The international tribunal that will try the suspected assassins of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri is set to begin its work by the beginning of next year, a source at the U.N. told As-Safir on Thursday. The source, who is close to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said the U.N. chief “has pledged clearly that progress will […]
Hizballah has a new department for Arab relations run by Sheikh Hassan Ezzedin. In an interview with al Rai al Aam [Kuwait] he explained why the need for this department and what's the objective. …Q: Hezbollah introduced changes to its organizational structure and created an Arab relations position. Does this have anything to do with […]
Today I stumbled upon a fascinating BBC World News that shows another aspect of this fascinating and diverse country: a photo article on Mexico's female “luchadores”. Check it out here.
Morgan Tsvangirai is walking a delicate balance for very high stakes in Zimbabwe. While trying, ultimately, to unseat President Robert Mugabe (and let there be no mistake that this has been his goal all along, with the negotiations for power sharing merely a stopping point and not an acceptable final resolution) he also has to […]
Jacob Zuma desperately wants to avoid the corruption charges that he faces. The talk when I was in South Africa was that the charges would be thrown out, less on the merits than out of a sense of expediency. At the same time, Zuma needs the charges either to go away or to be weakened to […]
China, an autocratic state that directly denies the freedoms of the press, speech, religion, and assembly to its citizens, and has shown oppressive measures in dealing with its minority factions, among them Muslim Uighurs and the people of Tibet, is about to host a world event like no other, the Olympics. Now the US has […]
Results from the first phase of unofficial referendums on oil privatization are in. More than 83% of citizens of Mexico City said no to the questions: “With the whole cycle of oil production under state auspices, do you agree that the private sector should play a role?” and “In general, are you in agreement with […]
Ever in search of free food, my friend and I decided to attend the Atlantic Council's talk entitled "Dealing with Russia to Rescue Abkhazia from the Brink". As most of these things serve delicious deserts and canapés, I should've recognised this event's paltry offering of nothing more than a bizarre choice of Snapple Iced Tea […]
Good news! Iraq will be going to China next month, and sending four athletes: a men's rowing double, a discus thrower and their sprinter, Dana Hussain (their archer may also have the chance to compete, as long as his spot is still available after entries are completed by other countries.) USA Today reports that the IOC […]
Two headlines about South African emigration from Independent On-Line appeared within the same week. The first: “Whites Leaving SA in Droves.” The second: “Whites Return to South Africa.” Is this schizophrenia at work? Shoddy journalism? Or, as I believe, an example of South Africans perceiving a problem and generally believing the worst even when there is contravailing […]
In the sort of sound economic reasoning that we have all come to expect from Harare, the Zimbabwean government plane to chop a bunch of zeroes off of the country's currency, thus re-denominating, though not re-valuating the plummeting Zimbabwean dollar. Beyond making math a little easier for people carrying around bricks of the country's virtually […]
At the end of July 29, Lamy announced that ministers’ efforts of long hours and hard negotiations failed to produce result on the 9th day of WTO trade talks. Today, he has called a formal Trade Negotiations Committe meeting to provide a forum for comment from members, but he advises nations to allow the “dust […]
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