U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he would seek a second term in the top post at the international agency, with another five year tenure spelling possible disaster for Israel. The Middle East has been in the throes of a so-called Arab Spring, with some governments — such as the Syrian regime — conducting countless […]
I question the wisdom of the African Union (AU) to send the South African President Jacob Zuma, who is also the SADC mediator and facilitator on the Zimbabwean crisis, to Libya in an attempt to revive the AU “roadmap” (another AU loaded word) for ending the conflict between Muammar Gaddafi and the anti-Gaddafi uprising. Zuma’s […]
This past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine had the harrowing tale of mob vigilantism that targeted the wrong person in Diepsloot, one of Johannesburg’s townships. The story captures many of the issues that envelop South Africa today — issues of crime and punishment and vigilantism; of victims and poverty and despair; of hopelessness and hope […]
I’m exhausted from 100+ degree weather and hosting family, but to hold you over, I point you to Zunguzungu, which had a massive “Sunday Reading” post on, well, Sunday.
Japan’s largest business lobby, Nippon Keidanren, is urging Prime Minister Naoto Kan to step down in order to pave the way for his Democratic Party of Japan to form a grand coalition with the opposition Liberal Democratic Party. Nippon Keidanren chairman Hiromasa Yonekura said, “I would like the prime minister to sacrifice himself for reconstruction […]
On Friday I mentioned the now completed “Conference for Change” held by the Syrian opposition in Antalya, Turkey. The conference was very important for a variety of reasons. Today I want to expand a bit on why that conference was so important, who exactly was there, dissect the final statement issued by the conference, and […]
Nigerian anti-corruption officials arrested the outgoing speaker of the country’s House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, at his home in Abuja on Sunday, on suspicion of defrauding the country of undisclosed amounts. The arrest took place after a four-hour standoff. I am always curious as to what these sorts of high-profile arrests mean, especially in country’s […]
It’s hard to push off the already emergent, now growing belief that the Pakistani military, and indeed the Pakistani government, is not making strong enough moves against the insurgent groups. The recent news that Ilyas Kashmiri, a top terrorist aligned with al Qaeda who trained as a Pakistani special forces officer, does not diminish the […]
As was expected, during his farewell tour of bases in Afghanistan Secretary of Defense Robert Gates argued for maintaining the maximum number of combat troops feasible in Afghanistan well past the July drawdown. Just today, in Kandahar Province, Secretary Gates said that he’d advise the Obama administration to keep as many battle ready boots on […]
Since the Arab Spring the global media seems to have found a new obsession – a preoccupation with the remaining ruling dictators, their powers, legitimacy, impending revolutions, and the viability of totalitarian regimes in general. By the “global media” here I mean the news media (TV, radio, newspapers) and the Internet which also includes social […]
As I predicted, Bafana Bafana earned a 0-0 draw in Cairo, in their African Cup of Nations Qualifier, solidifying their chances of moving forward in the CAF while making Egypt’s odds of advancing virtually nonexistent.
Chapter 3: Indian Riddle and the SAARC Ripple Nothing sums up the Indian context to the UN Report (“Advisory Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka Allegations”) on Sri Lankan war than the two widely-held beliefs that lie at the opposite ends of the spectrum viz., India helped the rise of LTTE and India […]
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