The flood in Pakistan promises to soon make a dire situation intractably tragic. Aid money promised by international donors is trickling into the ground, and more often than not, isn’t reaching the neediest of the millions of victims of this two-week long catastrophe, People are fighting and looting over food and the cramped conditions in […]
WHILE SADC heads of state and government meet in Windhoek this week, civil society organisations from the region are also holding a two-day meeting in Windhoek called ‘The SADC People’s Summit’. The two-day event started yesterday and is organized by the Southern African People’s Solidarity Network (SAPSN). Read more at http://allafrica.com/stories/201008170634.html
The Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are meeting in Namibia’s capital city Windhoek for SADC’s 30th Summit yesterday August 16 and today August 17, 2010. Apparently, high on the summit agenda is the organization’s pledge to address the region’s “hotspots” such as Lesotho, Madagascar, Zimbabwe and the east […]
Iranian officials have formally rejected Brazil’s second offer of asylum to Iranian Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who is sentenced to death by stoning for alleged adultery. Iran’s rejection of Brazil’s diplomatic attempts follows President Lula’s initial unsuccessful appeal to the Iranian government made late last month and forms part of an international effort to free Ms. […]
With all the hub-bub about the Wikileaks, tragic death of the humanitarian workers, President Karzai’s anti anti-corruption crusade, etc. an important seachange in the Obama administration’s Afghan strategy has appeared; The administration is discreetly walking back its July 2011 drawdown date. Here is Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week [my emphasis]: “I think we need […]
Just a few stories from South Africa, with brief commentary as appropriate: Public sector employees in South Africa went on strike last week. They were asking for a wage hike and increased housing allowances. Expect heightened labor activity across South Africa in the weeks and months to come. South Africa was able to avert potentially […]
To freshen up after saving the Amazon from the construction of the world’s largest dam and then helping beat the Gulf oil spill, Avatar director James Cameron decided to relax in an unusual setting today: by celebrating his birthday in a submarine at the bottom of Lake Baikal. While Cameron’s connection to Baikal so far […]
The government has arrested 3 garment industry labor leaders on charges that they had engineered violent and disruptive street protests.. This after mass protests against a proposed 3000 taka minimum wage for working in the retail garment industry in Dhaka and its environs. Though nearly double the standing wage, workers had demanded 5000 taka. Indeed, […]
The Lebanese Government has recently called for all citizens and expatriats of Lebanon to donate money to its military. This move was prompted by the U.S. halt of a $100 Million aid package to the Lebanon military. Congress decided to reexamine its policy towards Lebanon after the now infamous tree cutting incident. The IDF has […]
The recent news of the young couple stoned to death in Kunduz Province in Northern Afghanistan suggests that the Taliban are returning to power, town by town spot by spot through an assertive campaign based on long-accepted conservative social practices. Belief and adherence to Shar’iah has long been a lodestar to the principally conservative Pashtun majority […]
The long-discussed merger of Helen Zille’s Democratic Alliance (DA) and Patricia De Lille’s Independent Democrats (ID) is another step closer to happening as the DA has signed a “memorandum of understanding” that is supposed to lead to a full merger by 2014. Four years is a forever in South African politics (think of how things […]
Amidst austerity program s and gloomy worse-than-expected forecasts for the Greek economy, the European economy has caught a break. According to the latest data, the euro zone recovery outstripped that of the US. A 1,7 pct expansion across the 16 euro zone and the 27 EU nations as a whole, compared to the same quarter […]
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