French politicians and pundits were in an tizzy Monday following the publication Sunday of a new poll showing extreme-right leader Marine Le Pen winning the first round of presidential voting were it held now. In it, Le Pen—who took over the presidency of the National Front (FN) party in January from her father, Jean-Marie Le …
Conflict
Global Briefing, Mar. 7, 2011: War Crimes, People Power and Governments Behaving Badly
Forgotten Genocide: In the New York Times, New Delhi correspondent Lydia Polgreen reports from Bangladesh about the country’s belated efforts to investigate the massacres that led up to its independence in 1971, when over a million people (up to three million, by some estimates) may have been killed by the Pakistani army and its Bengali …
Libya: Talk of Intervention Continues, While Others Look at What May Follow Gaddafi
Massimo Calabresi summarizes President Obama’s thinking on Libya:
Obama clarified the U.S. position today, saying that he wanted to make sure “the United States has full capacity to act — potentially rapidly — if the situation deteriorated in such a way that you had a humanitarian crisis on our hands or a situation in which
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New Info Campaign Tells French Citizens How To Be Burqa Vigilantes
It’s not exactly “wear a burqa, go to jail”, but the French state has begun a sloganeering information campaign aimed at dissuading a crime that has fueled growing public concern. As part of that effort, the government is reminding Muslim women who wear the full-body veil that they’ll soon be legally prohibited of being seen in …
Ripples of a Revolution: A Jasmine Crackdown in Vietnam
Nguyen Dan Que heard the call for revolution. But so did the government. On Feb. 28, the 68-year-old doctor and dissident was detained by Vietnamese authorities for posting internet messages that threatened the “stability and strength” of the country’s ruling party. He has since been released, but must attend daily “interrogation …
An ‘Interim’ Peace Deal? Israel’s Netanyahu Tries to Reheat a Souffle
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be forgiven for feeling just a wee bit lonely, right now. Events in the Middle East are increasingly passing him by, leaving him on the sidelines as the region’s history is being remade. And on Wednesday, one of Israel’s most senior veteran diplomats, Ilan Baruch, resigned from the …
EXCLUSIVE: Is Yemen’s Saleh Set to Step Down?
Update: TIME quoted a government source claiming President Saleh had agreed to a five-point proposal circulated by the opposition. That proposal included his stepping down within nine months. However, the source later said that the proposals that the regime looked favorably on were not the same as those circulated earlier in the …
Afghanistan’s Buddhas Can Be Rebuilt. But Should They?
Ten years ago next month, the world watched in horror as Afghanistan’s Taliban regime blew up one of the ancient world’s most inspiring works of art: two standing Buddha statues, one at 125 feet and the other at 180, that had been carved in a cliff face in the remote Bamiyan valley. Within days the Taliban had all but decimated the …
To Intervene, Or Not To Intervene
To further Tony’s excellent post yesterday on obstacles that any eventual Western military action in or around Libya will face, it will be interesting to watch in the coming hours and days whether a more consistent view on outside intervention forms on the Libyan street. For the moment (as the NY Times piece Tony refers to notes) there …
South Africa’s Rainbow Nation: Still Stuck on Color
Two race scandals dominate the headlines in South Africa today, both of them concerning slurs against the colored community of the Western Cape, where I live. On Sunday, socialite Nomakula “Kuli” Roberts wrote a poorly conceived and dreadfully executed column about the characteristics supposedly shared by all colored women in her Bitch’s …
The Raymond Davis Affair: Are CIA and ISI Ties Doomed?
On Swampland, TIME contributor Mark Benjamin blogs about the breakdown between Washington and Islamabad over the planned trial of Raymond Davis, a U.S. CIA agent responsible for the deaths of three Pakistanis in the city of Lahore. U.S. officials are frantically trying to broker a deal that will avoid a public trial in Pakistan. Benjamin …
Zimbabwe: Virtually No Revolution
There’s been much speculation about whether Egyptian-style uprisings might spread south across the Sahara into Africa, particularly to the seat of the continent’s most notorious despot, Robert Mugabe. Mugabe’s regime has been particularly paranoid about the possibility, arresting 46 people for watching news reports of the rebellions in …
Somali Pirates Hijack Danish Yacht: Why Does This Keep on Happening?
On Feb. 24, the Danish Naval Command received a distress signal from a vessel in the Indian Ocean. Not long thereafter, Danish officials confirmed that the yacht of a Danish family had been hijacked by Somali pirates. The crew of seven, including three teenagers, their parents and the ship’s deckhands are now all captive. “It’s almost …