Vast, resource-rich Kazakhstan prides itself on being the most stable and tranquil of the Central Asian states — which are to varying degrees all burdened by corrupt elites, ethnic hatreds and the specter of Islamist militancy. But at 9:30 am local time Tuesday a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside the offices of the country’s …
Terrorism expert Peter Bergen reports on CNN International that the Egyptian Saif al-Adel has been appointed as a “caretaker” leader of al-Qaeda, following the death of its emir Osama bin Laden. A Pakistani newspaper article datelined from Rawalpindi, the bustling city near Islamabad that’s home to Pakistan’s army headquarters, …
It’s easy to overlook the killing of a single person in violence-plagued Pakistan, not least in Karachi, a seaside metropolis ever in danger of boiling over into sectarian bloodshed. But the murder of a Saudi diplomat by unknown assailants ought to raise eyebrows. Saudi Arabia’s tangled, pervasive influence in Pakistan has been well …
L’affaire DSK: The arrest of International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on sexual-assault charges in New York has plunged France into a bout of “soul searching” and probably removes the greatest threat to unpopular French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s rule in upcoming elections. TIME’s global business correspondent Michael …
Here’s our latest installment of five rental films to watch this weekend to get you up to speed with our week in news. Compiled by Ishaan Tharoor and Tony Karon.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvp_GJ_4dow]
Carry On Up the Khyber
It’s a truth we’ve all read (and written about) for a while now: as grumpy as Washington …
ABCNews reports that Pakistani authorities may be willing to share with their Chinese counterparts the charred wreckage of the detonated U.S. stealth helicopter used in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. Anonymous Pakistani officials claimed the Chinese, whose military harbors a not-so-secret ambition to match American capabilities …
By mid-January, the world heaved a massive sigh of relief when a hotly anticipated referendum over the secession of southern Sudan passed with minimal violence. In July, South Sudan is set to formally become an independent state, sundering in half Africa’s biggest country. But as more high-profile conflicts raged in the Ivory Coast, …
After delivering a lecture on “secular ethics” at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles just days after the U.S. raid on Abbottabad, the Dalai Lama was asked of his thoughts about the killing of Osama bin Laden. A headline in the Los Angeles Times claimed the great spiritual leader in exile thought bin Laden’s death “was …
Game of Thrones — As the world’s attention focuses on Pakistan, a fascinating power struggle is playing out in Iran between controversial President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Guardian reports that a number of prominent Ahmadinejad allies have been arrested on archaic charges of …
It’s not often that a government goes out of its way to plead incompetence, but that’s precisely what the Pakistanis are doing in the face of outside scrutiny over what appears to have been the longstanding presence of Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil. Islamabad has now hired a prominent Washington lobbyist — to the tune of $75,000 a …
Update: Barcelona won, but not without controversy.
At 2:45 PM on the U.S.’s eastern seaboard, a soccer game across the pond in Barcelona will kick off between two of the sport’s most legendary teams, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. It’s a rivalry steeped in deep historical enmity, oozing glamor and bling, and currently in full heat, …
Among the ironies surrounding the discovery and death of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan is the location of his final resting place: according to reports, the arch-terrorist who we’ve imagined for years skulking in caves and stalking the arid, rugged badlands of the Af-Pak border is now sleeping with the fishes of the Arabian …
The idyllic, verdant town where Osama bin Laden had been in hiding — and where the terrorist-in-chief met his end yesterday — is now under a particularly glaring spotlight. As we now know, bin Laden took sanctuary in a compound here, lying amid an affluent community which includes numerous prominent retired Pakistani army staff. The …
