ISLAMABAD: Gunmen riding a motorbike shot dead a retired major general of Pakistan Army and his driver in the outskirts of the capital on Wednesday. Major General (R) Ameer Faisal Alvi from the Special Services Group (SSG) had retired more than two years ago. He was heading for his Islamabad office at 9:30am on Wednesday […]
I haven't done much book reviewing on this blog besides Ahmed Rashid's ‘Descent into Chaos‘, and that's really not going to change, but I would like to list a group of recent publications concerning Afghanistan and Central Asia that you may find interesting and worth looking into. Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a […]
Georgia is nervously calling “for an independent investigation into who started the war between Russia and Georgia…after the New York Times and BBC's Newsnight programme raised serious doubts about Georgia's claim that its attack on the breakaway Georgian enclave of South Ossetia on August 7/8 was in response to Russian aggression”. But it was the […]
We can be sure that more information will come to light over time, but as of now we know that Nouri al Maliki's government is pushing out those employees in the government's ministries charged with overseeing the bureaucracy and keeping it transparent. The forcings-out (firings, retirements, etc) were not publicly announced but have recently come […]
The Movement for Democratic Change's Morgan Tsvangirai does not want further sanctions placed on Zimbabwe. Whatever the country's political situation, which seems likely to remain as fragmented and stalemated as ever, with Robert Mugabe firmly in control, Tsvangirai sees sanctions only doing harm to a populace already suffering deeply. Tsvangirai clearly seems to take into […]
South African politics are nothing if not colorful. Senzo Mchunu, the KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary general of the African National Congress claims that the Congress of the People's Mosiuoa Lekota needs to stop “urinating” on the ANC.
Several Egyptian bloggers traveled to the US to cover the American presidential election on their blogs; this story in the National asks them to share their reflections on the process with respect to Egyptian domestic politics. Excerpt: For the most part, the bloggers are holding their breath, wondering how the new Obama administration will affect […]
In an exciting change, the Foreign Policy Association is combining the South Africa Blog with this Africa Blog, which will be the new permanent site of FPA Africa commentary. I will continue to post on South African issues, but this transition will be better for me, as keeping both blogs has not always been easy, […]
It is probably not particularly surprising that the dissidents who broke from the ANC to form the Congress of the People (Cope) are also rethinking the relationship between parties, government, and the state. Cope chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota argued on Sunday in Durban that South Africans should have the opportunity to vote for individuals rather than […]
Last Wednesday, a couple perpetrators used water guns to shoot acid at a group of girls headed to school in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Details about this despicable act are still rather muddy, with the number of perpetrators and victims still unclear after reading several reports. The New York Times report has the number of victims reaching […]
WASHINGTON: President Asif Ali Zardari has voiced the hope that President-elect Barack Obama's administration in the US will recognise Islamabad's key anti-terror role and understand the fact that Pakistan has been a victim of terrorism. ‘We think we need a new dialogue and we're hoping that the new (US) government will understand that Pakistan has […]
The Council for Islamic Ideology (CII) under the chairmanship of one of Pakistan's top scholars of Islam, Dr Khalid Masud, has recommended that divorce laws in the country be brought in line with the edicts of the Quran by giving the right of divorce to wives too. It says that a woman has the right […]
Who's an economics expert? Who knows how to solve the world's current financial crisis? Was that Kazakhstan on the ‘Amazing Race‘? Answers: Not me, probably no one, and yes, Nick and Starr are unbeatable! With the leaders of most of the world's economies attending an international summit to try and combat the current economic downturn […]