WASHINGTON, Dec 20: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, both in public statements and private meetings, has urged Pakistan to understand the gravity of the current situation and take immediate steps to stop terrorists from using its soil for attacking others. In a speech at Washington's Council on Foreign Relations, Ms Rice said what Pakistan […]
As the Kyber Pass and other transportation lanes through Pakistan into Afghanistan have become increasingly subjected to Taliban and insurgent attacks, NATO has looked to alternative routes. In just the last week or so there have been at least 3 separate attacks on NATO supplies inside of Pakistan, including one incident where hundreds of NATO […]
Morgan Tsvangirai is threatening to walk out of the negotiations in Zimbabwe if abductions of members of his Movement for Democratic Change continue. In a context within which reason prevails, this would seem a perfectly reasonable stand to take. One assumes, then, that Robert Mugabe will find a way to turn Tsvangirai's stance into an […]
In The Mail & Guardian Lucky Sindane analyzes “The Year That Was” in South African sport.
It appears that the ANC is beginning to understand that the Congress of the People is not going away, its leaders and increasingly robust membership is serious, and that COPE will be a factor in the 2009 elections. The ANC believes that COPE might be able to draw about 10% of the popular vote, thus […]
The United Nations, via a statement from Secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, has acknowledged that the peacekeeping mission in Darfur faces “enormous challenges.” This unfortunate, but not unexpected, news allows me the flimsy pretext to remind you of my FPA analysis on Darfur, “‘Never Again,’ Again.”
Today's BBC featured an article about a small town in Michoacan, the state that has been consumed by drug violence. But today's story centered on the affect that decreasing remittances is having on town, a decline of around 12% thus far. Many families are sending less money from the US to their relatives in Mexico, […]
It is hard not to frame the war of words between the African National Congress and the Congress of the People as akin to the two toughest kids in school meeting up on the playground. The hints of threats pass from the lips of ANC spokesmen even as COPE's people claim not to be at […]
Robert Mugabe is using allegations (most of which appear to be of his own creation) of a plot against ZANU-PF leaders as justification to engage in what The Mail & Guardian is calling “a new, bloody, crackdown” on the opposition. Given that Mugabe and his spokespeople are blaming the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for […]
The Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA; full disclosure — I have been a member since the organization's founding) will be holding a forum with the U.S. Air Force Research Institute on February 13, 2009 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Air Command and Staff College at Alabama's […]
The foreign minister of Afghanistan met with his regional counterparts on Sunday in Paris to discuss closer cooperation in terms of narcotics trafficking, counterterrorism measures, and how to stabilize the country. The conference was brought together by France's Foreign Minister Bernard Koucher who asserted: "There is a consensus that there can be no peace, security […]
Jimmy Carter visited the Middle East this week, and spoke at the American University of Beirut on the importance of a settlement between Israel and Palestine in the near future. He seemed optimistic regarding the capacity of the President of the United States to nudge the Israelis toward mutually agreeable conditions for settlement: “I found […]
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