Regions

This NYT article sheds a little light on why in the world OPEC would cut production when oil prices are still over $100 a barrel. (The price of a barrel was $104 at close of NYMEX today).

Kalima, an initiative of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, announced its intention to make 8 new titles available, including John Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Restored. Kalima aspires to make 100 new great works of other languages available in Arabic each year; their ambition is to rectify the current rate of translation […]

Last week Mexico's finance minister, Augustin Carstens, estimated the damage of crime on the country's economy to be so bad that it reduces GDP growth by 1% annually.  This high cost comes from lost investment in Mexico and businesses spending 10% more on average to provide for increased security.

  Dans le monde réellement renversé, le vrai est un moment du faux (In a world which really is topsy-turvy, the true is a moment of the false) -Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle Every so often comes an event so bizarre that it provides a lucid glimpse into the dark inner workings of everyday […]

Despite some signs of tentative optimism on the part of parties to the Zimbabwe negotiations,  and despite Thabo Mbeki's best efforts,  Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) do not seem any closer to approaching a deal than they have at any other point in the past month. ZANU-PF appears unwilling to […]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 9 — Signaling a historic shift for a region troubled by decades of conflict, newly elected Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai vowed Tuesday to work together to resolve long-simmering tensions between their two countries and to fight the rising Taliban insurgency on both sides of their border. […]

George Bush today described Pakistan as a central battleground in the so-called war on terror, alongside Iraq and Afghanistan. In a barbed message for the new Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, Bush said Pakistan had a “responsibility” to fight extremists “because every nation has an obligation to govern its own territory and make certain that […]

The FW de Klerk Foundation has released correspondence between the former president and current president Thabo Mbeki in which the former expresses her concerns about the encroachment on the independence of the country's judiciary. Mbeki provided assurances to de Klerk that the government is committed to judicial independence and to upholding the constitution. I have […]

Angolans went to the polls last week and overwhelmingly re-elected the ruling party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). The Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita), the longtime opposition party has conceded, a far cry from the 1992 elections after which Unita took up arms rather than accept defeat at […]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The widower of assassinated former Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto took office as the country's new president Tuesday, facing immediate pressure to crack down on Islamic militants and address daunting economic problems. Pakistan's top judge swore in Asif Ali Zardari at a brief ceremony in the presidential palace recently vacated by Pervez Musharraf, […]

Here in the US, we do not have many discussions about whether our nation is at war in Afghanistan.  It is basically seen as a fact.  After all, we were attacked on our homeland by terrorists from the nation who were backed by its Taliban government at the time.  Only recently, have their been discussions […]

Policymakers and opinionmakers in Washington and the Middle East would do well to pay careful attention to today's article in the New York Times about Egyptians and other Arabs not believing claims by the United States that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attacks of September 11. Some reasoning goes like this: – A […]