Israel has successfully tested a new defense system designed to intercept rockets fired from southern Lebanon and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, public radio reported on Sunday. The "Iron Dome" system is expected to be fully operational within a year and will be able to intercept the military-grade Katyusha rockets used by Hezbollah and the cruder […]
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanese leaders are close to a deal on the formation of a national unity government as stipulated in an agreement that ended the country's political crisis, political sources said on Saturday. They said the new government, in which Hezbollah and its allies would have a blocking minority, could be announced as early […]
John McCain's visit to Mexico in July 2nd and 3rd came as a surprise. The media in Mexico and the United States only reported McCain's travel plans to Colombia and Mexico just a few days before the trip was to take place. During the trip to Mexico, McCain met with captains of industry, politicians, diplomats, […]
General Michel Aoun launched today the National Christian Gathering. As I said before the idea is not bad, just that it pertains to a different time. President Suleiman did something similar and the impression is that the two men are in a contest. It is interesting to investigate, if Suleiman is in contest with Aoun […]
To my readers in the United States: Happy 4th of July! To my readers in South Africa and anywhere else on the globe: Happy Friday! In the last dozen years I believe I have spent more American Independence Day holidays outside of the United States than within it, with most of those spent here in […]
To my readers in the United States: Happy 4th of July! To my readers in South Africa and anywhere else on the globe: Happy Friday! In the last dozen years I believe I have spent more American Independence Day holidays outside of the United States than within it, with most of those spent here in […]
Just a quick break from the travelogues to let you know that you should take the time to read FPA editor Robert Nolan's important recent viewpoint piece “Moving Forward in Zimbabwe.”
The European Commission has put forward a proposal that would allow patients to seek out medical assistance in other countries irrespective of the approval of their health care provider. Citing principles of free choice, free movement and comparative advantage, EU Health Commissioner, Androulla Vassiliou presented the plans in Brussels. Though the Financial Times predicts the […]
In a recent speech Sheikh Nasrallah dedicated the swap with Israel to Lebanon. Many things can be said about Hizballah, but they surely know how to spin almost everything in their favor. Hizballah claims that Israel is frail. Perhaps. However, in spite of its more recent victories, real or imaginated Hizballah is not the way […]
At the end of the day, travel is, for me, about people. Whether I am returning to Africa or to the UK, places I visit regularly, where I have lived and worked, or whether visiting someplace for the first time, such as when I went to China a couple of years back, the most important component to […]
At the end of the day, travel is, for me, about people. Whether I am returning to Africa or to the UK, places I visit regularly, where I have lived and worked, or whether visiting someplace for the first time, such as when I went to China a couple of years back, the most important component to […]
It's amazing how two newspapers have taken the same remarks from the Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari, and spun them into totally different articles. The articles are mainly focused on Zebari's remarks made at a press conference in Baghdad earlier today. New York Times’ article is titled “Iraq Hints at Delay in US Security Deal” and […]
Hizballah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged Wednesday his group had brokered a prisoner swap with the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The deal involves the remains of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Hizballah fighters abducted the Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid in July 2006, an event that led to the July War between […]
Ahmed Rashid a Pakistani journalist/author has a new book called ‘Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia.’ I have not read the book yet, but here is a review by Philip Bowring and an interview with the Rashid by Radio Free Europe correspondent Abubakar […]
In today's International Herald Tribune, Henry Kissinger delivers a very optimistic assessment of US-Russian relations in the post-Putin era. The king of realpolitik describes the Medvedev period as “a transition from a phase of consolidation to a period of modernization”, one which “may, in retrospect, appear as the beginning of an evolution toward a form […]