Regions

In what should surprise no one, the global credit crisis is trickling down to Africa. The theory of supply-side economics, popularized though not invented during the American presidency of Ronald Reagan, holds that prosperity at the top ends of the economy has a trickle-down effect that benefits everyone. In effect, supply side economics formalizes the […]

At The Mail & Guardian Ferial Haffajee pulls no punches in  condemning “the infantilization of politics” in South Africa. A taste: If there's one thing driving me into the arms of the ANC –Mark2, it's Youth League president Julius Malema and his ilk. And I’m not alone. As he announced UDI last week, former ANC […]

Is it me, or are Jacob Zuma's warnings to ANC dissidents planning their own party both vaguely ominous and toothless? They strike me as ominous because of their threatening nature that will almost certainly stifle not only true threats to the party from within, but also legitimate dissent on important issues. Party discipline is one […]

More evidence of the intimate connections between violent Islamic groups and other criminal organizations. Of course, whether Hezbollah can be accurately characterized as a terrorist group is subject to debate. The United States government says it is, while the Lebanese Parliament – and the group itself – consider it a political party with a military […]

If you read most of the news and editorial pieces I posted on Monday, you probably have a negative outlook on the stability and chances for progress in Afghanistan, and for the most part, rightly so. But there are positive things going on in the country, things that before 2001 probably seemed impossible to most […]

The visiting American official couldn't have been more blunt. After attending Monday's Friends of Pakistan meeting in Islamabad, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher told a news conference, ‘It is not going to be a cash advance for Pakistan’. Similar sentiment is said to be filtering in from Saudi Arabia and China at a time […]

ISLAMABAD: Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Tariq Majid has observed that the country's armed forces have to be prepared for the whole spectrum of threats in the wake of emerging geo strategic environment where non traditional security threats were taking the centre stage. Delivering key note address at the inaugural session of […]

LAHORE: As Pakistan's finance managers began crucial talks on its Economic Stabilization Programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday in Dubai, most commercial banks back home had already run out of dollars in hard cash. While some banks were straight forward in "informing' their customers that they couldn't withdraw hard cash from their […]

NEW DELHI ‚ After more than 60 years, trade opened Tuesday across the de facto border dividing the Indian and Pakistani parts of the disputed region of Kashmir. Sixteen Indian trucks, loaded mostly with apples and walnuts, rumbled across the border on Tuesday morning, said Pawan Kotwal, the commerce secretary for Indian-administered Kashmir. Trucks from […]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Taliban militants bombed a convoy of Pakistani troops and opened fire on the survivors in a battle that killed five security officers and seven attackers, officials said Wednesday. Violent clashes in regions near the Afghan border and suicide bombings across the country are undermining confidence in Pakistan and its crisis-threatened economy. […]

An interview with Mohammad Fneish [Hizballah] explaining that May events were a solution.  “… Hizbollah acted when the other side tried to undermine the resistance. It had nothing to do with the balance of power in terms of the internal political situation. They threatened the resistance. We weren't the only ones to be using weapons, […]

Jordan has arrested a poet, Islam Samhan, for including Quaranic verses in his poetry; they considered it an insult to Islam. (This is actually against their codified Press and Publications Law).