Regions

FORCED face first into the dust and pinned down by three men in black hoods, a young offender faced the merciless force of Taliban justice in Pakistan last week as he was beaten 30 times with a hard rod fashioned from old car tyres. The punishment , for smoking cannabis , was inflicted in front […]

President Calderon's meeting with President-elect Barack Obama this past Monday comes at a crucial time for both countries.  While it is customary for the American President to visit Mexico early in his administration, it is unusual that Calderon and Obama met before the Obama inauguration on Tuesday the 20th. Clearly the global economy is of […]

With all this attention being paid to Gaza Tunnels recently I’m printing here a June 2008 posting I wrote for a personal blog. It details how Washington approached the Gaza Tunnel issue in the past few years.  It is my personal belief that Gaza Tunnels are a red herring, and that neither Israel, the US, […]

Dion Nissenbaum, Jerusalem bureau chief for McClatchy, reviews potential scenarios for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the short-term future. Basically, argues Nissenbaum, he can't win, but the international community hasn't got a better alternative, so we can't let him lose, either. His analysis focuses on the international community – e.g. the United States and Israel […]

I was lucky enough to have a piece of mine, ‘Terrorism in Central Asia‘ be published on FPA's main page. The piece deals with the rise in terrorism from and in the Central Asian states, mainly from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and how it is impacting the stability near the Afghan/Pakistan border. Here is an excerpt: […]

Mozambique is facing an impending food crisis, and some regions of the country are already at that point. First, huge swaths of the country have experienced half of their normal rainfall in recent months. Then heavy rainfalls caused flooding, with further heavy rains (and flood devastation) expected. Now, to add a Biblical element to this […]

In this column Nicholas Kristof asks us to reconsider out view of sweatshops inasmuch as the loaded term ignores the fact that these factories and businesses can represent a significant economic opportunity for the developing world. Most of his examples are from Asia, but Kristof does have Africa in mind as well: The best way […]

Guinea's military junta, which took over in a coup at the end of December, has installed the country's new government over the objections of most of the rest of the region, continent, and world. There was no indication that this is to be a temporary arrangement pending elections.

“African solutions to African problems” became the unofficial rallying cry for the new Pan-Africanism since the 1990s. The continent's leaders, from Gaddafi in the north to Mbeki in the South embraced what Mbeki called the “African renaissance.” In a guest opinion piece at allAfrica Tsoeu Petlane, a researcher for the Governance at the South African […]

I have long found some of the simplistic commentary about South Africa's inaction with regard to Zimbabwe to be frustrating, even if the motivation behind the frustrations with Thabo Mbeki's seeming inaction in particular is understandable. I do however find the criticisms of the failures of African leadership as a whole to be compelling. Where […]

Though the state of Turkmenistan still has to be considered one of the world's most oppressive societies, ever since the death of President Saparmurat Niyazov, a man who seemed to rule over his people like he was trying to ensure a spot in the Dictators Hall of Fame, slight signs of progress have been made […]

Tala al Ramahi offers an optimistic perspective on women's advancement and men's role to play therein in the Emirates.