Hamas continued reaching out to the Obama Administration, this time in an exclusive interview of the group’s leader Khalid Meshal with the New York Times. He stated that the group intends to pursue a working relationship with the West, and urged observers to understand that the organization can adapt and negotiate depending on the circumstance. […]
Greetings from the University of Keele in the North Midlands of England. I will be spending the next month here as a visiting fellow at the David Bruce Cetre for American Studies. I am still very much settling in. It is, however, always nice to be back in the UK. I find that the UK […]
China’s updated renewable energy plan China is expected to announce a new blueprint for renewable energy development. The new industry plan will update a long-term industry plan released in 2007. Initial targets for wind, hydro-, solar, and biomass power as specified in the older plan will be raised significantly. The youngest renewable energy blueprint, for […]
Sufi Mohammad, the man on whom the government pinned its hopes after entering into a peace deal with the extremists, has declared that democracy amounts to kufr. Concurrently, referring to the ‘security forces and the rulers of Pakistan’ as the militants’ target, a TTP spokesman has said that the ANP that heads the NWFP government […]
On Monday, April 4, veteran journalist Ahmed Rashid addressed a select crowd at Karachi’s Mohatta Palace Museum. Not surprisingly, the subject of his talk was ‘Afghanistan and Pakistan: Quest for Peace or Recipe for War?’ He argued that Pakistan was facing a major existential crisis: ‘I no longer say that there’s a creeping Talibanisation in […]
WWII Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West, a PBS-BBC co-production that premieres in the US on May 6, engages, shocks – and misleads. When someone at PBS sent the FPA Russia Blog an advance DVD of the series, I was both excited and puzzled by its audacious plunge into the well-trodden turf […]
I don’t normally use this blog to discuss specific violent attacks in Afghanistan, but these incidents are becoming appalling to read about, I can’t imagine living them. In a series of attacks yesterday, over 25 Afghan civilians, security officials, and government figures were killed. The provincial mayor of the eastern province of Laghman was killed […]
Russia plans to build floating nuclear power stations in the Arctic in order to exploit its oil and gas reserves. The power stations, which will consist of two nuclear reactors atop a steel platform, will allow Gazprom to power its drills in the Arctic’s notoriously difficult waters. The floats would also maintain their own waste and […]
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates arrived in Egypt today in the first stop on a week-long tour of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I suspect that Gates will make some unannounced stops in the region (to Iraq, perhaps), but I can’t verify that. Gates set out three goals for his meetings in Egypt: (1) encourage […]
It’s no surprise that the residents of Egypt’s Manshiyat Nasser (also known as “Garbage City), the vast majority of whom are poor Copts who make a living in part by raising swine (as well as sorting and selling garbage), did not take well to the Egyptian government’s recent decision to slaughter the country’s 300,000 pigs […]
Due to anti-Arab cheers emanating from the stands of right-wing affiliated soccer team Beitar Jerusalem, the team must play a home game against rival Maccabi Tel Aviv sans fans as punishment. The recent infraction occured last month when multiple fans initiated chants insulting Muhammed. In the past, fans booed during a moment of silence for assassinated […]
With words of caution, Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that his country will increase its troops in Afghanistan by nearly 50%, moving from around a 1,000 to 1,500. These troops, like most of their European counterparts in NATO, will mainly be training Afghan military and police units as well as providing security for the […]
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