The BBC is reporting that there have been additional clashes in Abeyi, Sudan's oil-rich town, leading to fears that we could seek another civil war break out between the north and south of the troubled country. A Sudanese official from the South, P.Amum, secretary general of the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), told […]
Thursday, May 29, 2008 – 12:55 PM Manchester, Britain (SANA) The environmental campaigner and journalist George Monbiot last night tried and failed to make a citizen's arrest of the former Bush administration official John Bolton over war crimes committed during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. As Bolton ended an hour-long discussion at the Hay […]
I have been keeping a close watch on the situation in South Africa and noted today that one of the areas worst affected by the violence against foreigners is seeking assistance: “South Africa's Western Cape is to ask for parts of the province to be declared a disaster zone in the wake of recent anti-foreigner […]
This blog is dedicated to relating how the US Presidential candidates view the world and are viewed by it. Washington Post Editorial Page Editor and columnist Fried Hiatt penned compared the worlviews of Senators McCain and Obama by pulling back the curtains on the recent row over Obama's policy of taking with US enemies. In […]
Ron Nessen, a journalist in residence at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, reported on what he calls a “rare event” in Washington. His article, titled “A Defense Secretary Says Something Nice About a Secretary of State,” relates the remaks Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made at a recent Brookings Board of Trustees meeting. “Verbal battles, turf fights, and policy […]
The three remaining Presidential candidates in the two major parties – Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain – issued a highly unusual joint declaration today on Darfur. In a statement coordinated by the activist group Save Darfur, the candidates said they “stand united” on Darfur, repeatedly condemned the Sudanese government's failure to take […]
Amnesty International's Report 2008 considers the current state of the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights,’ sixty years after it was adopted. In the section "At a Glance,' Amnesty International challenges world leaders to apologize for six decades of human rights abuses and "to deliver concrete improvements." The press release said that the "most striking images of 2007 […]
The Irrawady Delta is Burma's food bowl. Its livestock is gone and the rice fields destroyed. Already suffering from the devastation of Cyclone Nargis and from the intransigence of a military junta, the people of Burma are now having to contend with a threefold increase in price of basic food stuffs. A 60-year old retired […]
In Burma (Myanmar) cyclone Nargis's death toll has reached some 134,000 people dead or missing, one third of which may be children according to UNICEF. Thousands more young children are expected to die within two to three weeks from hunger if doesn't reach them soon according to Save the Children. According to Save the Children, […]
(Secretary Rice and Secretary Milliband in Silicon Valley) Britain's Foreign Secretary David Milliband continued his US tour last week by conducting an interview with Public Radio International's “The World” program. You can listen to the interview here. On the controversial issue about whether Iran–and every country on earth–has the right to develop nuclear power for […]
I looked last month at the car of the future, and particularly a superb show from Nova. Zero emission cars fueled by zero emission power plants give zero emissions. That equation works for me. (See also A Little Automotive Fun – Plus Some Serious Business from a year ago, and other posts under Transportation.) There's […]
The British and some other European media reported a pledge by Barack Obama to strengthen U.S. links with Britain in a telephone address to a group of influential American expatriates gathered at the London home of Elisabeth Murdoch (daughter of Rupert Murdoch) for a supposedly private fundraising event. Guests and other co-hosts included Kay Saatchi, […]
Will Hamas-Syrian relations be affected by the Arab state's recent Turkish-mediated talks with Israel? According to a report on AlJazeera.net, Syria's dependency on groups like Hamas and Hezbollah for power, and the shifting of the strategic landscape in its favor, may dissuade the Arab state from distancing itself from these militant groups. The report features […]
The former Finnish president, Martti Ahtisaari, has won UNESCO's annual peace prize. Ahtisaari was the President of Finland from 1994 to 2000. The award is known as the Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize, and Ahtisaari is the recipient of the award on account of “his life-time contribution to world peace.” Mr. Ahtisaari is the founder of the NGO, Crisis […]
Senator Obama's policy of negotiating with our enemies has come under fire recently from both Senator McCain as well as from Senator Clinton. Philip Fernando the former editor of a Sri Lankan paper, the Sunday Observer, weighs in on the issue in a piece published yesterday by the Asian Tribune. Here's an excerpt: “Obama has seized […]