and commends UNRWA's important work meeting the emergency needs of […]
In early December, Kyrgyzstan's state radio took off the air US-funded Radio Free Europe ‘Radio Azattyk’ without providing any explanation. It has also been reported that BBC programming was also taken off the air. It appears that the Kyrgyz state is clenching a vice on domestic and international media outlets, forcing its citizens to only […]
Is the African National Congress losing its best people to the newly formed rival Congress of the People? That is an argument being put forth in at least some circles. In response to another series of high-profile defections from the ANC to COPE Dirk Smit, Speaker of the City of Cape Town municipality, has asserted that […]
Helen Suzman, longtime stalwart of the Progressive Party and its various iterations (the Progressive Reform Party, the Progressive Federal Party), passed away on Thursday at the age of 91. Suzman was a long-time thorn in the side of the National Party, and if the Progressives’ anti-Apartheid bona fides have sometimes been overstated, her commitment to changing […]