Regions

It's that time of year again. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization Annual Summit! The meeting will be held in Dushanbe, Tajikistan on August 28, and foreign ministers from all six of its member states have already concluded a meeting going over a few topics to be discussed at the larger summit. The group of ministers decided […]

Stephen Biddle, Michael E. O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack have a plan for withdrawing from Iraq.  Their article, published in the September/October 2008 Issue of Foreign Affairs states that Democratic and Republican goals can both be met through a withdrawal timeline.  They argue that serious draw downs should not occur until after the Iraqi national election, set […]

In the wake of the xenophobic violence that engulfed Gauteng earlier this year the government set up camps for those foreigners displaced by the chaos. Those camps were set to close on 15 August, but a group of foreign nationals has brought an application for relief to the Constitutional Court to keep the camps open. […]

It appears that the curious case of Cape Judge John Hlophe might reach its resolution soon one way or the other. Hlophe has been accused of trying to influence judges on the Constitutional Court to rule favorably for Jacob Zuma in one of the stages of the ANC President's corruption case. Hlophe has applied to […]

After the high-profile kidnapping and brutal murder of a 14-year-old Mexico City boy in June raised outrage among Mexicans, the federal government recently decided to form an anti-kidnapping squad.  Since the police were implicated in the aforementioned kidnapping, the authorities are taking special measures to ensure cooperation between levels of the government.  To that end, […]

Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's head of state and, let's not mince words, war criminal, is leaving Sudan for the first time since his indictment for war crimes at the International Criminal Court. He is visiting Turkey, which does not recognize the ICC, to attend a summit of African leaders. Too many African states have been unwilling […]

The Salafi freezed the agreement with Hizballah. Sheikh Hassan Shahhal, who signed the understanding on Monday with Hizbullah's Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed, declared freezing the agreement pending “appropriate circumstances that allow its implementation.” Sheikh Hassan made the announcement after a meeting with leaders of Salafi factions presided over by their highest authority Dai al-Islam al-Shahhal who […]

Estimates of Zimbabwe's rate of inflation now have it pegged at 11 million percent (and, almost inevitably, rising). Those sorts of numbers are nearoly impossible to fathom, and can be attributed in large part to the country's political stalemate, to Robert Mugabe's cynical economic and political policies, and to the instability concomitant with Mugabe's reign.

Today's reports from Brussels and Tbilisi offer disturbing signs that Russia is unlikely to return to the status quo ante in the Caucasus. Instead of withdrawing its military forces to where they were on August 6th, Russia has strengthened its control over South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and a strategic area of Georgia proper extending well beyond […]

While the drama about Musharraf's resignation is playing out in Pakistan, there are other profoundly important issues that deserve our attention. One of the most heated topics of debate in Pakistan is the case of Aafia Siddiqui. Siddiqui was educated at MIT and Brandeis, but now she is suspected of being linked to Al Qaeda. […]

Two interrelated items today for your viewing pleasure. Descent Into Chaos We have already discussed Ahmed Rashid's new book Descent into Chaos: The US and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, but in light of changing events, Musharraf's resignation (here is an editorial by Rashid about Musharraf's leaving), the worsening […]

Ahmed Rashid's opinion piece in today's Washington Post explains the dilemma for Washington. We have Nawaz Sharif who is totally opposed to anything and everything Washington, and we have Asif Zardari, who is moving cautiously and deliberately. Washington has to move decisively to help Mr. Zardari, who is open to working with the Western countries […]