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Editorials
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The gap between Germany and France keeps growing
By Frederick Kempe/ReutersOccasionally a public opinion survey surfaces that signals a seismic event. That is the case with a new report from the Pew Research Center that measures the widening tremo...
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The Crude Reality Of Oil Prices
JONATHAN MARCUS | BBC-NYT SYNDICATE THIS week the leader of Hezbollah – the Shiite movement in southern Lebanon – made it clear that he saw weapons transfers from Syria as a “strategic response” to ...
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Emission crisis
The aviation industry is on the verge of a trade war over the issue of regulating the airline industry’s greenhouse emissions. Reports say hope is dwindling for a global deal on the aviation industry...
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A president under siege
Taking over the French presidency in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades was never going to be a bed of roses. Francois Hollande himself had predicted as much. But the Socialist, whose ...
More
The gap between Germany and France keeps growing
By Frederick Kempe/ReutersOccasionally a public opinion survey surfaces that signals a seismic event. That is the case with a new report from the Pew Research Center that measures the widening tremo...
المزيد
The Crude Reality Of Oil Prices
JONATHAN MARCUS | BBC-NYT SYNDICATE THIS week the leader of Hezbollah – the Shiite movement in southern Lebanon – made it clear that he saw weapons transfers from Syria as a “strategic response” to ...
المزيد
Emission crisis
The aviation industry is on the verge of a trade war over the issue of regulating the airline industry’s greenhouse emissions. Reports say hope is dwindling for a global deal on the aviation industry...
المزيد
A president under siege
Taking over the French presidency in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades was never going to be a bed of roses. Francois Hollande himself had predicted as much. But the Socialist, whose ...
المزيد
Ghost Money
QAIS AKBAR OMAR | NYT SYNDICATE I WAS very excited to read, last week, about the ‘ghost money’ that the CIA is paying to the president of my country, Hamid Karzai. I’d like to know: Would it be poss...
المزيد
A historic win
Malaysia’s ruling coalition has improved its own record by coming to power again. With just one result left to declare, the ruling United Malays National Organization had won 133 seats in the 222-memb...
المزيد
Greed for cut-price products at heart of Bangladesh tragedy
The next time you go bargain-hunting on Eid, Christmas or Diwali, spare a thought for the hundreds of Bangladeshi garment workers who perished when their factory collapsed on April 24. Chances are so...
المزيد
Italy’s Political Class
ALBERTO TOSCANO | GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE ON Sunday (April 28) a new government was formed in Italy. Led by Enrico Letta, a moderate member of the Partito Democratico (PD), it is the first ‘grand coal...
المزيد
Tymoshenko wronged
The European Court of Human Rights yesterday ruled that charismatic Ukrainian leader Yulia Tymoshenko has been unlawfully jailed by the government. This has come as a major victory for the former pri...
المزيد
WTO has ‘no choice’ other than to revisit Doha Round of talks
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has to complete the Doha Round of talks if it has to deliver on a promise that has languishing in limbo since the turn of the century.This is the view of most trade...
المزيد
Worlds Away From Here
ROSS DOUTHAT | NYT SYNDICATE AND now for some counterprogramming. You probably missed it, what with the Boston Marathon bombing, the ricinlaced letters, the fertiliser plant explosion and an entir...
المزيد
Against overreaction
Wednesday, 24 April 2013Conservatives and cynics in the US have seized on last week’s bombings in Boston to derail landmark legislation to overhaul the nation’s ailing immigration system. The bombings...
المزيد
Russia Is No Country For Idealists
VADIM NIKITIN | GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE SOMETHING doesn’t make sense about Alexei Navalny, and it’s not just the trumpedup charges against him. The Russian corruption whistleblower and opposition lea...
المزيد
Homecoming turns sour for Musharraf
With political pawns, public acceptance and a compliant judiciary, Pervez Musharraf once had the power to call all the shots. Now, not only has the former president of Pakistan lost it all, he confr...
المزيد
Musharraf’s fall
Undoubtedly, Pakistan’s former military ruler Parvez Musharraf got things terribly wrong. It’s difficult to guess what could be swirling in his mind, but looking at the developments in the past week,...
المزيد
Dealing With Russia
DENIS CORBOY, WILLIAM COURTNEY AND KENNETH YALOWITZ | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE RUSSIA’S relations with the West are again plunging. This time the cause is repression in Russia and the Western reaction to...
المزيد
Arms gap creating divisions within Syria’s opposition
As Syria’s protracted civil war stretches into its third year, there are worrying signs that the brutal conflict is inflicting deep and dangerous social divisions that may take decades to heal. The f...
المزيد
Syria: Need for talks
The Syrian conflict, long in a state of flux, seems to be getting more complicated. In a candid interview to state TV channel Al-Ikhbariya, embattled President Bashar Al Assad said that the West is g...
المزيد
On A Slippery Slope
THROUGHOUT the euro crisis, observers have been asking if the euro zone will disintegrate - as if it is a decision that will be made by its leaders at some point in the future. This holds out the pro...
المزيد
Boston bombings
The bombings in Boston on Monday have sent cold shivers down the spine of all those who don’t want the past wounds to be reopened. America has settled into a peace it wouldn’t want to get disturbed, a...
المزيد
Great-Power Myopia
NADER MOUSAVIZADEH | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE THE narcissism of small differences is not usually associated with great-power politics. The pathology of turning minor disputes into major divisions between ...
المزيد
Gold unlikely to lose its lustre for long
Gold is tangible, easy to hide, worth the same anywhere in the world and almost indestructible. It is a quasi-currency that this week has charmed and alarmed with its fiercest price fluctuations in ...
المزيد
Chaos in Venezuela
Unfortunately, the election in Venezuela to pick a new president after the death of Hugo Chavez has resulted in violence and instability. The country witnessed violent protests and clashes yesterday ...
المزيد
The Ghosts Of Afghanistan’s Past
ON March 10, Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, shocked Western leaders by declaring that recent attacks proved that the Taliban “are at the service of America.” The implication was clear: terror...
المزيد
Nuclear threat
Monday, 15 April 2013 The day after an earthquake struck close to Iran’s only nuclear plant last week, killing dozens of people and triggering aftershocks which hit many Gulf cities, including Doha a...
المزيد
Please subsidise history textbook
Since last year it has been compulsory in schools in Qatar to teach local history. It was an excellent step to make children aware of the history of the country where they reside. I was very happy abo...
المزيد
The Sun Rises On Human Rights
KENNETH ROTH AND KANAE DOI | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE AS US Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is making waves. Known for his aggressive efforts to revive Japan’s econ...
المزيد
Did Putin Sink Cyprus?
BEN JUDAH | NYT SYNDICATE THE blue-glass skyscrapers of Moscow City – fragments of Russia’s boom-time dream – are visible from the Kremlin walls, within which there was once hope that those towers c...
المزيد
North Korea’s hubris
Tension on the Korean Peninsula has reached a new high with the North’s latest bluster targetting the United States with the threat of a nuclear strike. The US cannot completely ignore the threat as ...
المزيد
Growing clout of regional leaders in India’s politics
India’s national parties have seen a steady decline in their popularity over the years. This has led to the formation of fragile coalition governments at the centre and in states resulting in politic...
المزيد
Egypt in need of urgent financial lifeline
The arrival of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation in Cairo yesterday to discuss a potential $4.8bn loan comes as Egypt’s fiscal situation looks increasingly dire. Turmoil that has follo...
المزيد
In Palestine, Dignity And Violence
NOAM CHOMSKY | NYT SYNDICATE THE Swedish novelist Henning Mankell tells of an experience in Mozambique during the civil war horrors there 25 years ago, when he saw a young man walking toward him in r...
المزيد
Trampling on rights
Tension is again gripping the Palestinian territories as Israel is unleashing its military might. Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian youth, aged 17, in a confrontation in the occupied West...
المزيد
Cyprus crisis is not isolated, can spell trouble for Europe
From the Church to casinos, Cyprus has been tapping every resource possible to keep itself afloat in a long drawn-out financial saga that is threatening to become a contagion and engulf most parts of...
المزيد
Russian Scepticism Over Missile Defence
STEVEN PIFER | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE WHEN Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel announced that the Pentagon would increase the number of missile interceptors in Alaska, he noted that the US missile defence p...
المزيد
Serbia-Kosovo talks critical
Serbia and Kosovo have once again started talks to iron out long-standing differences mainly emanating from the secession of Kosovo from Serbia. In 2008, the Balkans saw another country come out of a...
المزيد
An innovative political solution to Mideast dispute
Imagine a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine in which Palestinians would have the right of return; Israelis could settle wherever they could purchase land in the West Bank; and Jerusalem need ...
المزيد
Crisis in Italy
The failure of attempts to form a government in Italy this week has caused disappointment and frustration among Italians. After a closely fought election, this is not the outcome they had expected. Ev...
المزيد
The Next Cyprus?
NOW that the crisis in Cyprus has been temporarily resolved, the unspoken question is: Who’s next? Perhaps Malta, which has an even bigger banking sector than Cyprus relative to GDP, much of it highl...
المزيد
Right, or wrong war?
Sri Lanka’s war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has always been a hot potato for the government headed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The rebels fought a long war with the Sri Lan...
المزيد
Australia’s Gillard wins a battle but may lose the war
Twice in just more than a year, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has had a big win at the ballot box against her fiercest foe. Trouble is, the doubly vanquished is Kevin Rudd, a fellow member ...
المزيد
Paul Ryan’s Budget
PAUL C BROUN JR | NYT SYNDICATE THE latest budget proposal by Representative. Paul D Ryan (R-Wisconsin), called “The Path to Prosperity,” is anything but. It fails to seriously address runaway govern...
المزيد
Sunni Spring, Shia Spring
Earlier, there was only Arab Spring. Now some are talking about Sunni Spring and Shia Spring. While all types of springs are welcome, the blossoming of one at the cost of other has grave consequences....
المزيد
China’s new leaders fix gaze on Asia
As Premier Li Keqiang gave his first press conference since taking office on Sunday, he urged the US to join China in building “a new type of relationship between big powers”. Li echoed former US sec...
المزيد
Is Iran Ready For A Deal?
VALI NASR | NYT SYNDICATE FOR the first time since 2009, there may be signs of a break in the deadlock over Iran’s nuclear programme. Iran entered the latest talks with a slightly softened position....
المزيد
Bailout, or sellout?
It smacks of financial delinquency by the state and runs just short of blackmailing depositors in giving in to a ludicrously unreasonable demand. If Cyprus goes ahead with the proposed bailout terms i...
المزيد
Raikkonen win shows F1 title race will be hard- fought
The Australian Grand Prix on Sunday showed that the 2013 season will not be a runaway success for Red Bull, like it was last year. That’s as much an enticing prospect for Formula One fans from across...
المزيد
Smart Drones
BILL KELLER | NYT SYNDICATE IF you find the use of remotely piloted warrior drones troubling, imagine that the decision to kill a suspected enemy is not made by an operator in a distant control room...
المزيد
Immigration policy the world over faces stiff challenges
In her poem, The New Colossus, now immortalised by its association with the Statue of Liberty, Emma Lazarus writes: “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips...
المزيد
Other Side Of War On Drugs
FERNANDO HENRIQUE CARDOSO & RUTH DREIFUSS | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE THIS week, representatives from many nations gather at the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vi...
المزيد
Fukushima anniversary
As Japan marks the second anniversary of a tsunami and earthquake that devastated the country, the focus is on learning the right lessons from the tragedy, both in Japan and abroad, and on passing tho...
المزيد
Aussies go a bit too far with players’ sacking
The Australian cricket team are hurting, hurting really bad. Two back-to-back Test defeats against India have them at sixes and sevens, literally, and with the Ashes just a few months away, it’s Engl...
المزيد
A tense transition
The latest verbal skirmishes between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and US officials illustrate the new depth in relations between the two sides. Karzai leveled a harsh accusation at the US on Sunday –...
المزيد
New Face Of Republicans
ROSS DOUTHAT | NYT SYNDICATE THE Republican Party built an advantage on foreign policy across generations, and then began demolishing it 10 years ago this month. What the Cold War made, the invasio...
المزيد
Kenyatta in Kenya
Monday, 11 March 2013The victory of Uhuru Kenyatta in Kenya’s presidential polls has presented the international community with some tough choices. Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s first president, face...
المزيد
Time to change the driving culture in Qatar
Computer tests for aspiring drivers are going to be introduced soon in Qatar. The aim is commendable: the creation of a new generation of automobile users that will know not just how to steer a vehic...
المزيد
The Drone Question
RYAN GOODMAN | NYT SYNDICATETHE Senate confirmed John O Brennan as director of the Central Intelligence Agency on Thursday after a nearly 13-hour filibuster by the libertarian senator Rand Paul, who ...
المزيد
Taking stock
US Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s first interview since his defeat in the presidential race will be noted for two things: first, his candour, the courage to speak his mind without sugar-coating i...
المزيد
Let there be a winter World Cup in Qatar
World football governing body FIFA has put the ball in Qatar’s court by indicating it is open to a World Cup in the winter of 2022. It’s a tempting offer that Qatar should not resist. In fact the hos...
المزيد
No Room For Disbelief
DENNIS B ROSS | NYT SYNDICATE THESE are hard times for trying to promote, much less make, peace between Palestinians and Israelis. The rise of political Islam, Syria’s civil war and looming implosi...
المزيد
Breaking the deadlock
Justice delayed is justice denied. It applies to decisions too. Delayed decisions can be less consequential and fruitful than those made at the right time. America’s decision to go for a shift in its...
المزيد
Biobank drive a step forward for healthcare
Qatar Biobank, an innovative drive to collect and archive the medical records of 60,000 residents is a step forward in the move to improve healthcare in Qatar. Established as a centre within the Qata...
المزيد
Woodward, Mr Right?
CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY & BRIAN STELTER | NYT SYNDICATE FOR nearly 40 years, Bob Woodward has been considered a near-saint by many journalists for helping break the Watergate scandal and a scourge by ...
المزيد
Cuts unlikely to deliver promised US budget savings
On paper, there’s one thing to like about the ugly spending cuts due to kick in today: $85bn in budget savings at a time when Washington continues to bleed red ink. In reality, the so-called “sequest...
المزيد
The Tunisia challenge
Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki yesterday testified in the murder probe of Chokri Belaid, the Leftist leader who was gunned down outside his house in Tunis on February 6. The killing of the liber...
المزيد
Why Italians Vote For Berlusconi
FRANCESCO GIUMELLI & DAVIDE MANESCHI | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE FOLLOWING election results in Italy is like watching the same movie again and again always hoping for, but never getting, a different end...
المزيد
Dangers of austerity
An annual economic forecast released by the European Commission on Friday says that Spain, Greece and Portugal, already entangled in a deep crisis, are going to see things grow worse this year. The b...
المزيد
Call for cricket in Olympics is justified
Cricket’s inclusion in the Olympics has always been a tricky issue but the advent of the Twenty20 format may well win over the skeptics who for long have opposed the move. With the quadrennial Summe...
المزيد
Indecision in Italy
In times of deep financial crisis and turmoil, political stalemate and uncertainty is what any country would least want. But such is the mess and confusion which the crisis creates that sometimes ind...
المزيد
Plenty of losers, but no clear winner in Italy
Italy’s general elections had plenty of losers, but no clear winner, apart from an anti-establishment party which has vowed to remain in opposition, leaving no obvious way to create a government. De...
المزيد
Shared Wounds In Korea
SUKI KIM | NYT SYNDICATE THE inauguration of South Korea’s first female president, Park Geunhye, on Monday is a trip down memory lane for most South Koreans – especially those in their 50s and 60s, ...
المزيد
Pakistan shouldn’t rush things for cricketing success
Pakistan suffered a 3-0 Test rout at the hands of South Africa, but the inevitable calls for a total revamp of the cricketing structure in the country is not just far-fetched but also a bit harsh...
المزيد
Boosting relations
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared after a visit to Washington last week that “the trust and the bond” of the alliance with US has been mended. Abe and US President Barack Obama held their f...
المزيد
A Chance To Right A Wrong In Haiti
LOUISE C IVERS |NYT SYNDICATE ON Thursday, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, rejected a legal claim for compensation filed in 2011 on behalf of cholera victims in Haiti. Through a s...
المزيد
Palestinian protest
for a boycott of individuals because she or he happens to be Israeli or because they express certain views. Of course, any individual is free to decide who they do and do not engage with.” Not all su...
المزيد
Actress’s call for ‘action’ short-sighted
By Wonsik Choi and Richard Dobbs/Seoul South Korea’s incoming president, Park Geun-hye, takes over a country that has been a global role model for economic development. But, with the economy slowing,...
المزيد
Threat of Cyber War
PAUL HARRIS | GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE US outlines new strategy to deal with theft of trade secrets and says pair remain ‘capable collectors of sensitive information’ The Obama administration has singl...
المزيد
Murder most intriguing
This Oscar’s news is competing with that of the Oscars. As Oscar Pistorius appears in a South African court, charged with the murder of his model girlfriend, the international press has gone into a f...
المزيد
Jebali takes high road in battle for Tunisia’s future
Tunisia was last night scrambling to find a new prime minister to end the political limbo after the ruling Ennahda party said that Hamadi Jebali had rejected the party’s request to return as prime mi...
المزيد
Mantel On Middleton
JOHN F BURNS | NYT SYNDICATE IT is not often that sophisticated literary discourse is the topic of banner headlines on the front page of one of Britain’s hell-raising tabloids. And still less common...
المزيد
FIFA’s goal-line tech move: better late than never
After much dilly-dallying, FIFA has finally decided to introduce goal-line technology at the 2014 World Cup, a move that was resisted for a long time by its head honcho Sepp Blatter. Blatter was an a...
المزيد
David Cameron’s Date In Delhi
JAYATI GHOSH | GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE INDIA is being wooed again. In the space of a few days, both Francois Hollande and David Cameron have turned up on its doorstep with palms outstretched in the se...
المزيد
Whose destruction?
After North Korean leader Kim Jong un took over the reins of the country after the death of his father Kim Jong il, the international community sat up to notice. Amid the brouhaha generated by the de...
المزيد
Serena Williams has everything going for her at 31
You cannot do without clichés in sport, so when Serena Williams regained the world number one ranking in Doha last week at 31 years and a bit, we can safely say that “age is just a number”. She becam...
المزيد
Chavez is back!
Tuesday, 19 February 2013Hugo Chavez was smiling all over Venezuela yesterday. The smile from a hospital bed in Cuba with his two daughters grinning beside him must have made some world leaders despa...
المزيد
N Korea’s Best Friend
JANE PERLEZ | NYT NEWS SERVICE BEDS shook and teacups clattered in Yanji City, China bordering North Korea, less than 100 miles from the site where the North said it detonated a nuclear test that ex...
المزيد
Leaders should know when to step down
Resignations normally have an air of inevitability when they are announced. But not if you are the leader of a religious order whose last recorded resignation was 600 years ago. Pope Benedict XVI anno...
المزيد
Libyan anniversary
Time flies. Especially in Arab countries where popular uprisings have upended old systems. Now news is coming out from these countries of anniversary celebrations of the revolution, and it’s now Libya...
المزيد
Neo-Republicanism
ROGER COHEN | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE DURING Tuesday’s State of the Union address, President Obama declared that “Our housing market is healing, our stock market is rebounding and consumers, patients and h...
المزيد
Calls for N-free North Korea too little, too late
North Korea’s long-time enemy, the US, and its historically close ally, China, both condemned the isolated regime’s third nuclear test on Tuesday and urged Pyongyang to give up its military nuclear p...
المزيد
Horsemeat trouble
The horsemeat scandal is like a kick in the gut for the food processing business that relies on a large number of intermediaries for churning out a gazillion products. Amid numerous reports pouring o...
المزيد
Nukes For Sale
GRAHAM T ALLISON JR | NYT SYNDICATE THE most dangerous message North Korea sent on Tuesday with its third nuclear weapon test is: nukes are for sale. The significance of this test is not the defian...
المزيد
IOC’s vote on wrestling shocks and disappoints
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) vote to drop wrestling from the 2020 Games is not only baffling but also points to a great disconnect between the world body and the aspirations of dozens of...
المزيد
Testing patience
Testing nuclear weapons is what the reclusive North Korea loves most and does best. And it looks crazy to the rest of the world that this nation, which doesn’t have enough to feed its people, is expe...
المزيد
The Humble Pope
CAROL ZALESKI | NYT SYNDICATE POPE Benedict XVI is the latest of a small number of popes to resign the chair of St Peter. The most famous of these – the one whose resignation had all the earmarks ...
المزيد
North Korea’s N-test triggers new questions
North Korea’s nuclear test opens a rare, limited window for expert evaluation of its atomic weapons programme, with an added urgency lent by Pyongyang’s claim to have detonated a “miniaturised” device...
المزيد
Sports for all
Qatar celebrated National Sport Day yesterday. It was indeed a grand celebration which will be noted for popular participation. The tempo had been building up in the past few weeks, reached a crescend...
المزيد
Pay For War
R RUSSELL RUMBAUGH | NYT SYNDICATE NOWthat Congress has discarded the idea that taxes can never be raised, we must change how we pay for the wars we ask our military to fight. We should institute a w...
المزيد
Kumbh Mela tragedy was avoidable
About 40 pilgrims attending the Kumbh Mela festival lost their lives in a stampede at a railway station in the northern Indian city of Allahabad on Sunday, marking a tragic end to the most auspicious ...
المزيد
Banking on hope
Yemenis are celebrating the second anniversary of the launch of nationwide protests which culminated in the overthrow of president Ali Abdullah Saleh after 33 years in power. Tens of thousands gather...
المزيد
Women In Combat
TANYA L DOMI | NYT SYNDICATE AT his confirmation hearing on January 31, Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for defence secretary, stated unequivocally, “I will work with the service chiefs as we...
المزيد
Scandal rocks processed food industry
Frozen food and ready-meals have become a part of life in many societies these days. In developing countries, eating burgers and deep-fried treats such as chicken parts or cheese-laden pizzas from glo...
المزيد
No Horsemeat, Please!
The scandal surrounding horsemeat in Europe shows the food industry in bad light. The stunning revelations that customers were served horsemeat in the name of beef have caused both shock and scare in...
المزيد
Revolutionary Poster-Child
RACHEL SHABI | GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE AMID the shock and grief at a terrible murder, there is an angry accusation. When forthright opposition leader Chokri Belaid was gunned down outside his home in T...
المزيد
Arab Spring’s first hope Tunisia rocked by assassination
The assassination of opposition politician Chokri Belaid has plunged Tunisia, poster child for the Arab Spring, into its worst crisis since police opened fire two years ago on pro-democracy protesters...
المزيد
Cradle in crisis
Days after Tunisia observed two years of the revolt that started the Arab Spring, it is in a state of dangerous flux. The gunning down of Leftist leader Chokri Belaid on Wednesday, has roiled the pol...
المزيد
Iran’s Waiting Game
MICHAEL SINGH | NYT SYNDICATE FEW of President Obama’s original foreign policy goals have eluded him so much as engagement with Iran. Over the weekend, Vice-President Joseph R Biden Jr announced duri...
المزيد
Peace talks must be central to Obama trip
The Palestinians were not mentioned when National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor on Tuesday announced Obama’s visit to Israel early in his second term and also his first as president. Vietor...
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Strengthening ties
Barack Obama will soon make his first trip to Israel as US president. The president had faced fierce criticism during his first term for not visiting Israel, a close ally, and his fractious relations...
المزيد
The Real Putin
FIONA HILL AND CLIFFORD GADDY | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE THE Obama administration has decided it’s time to “reset the reset” with Russia. The reset was one of the administration’s first foreign policy init...
المزيد
Welcome initiative by Qatar’s Supreme Council of Health
The Supreme Council of Health’s decision to run a public awareness campaign to dispel myths about cancer in Qatar is a welcome initiative. It is estimated that every year 12.7mn people learn that they...
المزيد
Criminal foul play
Wednesday, 06 February 2013Millions in the world love football, and they love it with a passion and zeal that is not reserved for any other game. It is for this reason that European law enforcement ag...
المزيد
Syria After Assad
RAMZY MARDINI | NYT NEWS SERVICE AS the Syrian revolution approaches another anniversary, Syria’s political opposition is showing signs of failure. Without a new approach, especially from America,...
المزيد
A huge blow to the integrity of football
The revelation that hundreds of football matches around the world have been fixed by a betting mafia operating from Singapore has further tarnished the image of the “beautiful game” which has been pla...
المزيد
Peace in Afghanistan
Any effort to bring Pakistan and Afghanistan closer is welcome because peace in Afghanistan is impossible without the wholehearted help of its neighbour. For the same reason, the initiative taken by ...
المزيد
Revolution In Making
THOMAS L FRIEDMAN | NYT NEWS SERVICE LORD knows there’s a lot of bad news in the world today to get you down, but there is one big thing happening that leaves me incredibly hopeful about the future, ...
المزيد
China and the US can and should do more on N Korea
By Joseph R DeTrani/Washington Given the turmoil in the Middle East and South Asia and the tension in East Asia, a needed success in resolving the North Korea nuclear issue still could be within o...
المزيد
Israeli aggression
Normally, an Israeli strike on an Arab country would trigger a volley of condemnation and outrage. So it was surprising that the air strike on Syria last week by Tel Aviv went largely unnoticed in Ara...
المزيد
Kerry’s Challenge
NADER MOUSAVIZADEH | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE JOHN KERRY’S overwhelming confirmation as the next US secretary of state presents a welcome opportunity to consider what the point of the job is. Now that Hilla...
المزيد
China and the US can and should do more on N Korea
By Joseph R DeTrani/Washington Given the turmoil in the Middle East and South Asia and the tension in East Asia, a needed success in resolving the North Korea nuclear issue still could be within our ...
المزيد
Bridging the gap
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal’s statement that Palestinians have made remarkable progress in reconciliation is heartening. One of the consequential fallouts of the Arab Spring has been a realignment of ...
المزيد
Afghan Drawdown
MICHAEL KEATING AND MATT WALDMAN | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE PRESIDENT Barack Obama recently said that by the end of next year the war in Afghanistan “will come to a responsible end.” A responsible approach ...
المزيد
Concept of confused identity in European comedy of errors
By Harold James/Princeton Albert Hirschman, who died at the end of last year, was a great economist with a gift for producing striking insights by focusing on an element of observable behaviour as a...
المزيد
Egypt’s continuing chaos
There is a painful sense of déjà vu about the events in Egypt today. People are going through more of the same with deadly consequences.As the country goes through a crippling political crisis, with ...
المزيد
The Two Russias
DENIS CORBOY, WILLIAM COURTNEY AND KENNETH YALOWITZ | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE TWO Russias are emerging – one seeking freedom and prosperity, the other focused on patriotism and populism. In the first, peop...
المزيد
Rahul Gandhi rises but remains an enigma
Rahul Gandhi, the next in line in India’s top political dynasty, has been handed the keys to power, but his political abilities and policy convictions remain largely an open question. Gandhi was nam...
المزيد
Starting again
Yes, we can. Obama proclaimed and got elected in 2009. Yes, he could have. But he didn’t. Or, he didn’t at least the way most of us expected of him. It’s this reality that haunts us as Barack Obama i...
المزيد
India vs China
STEVEN RATTNER | NYT SYNDICATE AS recently as 2006, when I first visited India and China, the economic race was on, with heavy bets being placed on which one would win the developing world sweepstak...
المزيد
The Centrists cannot hold as things fall apart in politics
In most advanced democracies, a large centre-right party competes with a large centre-left party. Of course, the extent to which an electoral system favours large parties – by having high popular-vote...
المزيد
Syrian Stalemate
The Syrian uprising is sliding into a maze of confusion and uncertainty. Until recently, hopes were high that the rebels would achieve their objective of toppling the dictatorial regime of Bashar Al ...
المزيد
Malian Prognosis
SCOTT STRAUS & LEIF BROTTEM | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE CHANCES are that French air power combined with superior numbers and equipment on the ground in Mali will prevail and force the jihadis to retreat ...
المزيد
New protests tip Iraq back into sectarian abyss
Fresh waves of anti-government protests are reigniting sectarian tensions in Iraq, threatening a protracted political crisis. As mass protests against the government of Nuri al-Maliki have stretched ...
المزيد
On the right track
Tunisia is quietly celebrating the second anniversary of its uprising against a dictator. There are two reasons why these celebrations, though muted, haven’t received huge attention in the internation...
المزيد
Sectarian Divide
M ILYAS KHAN | BBC-NYT SYNDICATE WEDNESDAY’S bombings of a Shiite Muslim neighbourhood in the Pakistani city of Quetta that killed almost 100 people is a grim reminder of the power of sectarian milit...
المزيد
A budget wonk to serve as US Treasury
President Barack Obama broke the mould on Thursday by choosing a budget wonk to serve as US Treasury secretary, leaving gaps on the international and financial side that could make for a rocky transit...
المزيد
France wins and loses
The Ansar Dine militant group in Mali yesterday warned Paris that French citizens in the Muslim world would be targeted after about 100 Islamists were killed in a battle for the town of Konna. The Al ...
المزيد
Closing Guantanamo
JENNIFER DASKAL | NYT SYNDICATE IN 2010, I was branded a member of the ‘Al Qaeda 7’ – a notorious label attached to Department of Justice lawyers who were mocked by critics claiming they had “flocked...
المزيد
France wins and loses
The Ansar Dine militant group in Mali yesterday warned Paris that French citizens in the Muslim world would be targeted after about 100 Islamists were killed in a battle for the town of Konna. The Al ...
المزيد
Britain Sans Europe
SIMON JENKINS | GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE FIRST on the list for Britain in 2013 is Europe. It is already gnawing at Prime Minister David Cameron’s vitals, as it has gnawed at all his predecessors for 3...
المزيد
In era of gridlock, the US Congress ‘created a monster’
Setting a looming deadline to avert self-created calamity has become a frequent device for the US Congress to get things done in recent years. When all else fails, as it often does, it’s supposed to ...
المزيد
Killing fields
The UN human rights commissioner’s report that at least 60,000 people have died so far in Syria’s conflict is spine-chilling. The number represents a huge jump from the toll that has been reported. U...
المزيد
Britain’s Afghan Legacy
JONATHAN BEALE | BBC-NYT SYNDICATE IT is the Afghan police and army that are now largely leading the fight, as British forces are lowering their profile. Nearly 60 percent of the British military b...
المزيد
Austerity may be the last thing the US economy needs now
It is more than a decade since the US last ran a budget surplus - and as negotiations to avoid America’s fiscal cliff sailed past their new year deadline yesterday, it seems the country will have to ...
المزيد
French verdict
President Francois Hollande must rethink his punishing 75 percent tax on the super-rich. The verdict of the French constitutional court on December 29 that President Francois Hollande’s 75 percent m...
المزيد
The Constitution Catch
LOUIS MICHAEL SEIDMAN | THE NEW YORK TIMES SYNDICATE AS the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But al...
المزيد
Egyptian president downplays concerns over the economy
Egypt has been in political turmoil in the wake of the Arab Spring revolution. The country’s economy is facing a serious crisis since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in early 2011, including a decline in t...
المزيد
Welcome 2013
We are in 2013 and let’s hope the New Year will be more bountiful and peaceful.Every year is one of ups and downs, more ups for some countries and more downs for others. In the past few days, the glo...
المزيد
Middle East’s Future
PETER BEAUMONT | OBSERVER NEWS SERVICE RECENT reports from inside Syria paint a grim picture on both sides. In Aleppo the armed opposition to President Bashar al Assad remains as split as ever, loot...
المزيد
Political dynasties holding sway over public imagination
The most recent entry into the world of politics, at least in south Asia, is Bilawal Zardari, the 24-year-old Oxford University graduate son of slain former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto....
المزيد
Somalisation of Syria
The international envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi’s warning that as many as 100,000 people could die next year in Syria if a way cannot be found quickly to end the civil war is the gravest warning yet ...
المزيد
Politics Of Adoption
LAURIE PENNY | GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE RUSSIA and the US are squabbling over whose human rights abuses are bigger. After the US signed the Magnitsky Act, which blacklists any Russian deemed to be a hum...
المزيد
Japan’s PM Abe:a hawk who gets a second chance
Shinzo Abe, who made a comeback as Japan’s seventh prime minister in six years, has a second chance to achieve his goal of amending its pacifist constitution. Abe, 58, who served as premier for a yea...
المزيد
Ready for the job
The nomination of Sen. John F Kerry as secretary of state has been widely hailed. Kerry is a man of rich experience, especially on foreign affairs, and a man with several friends and few enemies whic...
المزيد
The Good Soldier
KIM GHATTAS | BBC NEWS SERVICE JOHN KERRY had been auditioning for the job of secretary of state for years before he was nominated by President Barack Obama ahead of his second term in the White Hous...
المزيد
China’s high-speed rail transport: a ‘great leap forward’
China yesterday fired off its latest bullet train setting a milestone in the country’s rapid and super-fast rail network. It used to take the best part of 24 hours to travel by train from Beijing to t...
المزيد
A laudable attempt
Past efforts for peace in Syria have floundered. By this yardstick, the latest bid by UN Syria peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to broker an agreement between the Bashar Al Assad regime and the opposition ...
المزيد
Post-Assad Uncertainty
FRANK GARDNER | BBC NEWS SERVICE TIME may be running out to come up with a credible international plan to secure Syria’s chemical weapons for the day President Bashar al Assad’s regime collapses. A...
المزيد
Political transition in Syria must be implemented quickly
The six Gulf Arab states yesterday urged a rapid political transition in Syria and called for action to halt mass killings and violations of international law. At their two-day summit in Bahrain, ...
المزيد
Need for compromise
Egypt’s electoral commission yesterday announced that the country’s constitution was passed by 63.8 percent of voters. That’s an overwhelming majority considering that it was a controversial charter f...
المزيد
EU Survives 2012!
GAVIN HEWITT | BBC NEWS SERVICE EUROPE’S leaders, at the start of the year, would have settled for how 2012 is ending. The worst of the predictions did not come true. The eurozone has survived intact...
المزيد
Italy’s outgoing PM Monti takes on Berlusconi, unions
Italy’s Mario Monti laid down the law on Sunday: he will consider staying on as premier after February elections, provided that enough followers rally around his political programme of “radical” cent...
المزيد
Inaction on Guantanamo
As US President Barack Obama is set to begin his second term in office, there is a lack of will and enthusiasm to revisit some of the files he had kept on hold during his first term. His promise to cl...
المزيد
Stifling Progress
CHARLES GRANT | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE RUSSIA and China seem very different sorts of countries. One is a pseudo-democracy with an economy dependent on natural- resource exports; the other is a one-party ...
المزيد
Fickle spotlight on crime against women in India
Outrage over the brutal gang-rape of a para-medical student in Delhi, in a moving bus at night has spilled into the streets as the public and the Indian government debate how best to prevent such hei...
المزيد
Monti’s moment
Monday, 24 December 2012Mario Monti, whose technocratic government in Italy was brought down this month by the disgraced former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, has said he would consider returning a...
المزيد
Removing Assad
DIMITRI K SIMES & PAUL J SAUNDERS | NYT NEWS SERVICE ON Thursday, Russia’s president, Vladimir V Putin, publicly distanced the Kremlin from Syria’s president, Bashar al Assad, announcing, “We are...
المزيد
2013 augurs better for world economy, if only by a little
Next year promises only a slight pick-up in the world economy and even that will again depend heavily on the US and emerging markets as Europe stalls, according to the latest Reuters polls. In many w...
المزيد
Gun control
US President Barack Obama has mustered enough courage to take on the powerful gun lobby in the country to introduce new control on firearms. The president said on Wednesday that he would submit broad,...
المزيد
Syria’s Blowback
SEUMAS MILNE | GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE THE signs are unmistakable. Once again, the West is preparing to escalate military intervention in the Arab and Muslim world. This time the target is Syria. Since...
المزيد
IBM predictions: computers could smell and taste
The smartphones we now hold in our hands are far more powerful than many of the personal computers we relied on just a few years ago. But in just a few years, today’s cutting-edge technology could app...
المزيد
Israeli isolation
Four European members of the United Nations Security Council are said to be drawing up a strong joint condemnation of recent Israeli moves to expand Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem amid growing i...
المزيد
Bold China, Meek Japan
JOHN LEE | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE THE resounding victory by Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, led by Shinzo Abe, is more a vote against the incumbent Democratic Party of Japan than it is for the LDP. Even...
المزيد
World economy at great risk of falling back into recession
Economic growth around the world has weakened considerably in 2012 and will remain so in the next two years, with the prospect of falling back into recession, the UN world economic report warned yest...
المزيد
A refugee crisis
The bomb attack on a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus by Syrian forces recently, which killed scores of people, is certain to cause an unprecedented refugee crisis. Thousands of people were fleein...
المزيد
Challenge Of Muslim Youth
NAJIB RAZAK | NYT SYNDICATE PROFOUND change is under way in the Middle East and North Africa. It is too early to be definitive about causes, but I believe there is a common thread: young people in I...
المزيد
Celebration time for Qatar: taking pride in progress
Qatar today celebrates its National Day with patriotic fervour, commemorating the historic occasion when the founder of the nation, Sheikh Jassim bin Mohamed bin Thani, assumed power in 1878 and laid ...
المزيد
A day to celebrate
The mood is festive and spirits high. As Qatar marks the National Day today, all residents, including citizens and expatriates, are united in celebrating the success of a nation which has made huge s...
المزيد
Russia & Human Rights
IWAS 25 years old when Stalin died. I am old, but the years haven’t dimmed one bit my memory of life under full-blown totalitarianism. Russia today is nothing like it was back then, and I don’t even ...
المزيد
Journalism today ‘a game of stings and entrapments’
The body of Jacintha Saldhana, the nurse at the centre of the royal hoax call prank, will be laid to rest today at her home town of Shirwa just outside the southern Indian city of Mangalore.The nurse...
المزيد
Abe Again
The Liberal Democratic Party’s landslide victory in Japanese polls, which returned Shinzo Abe to the prime minister’s post which he abruptly left in 2007, wasn’t surprising because the voters were dis...
المزيد
A Tragedy Of Silence
CHARLES M BLOW | NYT SYNDICATEANOTHER day, another mass shooting in America. When, and how, will this end? In fact, will it ever end? On Friday, a gunman identified as 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed 2...
المزيد
Syrian conflict reaches decisive tipping point
Russia, as the US put it, is “finally waking up to the reality” in Syria. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said the Syrian regime “is losing more and more control over a large part o...
المزيد
Russian role
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov’s statement that Syrian President Bashar Al Assad could be losing control and could be overthrown by an increasingly powerful opposition is a clear in...
المزيد
Egypt’s Polarisation
WADAH KHANFAR | GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE THE latest crisis to sweep Egypt has inflicted considerable damage, and now threatens the country’s transition to democracy. The rules of political competition ...
المزيد
N Korea’s rocket launch has fired up neighbouring polls
North Korea’s successful rocket launch is likely to strengthen the hand of political conservatives, nationalists and military hardliners at a crucial juncture in the affairs of South Korea and Japan,...
المزيد
A provocative act
When most North Koreans are locked in a struggle for survival, their government carried out another missile test yesterday. It is unlikely that ordinary people in the impoverished country will genuine...
المزيد
Fading Afghan Hope
JONATHAN STEELE | GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE CLOUDS of uncertainty and foreboding hang over Kabul as heavily as the traffic pollution, which obscures its once stunning vista of surrounding mountains. El...
المزيد
Silvio move could undermine Monti agenda in Italy
Silvio Berlusconi’s decision to stand in Italian elections increases the risk of a large populist bloc in parliament that could severely hinder attempts to continue the legacy of outgoing Prime Minis...
المزيد
Continuing crisis
The continuation of the political turmoil in Egypt has begun to cause jitters everywhere. As each day passes, parties and groups are pushing themselves to seemingly irrevocable positions. Tempers are ...
المزيد
Rice’s Africa Reader
SALEM SOLOMON | NTY NEWS SERVICE ON September 2, Ambassador Susan E Rice delivered a eulogy for a man she called “a true friend to me.” Before thousands of mourners and more than 20 African heads of ...
المزيد
Afghans’ mood is febrile and gloomy over troop pullout
Clouds of uncertainty and foreboding hang over Kabul as heavily as the traffic pollution, which obscures its once stunning vista of surrounding mountains. Eleven years after the West’s military interv...
المزيد
Venezuela in flux
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is again in the news. This time he took the world by surprise by declaring a successor. The folksy leader, who never lets go of a chance to trash the United States, de...
المزيد
UK’s Fracking Dream
ANDREW RAWNSLEY | OBSERVER NEWS SERVICE AMID the inky gloom that shrouded George Osborne when he delivered a wintry autumn budget statement of more cuts and further tax rises in the UK, there was a ...
المزيد
America’s hope against hope
After a hard-fought election campaign, costing well in excess of $2bn, it seems to many observers that not much has changed in American politics: Barack Obama is still President, the Republicans still...
المزيد
Media ethics
Media ethics is a vexed issue. The freedom of the press has been one of the most talked about topics in history. Right from the late twentieth century, when the ideas of liberal democracy and personal...
المزيد
Tackling Iran
JOHN VINOCUR | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE AMONG the George W Bush administration’s not-finest hours, the detonation by North Korea of its first atomic device in October 2006 stands out. It occurred after a ...
المزيد
Compromise difficult as end to Egypt’s crisis seems unattainable
After a night of deadly clashes in Cairo between Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi’s supporters and opponents, a peaceful endgame to the country’s political crisis seems far from attainable. Mursi se...
المزيد
Mursi under siege
Thousand of protesters laying siege to the palace of Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi embodies an inconvenient truth. Democracy is hard to come about, and the resulting road to democratic institutio...
المزيد
China’s Growth Model
HENRY M PAULSON JR |NYT NEWS SERVICE CHINA is experiencing its most severe economic downturn in decades, and revitalising its economic model is critical to future prosperity – not only in China, but ...
المزيد
Greece’s economic future hinges on how it fights corruption
Corruption has become an entrenched part of the global economy, says a report by Transparency International, with the eurozone debt crisis exposing the degree of corruption in nations at the centre of...
المزيد
Germany targets the far-right
Germany, recently always at the head of a super project to save the euro, is now in the news for a completely different reason. The western European country’s sixteen states recommended that the far-r...
المزيد
Neoliberals & Climate
GEORGE MONBIOT | GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICEHUMANKIND’S greatest crisis coincides with the rise of an ideology that makes it impossible to address. By the late 1980s, when it became clear that man-made cli...
المزيد
Nuclear energy and economy dominate Japan’s elections
Japan’s election campaign officially started yesterday ahead of the December 16 vote with Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s ruling Democratic Party of Japan under fire due to a faltering economy and th...
المزيد
As nature turns cruel
A deadly typhoon packing winds of upto 210 kilometre per hour hit the south Philippines island of Mindanao, killing dozens. In the absence of final casualty figures, it is expected that the death tol...
المزيد
Demographic Dividend
ROSS DOUTHAT| NYT NEWS SERVICE IN the eternally recurring debates about whether some rival great power will knock the United States off its global perch, there has always been one excellent reason t...
المزيد
Ponting’s legacy safe despite tepid end to career
Ricky Ponting bid adieu to Test cricket yesterday, although fate proved a bit unkind to him by not providing him with a farewell befitting his status. The second best Australian batsman after Bradma...
المزيد
The endgame
As events surrounding the UN upgrade of Palestine into a no hog dominate the headlines, developments in Syria are not getting the attention it should. Yesterday was a dramatic day for the country: Jih...
المزيد
United Acronym
IAN BREMMER | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE BRICs, the now familiar term for Brazil, Russia, India, China and the growth of their economies and influence, have formalised their club and extended their reach by ...
المزيد
Greek deal puts eurozone in slow recovery room
By Paul Taylor/Paris The eurozone is in the recovery room now the danger of a Greek default has been averted for a couple of years, but it is not yet safe from a Japanese-style “lost decade”. The cu...
المزيد
Israeli excesses
Monday, 03 December 2012An outraged and dejected Israel is punishing Palestinians for their victory at the United Nations. Last week, the UN general assembly voted overwhelmingly (with a backing of 13...
المزيد
Keeping Egypt’s Republic
ROGER COHEN | NYT NEWS SERVICE PRESIDENT Mohammed Morsi of Egypt has made a big blunder. His motives may have been honorable – I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt – but the error is ...
المزيد
India’s skewed strategy to blame for Mumbai defeat
England’s thrashing of India by 10 wickets in the Mumbai Test yesterday should lead to a serious change in the way the Indian cricket establishment conducts its business. While England deserve all cr...
المزيد
Climate concerns
As more than 17,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries converge in Doha for the historic two-week COP18/CMP8 summit being held at the Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC), all eyes are on this cou...
المزيد
US’s Palestinian Policy
YOUSEF MUNAYYER | NYT NEWS SERVICE MORE than 160 Palestinians and 5 Israelis are dead, and as the smoke clears over Gaza, the Israelis will not be more secure and Palestinians’ hopes for self-determi...
المزيد
Doha climate talks outcome crucial for our planet’s future
The UN Climate Change Conference begins in Doha today, with the participation of more than 17,000 delegates from 194 nations. Comprising the 18th Conference of the Parties (COP18) to the UN Framework ...
المزيد
Conflict in Congo
As the world grapples with multiple crises, the war in Congo is not getting the attention it deserves. The eastern region of Congo was the epicentre of two wars in the past 15 years that led to the lo...
المزيد
Time To Impose A Plan
YONATAN TOUVAL | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE AS the dust settles over the Israel-Gaza border, attention shifts to New York, where the Palestinian delegation will ask the United Nations next Thursday to upgrade...
المزيد
Israel’s thirst for Palestinian blood knows no limits
Once again Gaza is in flames. Its soil is soaked in blood and the wails of parents mourning their dead children are only drowned out by the roar of Israeli warplanes and the thunderclap of exploding b...
المزيد
Jinping’s term
Xi Jinping was anointed as the new head of the Communist Party of China last week, replacing Hu Jintao. The once-in-a-decade handover capped months of intense factional battles and divisions which was...
المزيد
Politics Of Status Quo
JONATHAN FENBY | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE THE five-yearly congress of China’s Communist Party that ended with the unveiling of the new leadership recently has – albeit unwittingly – told the rest of the wor...
المزيد
Petrified by the US fiscal cliff? Relax, it’s just a slope
The “fiscal cliff” sounds like a scary place. Headlines about “taxmaggeddon” are flashing on TV screens in the US, next to clocks ticking down to January 1. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has skidde...
المزيد
A historic visit
Monday, 19 November 2012US President Barack Obama is visiting Myanmar today. It has been called historic because he is the first US head of state to travel to Myanmar. He will meet President Thein Se...
المزيد
Israel’s Myopia
GERSHON BASKIN | NYT NEWS SERVICE AHMED AL JABARI — the strongman of Hamas, the head of its military wing, the man responsible for the abduction of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit — was assassinated...
المزيد
Viewpoint
The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) yesterday decided to recognise the newly-formed National Coalition of the Syrian opposition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people in a boost to thei...
المزيد
A shocking affair
The resignation of CIA director David Petraeus over an extramarital affair has caused consternation and confusion not only in the United States, but all over the world. The news was greeted with an am...
المزيد
Women & Arab Spring
CAROL GIACOMO | NYT SYNDICATE WHEN Mabrouka M’barek is in the Tunisian capital these days, much of her time is spent writing a new constitution as an elected member of the National Constituent Assemb...
المزيد
CIA director’s departure adds to Obama’s to-do list
Fresh from re-election, President Barack Obama’s already full plate got fuller with the resignation of CIA chief David Petraeus over an extramarital affair, giving him another high-profile posit...
المزيد
Kuwait Crisis
Kuwait yesterday celebrated in spectacular style the golden jubilee of its constitution. In the process, it won a place in the Guinness Book of World Records with a one-hour, $15m fireworks display (w...
المزيد
Inferno Next Door
DAVID HIRST | GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE IT is almost a cliche by now: the inferno in Syria will eventually spread to its neighbours. It’s already happening for some of them. The car bomb that killed Wiss...
المزيد
Another Florida looming for American vote
A nightmare scenario similar to the disputed 2000 US presidential outcome looms over tomorrow’s elections as the Romney and Obama campaigns gear up for legal challenges in the close race. Already, the...
المزيد
Myanmar Crisis
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s statement in an interview with the BBC that she cannot speak out on behalf of Rohingya Muslims reflects poorly on her moral courage. The communal riots in Rakhine sta...
المزيد
Another Florida looming for American vote
THE controversy over the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the Obama administration’s response to it are being dumbed down and overblown. Dumbed down because the focus is on word c...
المزيد
Myanmar must put an end to deadly sectarian violence
Myanmar is coming under increasing pressure to halt a deadly sectarian violence. The United Nations has warned the authorities not to use the conflict as a pretext to remove the Rohingya minority Musl...
المزيد
Storm in the campaign
Super storm Sandy has taken by storm the East Coast of the United States. Wreaking untold havoc on people, homes, infrastructure like roads, bridges and power lines, and the psyche of people, it blew ...
المزيد
European Suicide Pact
JONATHAN PORTES | GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE IN the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis practically all European Union countries opted for the same strategy to put their finances back on track: cut spe...
المزيد
Cricket again in the forefront of India-Pakistan ties
By Anil John The India-Pakistan cricket bandwagon is set to roll again after a five-year break that marked one of the most testing phases in the amorphous relationship between the two nuclear-armed ...
المزيد
A call for unity
One of the reasons for the lack of progress in Syrian conflict has been the weakness of the opposition. The opposition has failed to function as a coherent group, with a powerful leadership which can ...
المزيد
Get Tough On Iraq
NUSSAIBAH YOUNIS | NYT NEWS SERVICE THE next president of the United States must fundamentally reassess America’s broken relationship with Iraq. Under two American presidents now, the regime of Prime...
المزيد
Sandy throws US campaign into turmoil
Super storm Sandy is a bona fide disaster impacting millions of Americans, but as floodwaters surge ashore one week from election day, a discomfiting political question emerges. Which candidate stands...
المزيد
Nature’s fury
When nature unleashes its fury, we become rudely reminded of the limitations of our power. The hurricane Sandy, which is wreaking havoc across the East Coast in US, is one such rude reminder which sho...
المزيد
Cuban Crisis & Iran
ON October 26-27, 1962, human civilisation came close to being destroyed. Schoolchildren were ordered into shelters; supermarket shelves were emptied of soup cans and bottled water. It was the mo...
المزيد
Brahimi showing signs of frustration on Syrian crisis
UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi couldn’t have expressed his frustration at the Syrian situation in more compelling terms: “The Syrian crisis is very, very dangerous, the situation is bad and getting wo...
المزيد
A secret war
The air strikes on a Sudanese arms factory by Israeli jets, which killed two people and triggered a fire which engulfed the factory, is a blatant violation of international laws and evidence of the im...
المزيد
Europe & the ‘Asia Pivot’
TOMAS VALASEK | IHT-NYT SYNDICATE THE third US presidential debate did not shed much more light on future relations with Europe than the first two. One popular misconception in parts of Europe is th...
المزيد
No obvious bump for Obama from final GDP report
A growth rate of 2% would pass for prosperity in many of the developed world’s sclerotic economies. It would be cause for celebration, for example, in the crisis-plagued eurozone, where the Internati...
المزيد
Persecuted people
Sunday, 28 October 2012Muslims in Myanmar decided not to celebrate Eid Al Adha this year as violence in the western Rakhine state soared, sparking widespread concern. Human Rights Watch (HRW) yesterda...
المزيد
Troubling Trends
IT has been 21 years since Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union. Since then, Ukrainians have made much progress on reforming and modernising their country. Ukraine has also become ...
المزيد
Desperate measures will do cricket no good
Pakistan will purchase bulletproof buses and build a hotel inside a new stadium complex in Islamabad in a bid to attract international cricket teams to the country, but the fact remains that such desp...
المزيد
Media freedom
A 53-page report released recently by the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has accused Turkey of pursuing a systematic intimidation of journalists and is a scathing criticism of the gov...
المزيد
Regional Conflagration
THE assassination of the Lebanese intelligence chief, General Wissam al-Hassan, has stoked fears that the Syrian regime, with its back to the wall, is deliberately trying to “internationalise” the civ...
المزيد
Emir makes ‘historic’ visit to Gaza Strip
It was a special day for the Gaza Strip yesterday. A historic day in fact. HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani’s landmark visit to the Gaza Strip has given a new hope to the besieged Palesti...
المزيد
Power of diplomacy
The Emir HH Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser and the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister HE Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani arrived in Gaza yesterday to a rapt...
المزيد
To Explain Their Own Views
IF we are reminded of anything this election season, it is that America is a house divided against itself. The anger and mistrust between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, ofte...
المزيد
Qatar embarks on a journey towards scientific innovation
The launching of Qatar’s national research strategy at the Joint Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum and Arab Expatriate Scientists Network Symposium by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser this w...
المزيد
Losing Hope
The West Bank election results have weakened the position of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party. The long-delayed elections for control of 94 towns and villages took place on Satu...
المزيد
Connecting The Dots
WHEN I wrote on my blog recently about The Times’ decision not to give frontpage coverage to a congressional hearing on the consulate attack in Libya, hundreds of emails and comments poured in. Whil...
المزيد
US manufacturing firms are turning to Russia, with love
American manufacturing companies are marching on Moscow. At a time when tepid growth at home, a slowing Chinese economy and recession in much of Western Europe is dogging corporate America, Russia is ...
المزيد
A challenging task
A country of 1.2 billion, a sixth of humanity, is again awash with a public slugfest on graft. Corruption has been the favourite subject of policy forums in developing and developed societies. When it...
المزيد
Juveniles In Jails
THE practice of confining young people to adult jails and prisons is both counterproductive and inhumane. Adolescents who are locked up with adults are more likely to be raped, battered or driven to s...
المزيد
A new opportunity
A proposal by Kuwait’s Emir H H Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah to set up a $2bn fund to fight poverty in Asia is a firm step towards strengthening relations between the Gulf countries and the rest of...
المزيد
Obama back on trail but the battle is not over yet
President Barack Obama improved on his performance in the second election debate on Tuesday night from his listless showing two weeks earlier, when he lost ground in the campaign against challenger Mi...
المزيد
E Timor Story On Stage
I NEVER could write about what happened in East Timor. For a long time after I came back from reporting on the war there I couldn’t even look at a map of south-east Asia in case I might happen to see ...
المزيد
Vote deal a victory for Salmond but questions remain
Britain’s prime minister and Scotland’s first minister have fired the starting gun on a two-year campaign for the hearts and minds of Scottish voters ahead of an independence referendum to be held in ...
المزيد
Israeli election
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to call elections is a calculated move and means that in January next year, a new American president will be inaugurated shortly ahead of a new Isr...
المزيد
Price Of The IMF’s Vision
THEREis a wait-and-see approach among top officials the IMF. Wait and see what happens next in Europe and wait and see how the US tackles its so-called fiscal cliff. Optimists at the top of the orga...
المزيد
Soaring tensions
In the past few days, the rivalry and tensions between Turkey and Syria have reached dangerous proportions, which if not controlled, can lead to disastrous consequences for both and the entire region....
المزيد
The Age of Celebrity
Sports is no longer about human endeavour but about how much the body can be manipulated, through technology or drugs, to achieve the ‘ultimate’. In the process, as the fall of cycling champion Lance ...
المزيد
Iconoclast To Lead BoE
HOW to wreck Adair Turner’s chances of becoming next governor of the Bank of England? Answer, name him as the best candidate fit for the job. For the first time in modern history it really matters who...
المزيد
Approach To Somalia
AMID the flurry of international concern with the European economic crisis, the American elections, the controversy surrounding Iran and the fall-out from the Arab spring, it is important not to ignor...
المزيد
Concern as tensions escalate between Syria and Turkey
Turkey has deployed more fighter aircraft to its base near the Syrian border, in a week that has seen an escalation of tensions between the two neighbours. Reports in Ankara yesterday said Turkey’s to...
المزيد
Trust Political Dynasties?
KENNEDY. Roosevelt. Bush. Clinton. Gandhi. Bhutto. Gore. Aquino. Miliband. Le Pen. What do these familiar names have in common? They are all, in one way or another, names of political dynasties - ...
المزيد
Chavez again
Hugo Chavez’s relection yesterday as President of Venezuela can be interpreted as a democratic endorsement of the ant-US populism he has championed across the region. The election results will disappo...
المزيد
European Union is already showing signs of breakdown
Can the European Stability Mechanism, the €500bn ($650bn) rescue fund launched yesterday by the eurozone actually bring about much-needed recovery to the beleaguered economies of the member states? Th...
المزيد
Political fate of two charismatic leaders on the line in Latam
Elections in two key Latin American countries this week will decide the political fate of two charismatic leaders and their policies. In what is perhaps one of the most tightly contested polls in a de...
المزيد
China’s New Leaders
AFTER an eventful year, China has cleared the decks for a wholesale change of leadership amid a particularly challenging set of circumstances. Turbopowered growth has left the last major state ruled b...
المزيد
Obama under pressure
No one expected US President Barack Obama to perform so poorly in the first election debate on Thursday. Perhaps not even his rival Mitt Romney. The debate proved that Romney is in the race because a ...
المزيد
GCC must adopt system to recycle used paper
Paper Arabia 2012, the first industry-level exhibition in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), was held last week in the United Arab Emirates. In a region known mostly for its oil and natural gas, pap...
المزيد
A Myriad Of Realities
THE dark continent. The hopeless continent. A scar on the conscience of the world. The cradle of humankind. African renaissance, Africa rising. Amazing Africa. I am an African. Scramble for Africa. Ou...
المزيد
Apres Merkozy
BEFORE becoming president of France, Francois Hollande did not appear to take much interest in the European Union. However, in his youth he was a protege of Jacques Delors, the French left’s great E...
المزيد
Romney prevails in first debate but still trails Obama
US Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was declared the clear winner of Wednesday’s first campaign debate as President Barack Obama stopped short of offensive attacks against his challenger.Th...
المزيد
Widening conflict
The latest confrontation between Syria and Turkey is a bad omen as far as peace and security in the region is concerned. Syria has been buffeted by an insurgency for more than 18 months now. The Arab...
المزيد
Pietersen’s return is good for English cricket, fans
Cricket fans all over the world must have heaved a sigh of relief after Kevin Pietersen and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) resolved their differences paving the way for the controversial ba...
المزيد
Challenges ahead
Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi is completing hundred years in office. Hundred days is too short a period to pass judgment about a leader’s performance, but it can give certain indicators about the ...
المزيد
Trembling Before Mitt
DISREGARD today’s column. It won’t impress you. There’s no way around that, not when you factor in how little practice I have at this sort of thing and how much more articulate my fellow columnists ar...
المزيد
Rial’s plunge
Western powers are saying the collapse of Iranian currency is proof of the success of sanctions against the country. But for ordinary Iranians, it means their lives have been upended. What lies ahead ...
المزيد
Parliamentary polls mark new era for Georgia
Georgian’s parliamentary election has been described as the first democratic transfer of power since it broke away from the former Soviet Union more than 20 years ago. The election, which was praised ...
المزيد
No Easy Fix
HOW do we fix this mess?” That may be one of the stupidest questions I have ever asked myself, as of course I don’t know the answer. What I do know, however, is that few of the structural flaws in how...
المزيد
Drug price control
The decision of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states to jointly import medicines will be hailed with hope and enthusiasm by people of all the GCC countries, but in Qatar, the news will be welcome...
المزيد
European miracle in Medinah leaves US stunned
Cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties, they say, but often other sports also produce miracle moments that remain etched in memory for long.The Ryder Cup which Europe won on Sunday is a case in p...
المزيد
Chavez’s Failure
AS Venezuelans get ready to head to the polls for the most closely fought presidential election of the past 14 years, one question is at the forefront of everyone’s mind: does Hugo Chavez still have i...
المزيد
Protect children’s education
in conflict zones HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser has rightly pointed out that the loss of an education is the loss of a future, especially for the children caught in the crosshairs of terrorist movements...
المزيد
Harshest budget
In times of crisis, budgets are known to contain harsh, unpopular measures and are severely criticised by the public, and the leaders who present them are at the receiving end. The governments of cris...
المزيد
Reasons To Intervene In Syria
WHETHER you agree or disagree with President Barack Obama, there is no doubt that he has formulated a coherent approach to the use of American power. The Obama Doctrine involves getting into a conflic...
المزيد
West’s Terror Campaign
LIVING Under Drones, a new report from Stanford and New York universities, was a difficult piece of fieldwork - I was with the law students in Peshawar as they tried to interview victims of the CIA’s ...
المزيد
Emir’s practical solution to the Syrian crisis
HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani’s call for an Arab intervention in Syria needs to be praised and considered with utmost seriousness because it is the most practical solution to the crisi...
المزيد
Romney’s struggle
The US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is losing. That’s what polls say, though Romney himself has been behaving as if he is tied with President Barack Obama. He said he has “an effectiv...
المزيد
Not scared of Israel but afraid of Google!
It’s that time of the year when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad takes centre stage. Lashing out at Israel and the West, and exuding the kind of bravado that makes him a hero to some and a villain to others, the I...
المزيد
Resetting relations
Sitting in the opposition and hollering at a government over its alleged failures and flawed policies is one thing, and sitting in the same seat of power and having to confront the same issues, quite ...
المزيد
Economy Needs Reshaping
BRITAIN is in profound economic trouble: in recession, more or less, for four years and another two to wait before it gets back to 2008 levels of output. This state of affairs is doubly extraordinary ...
المزيد
Lesson from Libya
The developments in Libya yesterday are a cause for both hope and fear. Reports say that thousands of people took to the streets in Benghazi to protest against terrorism and forced out the militias bl...
المزيد
A question of responsibility in digital world
The past few weeks have been dominated by incendiary images. On one hand, there have been the trailer clips of a movie deeply offensive to Muslims. A deliberate attempt to hurt the sentiments of Musli...
المزيد
The Unmentionable War
IN his speech at the Republican National Convention, Mitt Romney avoided any mention of the war in Afghanistan. A week later, in accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama gave a p...
المزيد
A costly dispute
That the deserted, rocky outcrops known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan should cause such deep fissures in relations between two Asian giants, Japan and China, points to the fragility of their...
المزيد
The focus on older people is commendable
The International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (IAGG) will be setting up its regional branch in Qatar today.Earlier this month, the Supreme Council of Health discussed the possibility of ...
المزيد
Talking To Iran
THE latest tussle over red lines and deadlines on Iran’s nuclear programme obscures some of the genuine dilemmas now confronting the international community. For a long time, the major powers had ho...
المزيد
Now, the cartoons
All 75,000 copies of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which published cartoons mocking Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), were sold out and the magazine is planning to print more copies tomorrow. As...
المزيد
Gaffe-prone Romney may have made his biggest slip-up yet
Prior to Mitt Romney’s latest foot-in-mouth moment, the subject of candidates’ gaffes had been widely regarded as an entertaining but ultimately frivolous sideshow in the usually dour world of politic...
المزيد
China’s Lost Soul
THE 36th anniversary of Mao’s death, a little over a week ago, was met by official silence but spontaneous commemorations sprouted across China, including a long queue outside the Mao Memorial Hall...
المزيد
Odds against Chelsea repeating success in Champions League
Few people expected Chelsea to win the Champions League last season; even fewer expect them to win it again this time round. The Londoners begin the defence of their crown against Juventus at Stamford...
المزيد
9/11 Warnings
ON August 6, 2001, President George W Bush received a classified review of the threats posed by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al Qaeda. That morning’s “presidential daily brief” – the t...
المزيد
Roiling the waters
MUSCLE flexing by the United States and Iran in the Arabian Gulf is not new. Washington and its allies began major naval exercises in the Gulf two days ago. The war games are said to be aimed at clear...
المزيد
Averting a war
The statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran is just six to seven months away from acquiring nuclear weapons is meant to pile pressure on the United States. The Israeli leader ...
المزيد
Future Of Nuclear Fusion
EVERY year, one typical coal-fired power station devours several million tonnes of fuel and produces even more carbon dioxide. Burning stuff has the virtue that it is simple but it is very brutal. ...
المزيد
The Occupy movement one year on
Civil disobedience, of the kind made popular by Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr, has been reinterpreted for the 21st century by Occupy Wall Street, the movement against corporate greed and i...
المزيد
Brahimi’s mission
International peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is in Syria on his first visit to the country after taking up his new job. Brahimi held a series of meetings in Damascus yesterday, most notably with Presiden...
المزيد
Personal choice and social responsibility
The Supreme Council for Education recently helped to overturn a decision by an expatriate school that stopped one of its students from wearing her hijab. The pupil had been wearing it without hindranc...
المزيد
What Libya Lost
ON Wednesday morning, my colleagues and I were to meet in Benghazi with J Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador to Libya, to discuss a plan for a new division of emergency medicine at Benghazi ...
المزيد
In the name of faith
The dastardly and outrageous killing of American ambassador in Libya and three other embassy staff in the eastern city of Benghazi must be condemned in the strongest terms. The killing has shocked our...
المزيد
What Keeps China Up
AS China prepares for a leadership transition next month, problems are mounting: slowing economic growth, the political fallout from the Bo Xilai affair and destabilising social problems. Chinese le...
المزيد
Don’t play into the hands of enemies
An attack by a group of people on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which the ambassador and three other Americans were killed, was the latest in a series of angry reactions in the Muslim world ...
المزيد
9/11 legacy
America yesterday marked the eleventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks when Al Qaeda hijackers slammed airliners into New York’s World Trade Center. As every year, relatives of the nearly 3,000...
المزيد
Efforts to recover Arab Spring assets receive a boost
Recovering stolen assets is a major problem being faced by countries the world over owing to corruption and money laundering. The problem is particularly acute among Arab Spring countries which have w...
المزيد
The Polarised Election
AS Republicans were promoting themselves as a multiracial party from the platform in Tampa two weeks ago, an ugly incident on the convention floor suggested not everyone had got the memo. From the pod...
المزيد
Time for children and parents to go back to school
At least 200,000 students will have attended their first day of school in the new academic year in Qatar this week, signalling the end of vacations. For many parents, it will spell (a momentary) end t...
المزيد
A great legacy
The London 2012 Paralympics drew to a spectacular close yesterday after eleven days of exciting sporting action. Both in scale and fame, the Paralympics isn’t as strong as the Olympics, but it is an e...
المزيد
Impact on Greece
LAST week I was in Athens and took the metro to Syntagma Square. Like many northern Greeks, I have mixed feelings towards the capital. Northerners do not like to admit it, but we secretly enjoy the ...
المزيد
Failures in the decade-long Afghanistan war
Six people were killed and several others, mostly children, were wounded yesterday in a suicide bombing outside the headquarters of the US-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Kabul, ...
المزيد
The right move
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has decided to seek United Nations recognition as a non-member state and plans to submit its request to the UN General Assembly on September 27. Palestinian President Ma...
المزيد
Obama And Israel
AS an Israeli-American who cares deeply about the survival of Israel and the future of the Jewish people, I will be voting for President Obama in November. Here’s why. Even though he could have done a...
المزيد
Learning As Freedom
IN March, a task force organised by the Council on Foreign Relations tried to reframe the problems of the nation’s public schools as a threat to national security. “Large, undereducated swaths of the ...
المزيد
Bridging the gap
There has been a remarkable thaw in India-Pakistan relations of late. For two countries which have fought three wars (as western news agencies assiduously keep reminding us whenever they talk of India...
المزيد
Obama speech more restrained than expected
Life will probably go back to normal this week in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the Democratic Party gathered as US President Barack Obama formally accepted his nomination to fight the elections, w...
المزيد
Booster dose for Obama
US president Barack Obama’s embrace of Democratic partner Bill Clinton said a lot at Charlotte in North Carolina. Obama’s visage reflected a soothing certitude as he hugged the husband of his Secreta...
المزيد
Onus on Spain as ECB sets stage for eurozone rescue
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has delivered a roadmap for rescuing the eurozone from potential meltdown but the onus is now on Spain to swallow its pride and apply for help to bring dow...
المزيد
Why Mali Matters
FOR many people, Timbuktu has long represented the essence of remoteness: a mythical, faraway place located on the boundaries of our collective consciousness. But like many of the myths associated w...
المزيد
Spy master’s fall
Muammar Gaddafi’s notorious spy chief Abdullah Al Senoussi is in Tripoli after extradition from Mauritania. According to Libyan Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib, Al Senoussi will face a fair trial in...
المزيد
Obama’s campaign gets an impetus – from his wife
Wives have always been a feature of White House politics, with US presidents as well as presidential hopefuls often using the charms of their better halves to score a point or two – especially when it...
المزيد
Closer To The Hague
FOR years it seems impregnable, then suddenly the citadel collapses. An ideology, a fact, a regime appears fixed, unshakeable, almost geological. Then an inch of mortar falls, and the stonework begi...
المزيد
Getting Out Of The Hole
THE latest growth figures across Europe prove that the push for austerity has been a dismal failure. In Britain it may take years to recover from the double dip recession. The alternative push for s...
المزيد
Another downgrade
The downgrade of the European Union’s rating outlook by the Moody’s Investors Service has come only as a mild shock to the markets, though it has come at a time when markets were looking for signs of ...
المزيد
Slow change causing unrest in South Africa
Cyril Ramaphosa, a young black activist, was asked in 1982 to start a labour organisation for mining workers to challenge one of the most important sectors of the country’s economy, then dominated by ...
المزيد
Can Europe Survive?
WHO won the most medals at the Olympics? Europe. Who has the largest economy in the world? Europe again. And where do most people want to go on holiday? Europe, of course. On many measures of power,...
المزيد
On a peace mission
The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s current visit to Southeast Asia is at best a delicate diplomatic balancing act and at worst an effort to fish in troubled waters. Clinton was in Jakarta yes...
المزيد
Time for the great Tendulkar to vacate the stage
Occasionally there comes a moment when the truth needs to be told bluntly. Instead of beating about the bush and trying to find flower-petal like words, a bit of plain-talking would be in order.We are...
المزيد
The bleakest incident in South Africa’s post-apartheid history
Violence at a wildcat strike by workers at a platinum mine in Marikana, South Africa, led to the deaths of 34 people and injured nearly 78 when police opened fire on the strikers on Thursday. Police a...
المزيد
Mass Mortgage Refinancing
MORE than 4 million Americans have lost their homes since the housing bubble began bursting six years ago. An additional 3.5 million homeowners are in the foreclosure process or are so delinquent on p...
المزيد
A peaceful takeover
With the military bowing to Muhammed Mursi, the military rule in Egypt has come to an end. Two days after Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi consolidated his grip on power, it can be officially said t...
المزيد
The Soul Of The Olympics
IT’S easy to be cynical about the Olympics: about the runaway commercialism; about the jingoism that so many countries bring to the games; about NBC. Definitely about NBC. Its breathless degree of fak...
المزيد
Millions being affected as civil war grips Syria
Following his defection to Jordan last week, the former Syrian prime minister, Riad Hijab, has declared that the Assad regime is on the brink of collapse, lacking popular support and clinging onto con...
المزيد
A peace deal
The agreement reached by Sudan and South Sudan to end a long oil dispute that led to huge economic consequences andprompted fears of war is the best thing to happen to relations between the two countr...
المزيد
Bolt cements his place as track legend in London
As if there was ever any doubt. Usain Bolt is the fastest man on the planet, and his incredible performance in the 100m final on Sunday evening served as a reminder that this athlete will go down in t...
المزيد
Why Economic Crisis?
IN the UK, the summer of 2007 was a run-of-the-mill affair. Tony Blair had stepped down as prime minister in late June and his successor Gordon Brown was enjoying a honeymoon period. It was a year wit...
المزيد
PM’s defection beginning of the end for Bashar?
Syria’s Prime Minister Riyad Hijab deserted Bashar al-Assad’s government and fled the country yesterday in a symbolically powerful move that could hasten the downfall of the brutal regime.Hijab immedi...
المزيد
Endgame in Syria
The defection of Syrian prime minister to the opposition has dealt a deadly blow to the regime. The Syrian regime is crumbling. The defection of Prime Minister Riyad Hijab to the opposition yesterday...
المزيد
Why Obama Has An Edge?
DURING the dog days of last summer’s debt ceiling negotiations, with Washington gridlocked and the president’s approval ratings slumping, a narrative coalesced among disappointed liberals. President B...
المزيد
Trigger-happy People
IN 1999 I was a student at Chatfield High School, in Littleton, Colo, where students from nearby Columbine High were diverted after 13 people were killed in the April 20 massacre there. After gradu...
المزيد
Aleppo fears reprisal attacks against civilians
The city of Aleppo, which has become the latest flashpoint between the Syrian government forces and rebels in recent days, has a historic past. One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the w...
المزيد
About The Olympics opening ceremony
The Olympics opening ceremony is a spectable one would rarely miss. The planning and money that goes into organising the first event of the games is stupendous and for the host country, it’s a golden ...
المزيد
Attacks on medical staff should be dealt with firmly
Instances of doctors and other medical staff being roughed up by the relatives of patients have been making headlines in Qatar, bringing to the fore a very sensitive issue that needs to be tackled fir...
المزيد
FINANCIAL SCANDAL SCORECARD
IS it my imagination, or does every week bring news of another financial scandal? No, it’s not my imagination. First up: Peregrine Financial Group. This long-running fraud, which has apparently been...
المزيد
Deadliest day
Is Iraq heading towards another round of vicious sectarian bloodletting that peaked in 2007? The bombings and shootings in Iraq yesterday have sent a chilling warning that terrorist groups are stil...
المزيد
Britain’s greatest public spectacle in centuries
As the Diamond Jubilee celebrations mark 60 years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II this week, commentators have tried to dissect the reason for the British monarch’s success in living most of her li...
المزيد
Bloody consequences of US military hubris
D-Day – 6 June 1944, when Allied forces stormed into Hitler’s Fortress Europa in Normandy – is rightly celebrated for the valour of the American and British citizen soldiers who scaled the fearsome c...
المزيد
Yemen Can’t Do It Alone
DURING a recent visit to Yemen, I was sitting in a cafe in Sana when we suddenly experienced a power outage. I asked the waiter what happened, and he replied: “Saleh’s men keep attacking the main pow...
المزيد
Space exploration enters a new era
The SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is moved into position for docking with the International Space Station using the station’s Canadarm2 in this image captured from Nasa TV From one giant leap t...
المزيد
Transparency test for Egypt’s president
Egypt is having free and, hopefully, fair presidential elections for the first time in a long while, thanks to last year’s revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak’s regime. The country has always been ...
المزيد
Europe Not Doomed
IT may be an effect of belated spring sunshine, but there are reasons to feel optimistic about Europe again. Whatever the short-term reactions of the markets, there is a fact about the European Uni...
المزيد
Exporting revolution
One of the worst fears at the beginning of the Syrian revolution was that it will spill over into neighbouring countries because of the volatile mix of sectarian and religious groups in the region and...
المزيد
Israel should take Emir’s speech seriously
HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani’s speech at the 12th Doha Forum on Middle East Economic Future on Sunday is sure to find resonance in the Arab world where political upheavals are paving ...
المزيد
Oil Revenue Weapon
OIL prices have plummeted for the past two weeks, largely on dim projections for global growth. But an underappreciated, major threat to this trend lies on the horizon. EU and US sanctions against I...
المزيد
Egypt’s transition towards democracy
Earlier this month, millions of people throughout the Arab world viewed, for the first time, a televised debate between two presidential candidates: Egypt’s secularist Amr Moussa, and Islamist Abdel-M...
المزيد
Free The Post Office
IN the short run, it’s not all that difficult to figure out how to stanch the bleeding at the US Postal Service. True, its losses seem downright scary. In just the first half of this year, it reported...
المزيد
Greek Tragedy
AS I follow the modern Greek tragedy unfolding in Europe, I flash back to the 18 years I spent in Athens, walking to school in Plaka (the old part of the city), on the same streets that have recently ...
المزيد
India-Pakistan cricket ties back on track
Cricketing ties between India and Pakistan are looking up once again after a four-year hiatus following the terror attacks in Mumbai in late 2008.The Indian cricket board on Saturday extended an invit...
المزيد
Gulf unity
Ever since the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was formed in 1981, its six members have been striving for closer cooperation, though the degree of success in this regard hasn’t been very satisfactory. ...
المزيد
Reflections on ‘mother of all days’
Today is Mother’s Day in many countries. A Day, just like the other Days – for fathers, friends, lovers and pets – that has been overtaken by commercialisation. Going by the number of advertisements a...
المزيد
Reining in banks
Even at the heights of various financial crises, the advocates of free market and bankers had successfully withstood calls from various quarters for strict regulation of banks and financial institutio...
المزيد
Fight Terror not Govt
RATHER than fighting terrorism, Pakistani judges and journalists are pursuing political vendettas against an elected government. On the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death last week, Pakistan was...
المزيد
Greek trouble
Greece is hurtling towards an unprecedented political crisis too. The country remained mired in political stalemate yesterday as talks on forming a coalition government faltered after inconclusive pol...
المزيد
Dale’s violent death highlights perils of charity work
Some 35 years ago, Ken Dale converted to Islam, changed his name to Khalil Dale, and decided to embark on a challenging journey across Muslim lands to help people torn apart by war, poverty, illiterac...
المزيد
Rights On Wheels
THE Philippine Commission on Human Rights marked its 25th anniversary this month by launching its Human Rights on Wheels programme, which seeks to educate people about their rights and provide victims...
المزيد
Bosnian War
I’M 31-year-old physical therapist living in Astoria, Queens, an American citizen more into “Seinfeld” reruns than bloodthirsty revenge. And yet, 20 years after the start of the Bosnian war that exil...
المزيد
Hasten Slowly
Bahrain is certainly not on the boil, but it has not been off the burner since the first protests erupted in the kingdom 14 months ago as Arab Spring uprisings swept through the region. The simmering ...
المزيد
Let’s face it: Shakespeare had help
The depressingly predictable decision to make Shakespeare the focus of Olympic-year festivals in British theatre and at the BBC increases the sense that cultural and academic establishments are pullin...
المزيد
Election turmoil
The decision of Egypt’s election commission to bar ten candidates from the presidential race has rocked an already tumultuous race. It might look normal for an election commission to bar candidates wh...
المزيد
Nations in search of a common identity
Great significance – probably too much – has been attached to a possible breakup of the eurozone. Many believe that such a breakup – if, say, Greece abandoned the euro and reintroduced the drachma – w...
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Positive Start
WHEN the leaders of India and Pakistan got together for lunch on Sunday in New Delhi there were no dramatic breakthroughs. But given their countries’ combustible history and the ever-present danger of...
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Editorial: Santorum’s exit
Rick Santorum’s decision to suspend his presidential campaign has effectively ended the race for the Republican nomination. Mitt Romney, the likely nominee, can now focus all his energies on the job h...
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On Iran, Reality Bites
JOHN VINOCUR |NYT NEWS SERVICE BAD NEWS: the Obama administration and the West hold a lousy hand as they go into talks with Iran. In a world of dreams and miracles, the conversations, starting on Sa...
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Clean chit to Modi raises questions about India’s legal process
A top investigation team’s clean chit to Narendra Modi, the chief minister of India’s Gujarat state where about 3,000 people, mainly Muslims, died in communal riots in 2002, has raised more questions ...
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US-Afghan deal
The United States and Afghanistan have resolved a major source of friction between the two countries with the signing of a deal on night military operations. The deal signed on Sunday puts Afghans in ...
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Britain’s Zigzag Economy
STEPHANIE FLANDERS | BBC-NYT NEWS SERVICE WHEN Sir Mervyn King spoke of the ‘zigzag’ pattern we could expect in 2012, he wasn’t wrong. Official data – and private surveys – have been all over the pl...
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Challenges and dangers of the social media age
Anyone left in any doubt as to the power of social media should heed the latest news emerging from Kuwait, where a local Tweeter has been jailed for seven years after posts he wrote on the site were d...
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Violence in Karachi cannot go on forever
The situation in Karachi is alarming to say the least as ethnopolitical violence continues to take a heavy toll of lives in Pakistan’s largest city and financial hub.According to figures released yest...
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Deadly fall
It was bloodbath on global markets yesterday -- an unprecedented bloodbath which has sent a chill down the spine of everyone. The markets closed for business last night nursing losses of more tha...
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Mubarak’s Trial Spectacle
HOSNI Mubarak’s televised trial transformed Egypt and much of the Middle East into a vast living room on Wednesday, with millions of viewers, from the shops of Amman and Jerusalem to the hovels of imp...
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