The 2008 Failed States Index, a joint venture of Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund For Peace, has been released, and as usual, Africa is sadly overrepresented. The continuing presence of African states on this ranking (the continent holds more than half of the slots among the twenty worst — most failing — countries) has caused Peter Pham […]
WSN: Why do we keep hearing that all or most of the Shias are with Hizballah? AA: The story that Shias are with Hizballah is far from being accurate. Iran is spending a lot of money in Lebanon, and that's why they are able to have a base of supporters, services and a social network […]
GCC states don't anticipate much fallout from the current … situation on Wall Street at this point (this point being Wednesday … so we’ll see). Many of the Gulf currencies, though, are pegged to the dollar, so it remains to be seen how effectively they can avoid the impact of US market fluctuation. The GCC […]
OIJ (my acronym, re-use at your own risk) is a part of the al-Qaeda network. Yemen has taken 25 men into custody as suspects.
… 46% to 20% who affiliate with the Republican party. This is true because of all the reasons the Republican party is struggling right now (don't make me name them), plus being at the target end of recent civil liberties infringements. Can anyone think of a good lipstick-on-a-pig joke about this?
As Wall Street collapsed with a bang, almost no one noticed that we’re on the brink of war with Pakistan. And, unfortunately, that's not too much of an exaggeration. On Tuesday, the Pakistan's military ordered its forces along the Afghan border to repulse all future American military incursions into Pakistan. The story has been subsequently […]
VIENNA (Reuters) , Pakistan is close to completing a second plutonium-producing reactor, is well into building a third and these could increase its ability to make atomic bombs, a U.S. think-tank said on Thursday. “The wider implication … (is that) there is a real risk this will exacerbate an India-Pakistan nuclear arms race and increase […]
WASHINGTON: Militants hiding in the tribal areas are not a threat to Pakistan alone but also to the entire world and Pakistan needs to deal with them, a State Department official said on Wednesday. "We do make clear that there is an important security interest, not only for the United States and the region but […]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan , Pakistan's prime minister said Thursday that strikes by foreign forces were “counterproductive,” as officials said there was no warning about the latest U.S. missile strike in the Pakistani northwest. Meanwhile, militants briefly seized 300 boys at a school in northwest Pakistan on Thursday, police said. The incident ended with the deaths of […]
WANA / ISLAMABAD, Sept 17: Hours after the American military commander had assured Pakistan's political and military leadership that the United States would respect the country's sovereignty, missiles were fired from US drones on a house in South Waziristan, killing six people and injuring three others. The unmanned aircraft which entered the tribal area from […]
Apparently a ‘clash’ occurred in Turkmenistan's capital of Ashgabat last Friday and Saturday in which heavy fire was exchanged, tanks and armored vehicles were used, and 20 or so Turkmen police officers were killed, who the clash involved besides Turkmen officers and what it was about is still open to debate. Turkmenistan's state media made […]
Thabo Mbeki will be fighting for his political life this weekend when the National Executive Council (NEC) of the African National Congress (ANC) meets. Supporters of Jacob Zuma believe that Mbeki is behind political machinations in the judiciary aimed at Zuma and have called for Mbeki's ouster. Mbeki's supporters insist that the President is not […]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan , Pakistan said Thursday it was not warned about a suspected U.S. missile strike in its northwest that came the same day a top American official assured Pakistani leaders of U.S. respect for the Muslim nation's sovereignty. The reported attack will likely fuel anger in Pakistan over a surge in cross-border operations by […]
The NYU Center for Global Affairs hosted an event recently called CGA Scenarios: Iran 2015. The goal of the event was to produce a publication that examined three different possible scenarios for the US relationship with Iran over the next 7 years in a manner cognizant of the complex nature of Middle East politics and […]
Tzipi Livni, formerly Israel's Foreign Minister, was elected Prime Minister. She has three months to assemble a working coalition, or new elections will be held. Since she's been active in the peace talks up to this point, we can expect a continued focus on that issue. She was profiled by the Times magazine last year […]