Few things in life are certain. The sun will rise, the sun will set, and journalists will look at an African crisis and almost inevitably chalk it up primarily to tribal rivalries — and usually they depict those rivalries as “ancient” (and thus somehow immutable). This lazy shorthand almost always obscures more than it elucidates and helps to […]
The legal and cultural battle of whether or not Muslims should be able to wear a headscarf, hijab, in educational or other government facilities has been a well-publicized, contentious debate in such places as Turkey and France, both either straddling or inside the West, but this issue is also starting to boil in parts of […]
The LA Times has an interesting Q and A up today with Farhad Khosrokohavar on his work interviewing inmates in a French prison who were detained for terrorism.
There was an apparent coup attempt in Guinea-Bissau over the weekend. This IRIN report shows how the coup attempt “has underscored the country's chronic political volatility.”
Amidst the constant thrum of tumult in Zimbabwe — the criticism from foreign dignitaries locked out of the country, the outbreak of cholera throughout much of the country, a surge in anthrax that has killed both people and livestock, and the general humanitarian crisis caused by mismanagement, malfeasance, and avarice on the party of the […]
Good news that hopefully just keeps getting better. The Afghan government, not US/NATO troops, has arrested 10 suspects in the Nov. 12 female student and teacher acid attack. It looks like it was a combination of local Kandahar and federal police and law officials who performed the investigation, arrests, and has reportedly garnered confessions from […]
A Russian journalist assaulted and left for dead for exposing an abuse of power by the authorities. The whole world knows the story of Anna Politkovskaya: a Putin opponent gunned down in the lobby of her Moscow apartment after publishing a series of articles on Russian atrocities in Chechnya. Except this journalist is called Mikhail […]
Columbia University, in partnership with the Department of State and some other organizations, including Google and AT&T, is convening a conference from 12/3-12/5 called “the Alliance of Youth Movement” to discuss the ways that Facebook and other social networking websites can provide a launching pad of sorts for nonviolent political resistance. DoS invited 17 organizations […]
In August 2008, an article in the New Yorker described a number of outbreaks of highly resistant infections caused by "superbugs‚ those bacteria that have developed immunity to a wide number of antibiotics." Although the author of the article, Jerome Groopman, was referring to the harmful inhabitants of the human body, he could have been […]
The Egyptian government has appealed a recent court ruling annulling a 2005 Egyptian-Israeli agreement for the export of natural gas to Israel. The court's ruling called for the freezing of the shipments on the basis that the deal was never approved by the Egyptian parliament. Furthermore, opposition to the deal objects to Egypt selling gas […]
With all of the verbiage flowing and the spin doctors in full effect in South African politics today, it is hard to separate what is true from what is self serving, what is accurate from what is accusation. To wit, consider the following questions (with answers that I humbly submit for your consideration): Is South […]
Zimbabwe denied entry into the country this weekend to a group of respected international figures, including former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, former United States President Jimmy Carter, and human rights advocate (and wife of Nelson Mandela) Graca Machel. Called “The Elders,” the group did meet with Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan […]
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