On Wednesday March 20, Seleka rebels in the Central African Republic (CAR) called off a truce negotiated at the beginning of 2013 and began an invasion of several towns on their way to the capital of Bangui. The rebels claimed that President François Bozizé failed to live up to the original agreement by expelling nearly 2,000 […]
Turkey’s Jailed Officers A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on Turkey’s record number of jailed journalists, citing a number of reports and statements by rights groups and international organizations that have criticized the country for arresting journalists over alleged terrorism charges. Just to make things clear for our readers, the journalists and rights activists are not […]
Secretary of State John Kerry toured around some of the thorniest foreign policy issue-countries on his plate. A seemingly hostile partner in President Karzai, now friends again; Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s move to potentially undercut U.S. credible commitments on Syria by allowing use of Iraqi air space; Syria. Syria. Syria. Syria.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is a global Jewish human rights organization that confronts anti-Semitism, hate and terrorism, promotes human rights and dignity and among other things, stands with Israel and defends the safety of Jews worldwide. For the past three years, the SWC has been putting together an annual list of the “Top Ten […]
Japan has appointed an Arctic Ambassador, a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states. Masuo Nishibayashi is already the Ambassador in charge of Cultural Exchange, so he will now fill two roles simultaneously. Nishibayashi joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1983 and has spent most of his career in the Americas. He has […]
At first glance, the temperature on the Korean Peninsula appears to be tense but stable, and at a time when the United States is successfully concluding an annual military exercise with South Korea. Last week the U.S. publicly announced that strategic bombers — B-52s capable of launching nuclear weapons — would take part “in flight […]
On March 22, 2013, WVUM, the student radio of the University of Miami, invited me into its station in order to discuss the mess taking place in Cyprus. Despite talking for almost 15 minutes on the roots of the crisis in Cyprus and the ECB’s ultimatum, I could not resist continuing the discussion on Iran, […]
He was the original oligarch: a talented mathematician who had used his smarts and ruthlessness to amass an enormous fortune in the wreckage of the Soviet Union. Eventually, he became one of Russia’s most powerful men, a courtier to former president Boris Yeltsin. Boris Berezovsky went on to survive assassination attempts and even the wrath […]
This is the third in a 3-part series on Shahbagh, its history, its politics and the normative views it captures (and fails to capture). What recommends the Shahbagh movement for any praise whatsoever? Mainly that it registers in form the demands for justice for those killed during the Liberation War against Pakistan in `1971; justice […]
What could be worse than living in a North Korean labor camp? Apparently, not much. This documentary centers mainly on Shin Dong-Huyk, an inmate who escaped Camp 14 and who now lives in South Korea. The tale he tells is horrific: beatings, torture, hard labor and near starvation are all the norm. He began hard […]
Up until President Obama touched down in Tel Aviv earlier this week, the headlines roared for years about new tensions between the United States and Israel, not to mention the sour relationship between bout countries’ head of state. During the last U.S. election, Republicans and their sympathetic pundits branded the incumbent president as one of […]
“Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,” exclaims Shakespeare’s Henry V in his fervid St. Crispian’s day speech on the eve of the battle of Agincourt in 1415. In the observance of this month’s 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq there appears to be no danger of consigning this event to oblivion. Most […]
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