India overtook China to become the world’s leading arms importer, according to the Stockholm Peace and Research Initiative (SIPRI), a Swedish think tank that monitors international weapons sales. Between 2006-2010, India received 9% of global arms transfers, the most for any nation, with the vast majority of those imports (82%) coming …
Conflict
New Wikileaks Cables Reveal India Foreign Policy Tensions
The Indian newspaper The Hindu has published an absorbing, multi-story Wikileaks package today about 5,100 diplomatic cables covering everything from India-Pakistan relations after the November 2008 terror attacks to the end of the Sri Lankan civil war and influence-peddling in Nepal. There are also some revealing behind-the-scenes …
TIME Reporter Expelled from Yemen
The following comes from TIME’s News Director Howard Chua-Eoan
TIME’s reporter in Yemen Oliver Holmes phoned in to report that he and the reporters for the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times are being deported by the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The ostensible reason given by the government was that Holmes, Haley …
Why A Saudi Intervention into Bahrain Won’t End the Protests
Saudi troops in Bahrain? A month ago that was the worst case scenario, a threat put out there by the “sky is falling” extremists who were convinced that protesting in Bahrain would not go the way of peaceful demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt. But the momentum of the movements sweeping the Middle East caught the imagination of young …
What Lies Beneath: Bahrain’s “New Citizens” Fuel Unrest
If you want to know more about one of the fundamental issues at the center of Bahrain’s protest movement, it might be worth taking a look at some of the Pakistani newspapers. Today’s Tribune is running a story about a recruitment drive in Pakistan for Bahrain’s security forces. To be sure, there is nothing new about how the Gulf …
EU Summit On Libya Produces Tough Talk, But No Walk Against Gaddafi
Reminiscent of Thursday’s meeting of NATO defense ministers, today’s summit of European Union leaders produced a largely symbolic collective statement demanding Muammar Gaddafi give up power and end the violence raging in Libya—but refrained from proposing anything to back that urging up with. But given the important advances of …
Cote d’Ivoire: Africa Moving Closer to Armed Intervention
Is Africa getting closer to taking military action to force out Laurent Gbagbo in Cote d’Ivoire? Perhaps. On Thursday, the legitimate ruler of the small West African nation, Alassane Ouattara, held talks with the Africa Union in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Rather than another attempt to forge a compromise between Ouattara and …
Tensions Mount in Bahrain as Friday Protests Get Underway
The golf clubs are primed, the clubs studded with nails. As a group of anti-government protestors makes its way from downtown Manama towards the Royal Court in Riffa, hundreds of government supporters are standing in wait, armed and spoiling for a fight. Bahrain is readying for a conflagration that could transform a weeks-old peaceful …
Inside the World of Egypt’s Secret Police
TIME’s remarkable Photo department offers up one more treat: this weekend, hundreds of Egyptians ransacked the offices of the country’s reviled state security organization, an institution run out of the Interior Ministry that monitored, detained, intimidated and tortured countless Egyptians over the years. Now, the tables have …
Civilian Casualties on the Rise in Afghanistan, But Not Because of Coalition Forces
When NATO forces accidently killed nine Afghan boys gathering firewood to heat their family homes last Wednesday, it marked a low point in a war that has already had its share of horrific mistakes. From wedding parties to religious school compounds, civilian casualties have been as much a part of the war as IEDs and donkey-borne …
France Recognizes Libyan Opposition Government
Props to French President Nicolas Sarkozy for becoming the first international leader to recognize the opposition battling Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi as the rightful representatives of their country. But should it have taken this long for someone to make such a no-brainer decision? And what’s taking Sarkozy’s peers so long in …
How Soccer Explains the Middle East
A soccer game was held yesterday in the West Bank. That may not be quite out of the ordinary in this soccer-mad part of the world, but the teams competing were: on one side, you had Thailand, and the other, Palestine. A qualifying tournament for the 2012 Olympics, this was the first ever internationally-sanctioned game in the Occupied …
New French Poll, Same Result: Marine Le Pen Leads All Presidential Rivals
After the controversy of the first poll comes confirmation in the second. Just 48 hours after a Harris Interactive survey simulating voter intention for the first round of France’s 2012 presidential election found extreme-right leader Marine Le Pen finishing first, a second wave of polling not only reaffirms Le Pen’s domination of …