At Salon, Glenn Greenwald accuses Hillary Clinton (and by extension American policy) of hypocrisy in demanding accountability for war crimes in Africa while overlooking some heinous behavious on its own part or that of its allies. Meanwhile the advocacy group ActionAid thinks that it is all well and good for Clinton (and again, by extension […]
Add to the list of monstrosities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Male rape as a weapon.
It does not seem all that unreasonable for countries like South Africa to take the lead in talking to the United States and other developed Western powers on the issue of climate change by saying: You’ve got yours. So now you can afford to make the changes necessary to running a greener economy. That’s great. […]
Boy, this seems potentially problematic: “Zimbabwe’s mines minister said on Wednesday the country was reviewing a bill forcing foreign companies to sell stakes in their businesses to make it more user friendly.” I have no problem with trying to find a way to reconsider and even to adjust foreign investment. But as with Zimbabwe’s land […]
I think we need to introduce a Godwin’s Law for South Africa: Catsam’s Rule: If you make comparisons between Apartheid and the rule of the African National Congress in which the ANC comes out looking unfavorably, you have automatically lost the argument. (Catsam’s Corollary: Ditto for arguments that South Africa is following the path of […]
Russia will open a new base in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, later this year. Osh once hosted a Soviet airbase and is strategically located in the Ferghana Valley, extremely close to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The agreement will last for 49 years, to be renewed thereafter. All soldiers there will have diplomatic immunity, a courtesy not extended to […]
One ghost hovered over the Fatah conference this week. Not quite the ghost of Yasser Arafat, rather that of the conspiracy theory that Israel poisoned, gave AIDS to, or murdered the late Palestinian leader. Many Fatah members who adored Arafat criticized the Palestinian Authority for failing to launch an investigation into Arafat’s death. Some Fatah […]
President Felipe Calderón is trying his hand at regional power broker. Deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya called on Mexico yesterday to bolster his presidential claims, hoping that Mexico can exert the necessary diplomatic pressure to return him to office. Costa Rican President Óscar Arias notably failed to broker a change in Zelaya’s status over the […]
Hillary Clinton’s seven-nation trip to Africa started off in Kenya yesterday. Several critics of Obama’s first Africa trip, which took him to Ghana, thought that maybe he ought to start with Kenya, given both that country’s troubled recent history and Obama’s own familial ties to the East African nation. But as with so many of […]
President Ahmadinejad was sworn in for his second term by the country’s parliament today. Once again the ceremony had notable absentees. The New York Times reported that all but 13 of the 70 lawmakers forming a reformist bloc in Parliament were absent from the inauguration, and some of those who did attend walked out as […]
It seems Cambodia’s ruling party, the People’s Party (KPK), might be learning the art of soft authoritarianism – by legal manipulation from Singapore’s PAP (People’s Action Party). Despite the fact, the KPK won 90 of 123 seats in the last election, the party still feel vulnerable to the press and opposition, because their criticism centers on […]
Merely three years since the Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah, the terror group substantially increased its military capabilities and poses an extreme risk to Israel. Hezbollah reportedly has 40,000 missiles targeting Israel, with some of the rockets capable of striking as far as Tel Aviv. During the 2006 war, the Israeli military attacked […]
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