Just days ago, the U.N. Security Council passed a landmark resolution mandating intervention in Libya, backed by what seemed like tacit international consensus on the intolerable behavior of the Gaddafi regime. U.S., French and British aircraft commenced strikes on Libyan military positions, reversing the advance of pro-government forces …
Terrorism
Egypt Resumes Gas Flow to Israel, but Relations Still in Flux
It took five weeks instead of five days, but Egypt has resumed natural gas shipments to Israel , repairing the damage from a sabotaged pipeline and offering succor to Israeli hopes that the world may not have turned entirely upside down after all.
Israel relies on Egypt for nearly half of its natural gas needs, and it has a plenty of …
Uprisings in the Middle East Could Be Bad News for Al-Qaeda: Cautious Optimism in Britain
Muammar Gaddafi blamed a coalition of drugs, alcohol and Osama bin Laden for inciting Libyan youth to reject his dictatorial rule. Somewhat more credible commentators, including my colleague Bobby Ghosh, warn that the collapse of the Yemeni regime could boost the AQ affiliate Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, yet such concerns have done …
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 …
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 …
Why Are Some U.S. Politicians Trying to Remove an Iranian ‘Cult’ From the Terror List?
The two leading figures of Iran’s opposition Green Movement – presidential candidates Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi are under arrest as the regime cracks down on any effort to emulate the Arab world’s democracy rebellions. But Iran’s opposition may be in store for another blow – this time, at the hands of those in Washington …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Winds of Libyan Change Envelop British Government in Stench
Tony Blair’s 2004 meeting with Muammar Gaddafi was momentous by any standards. Blair’s arrival in Libya marked the first visit to the country by a British prime minister since 1943, and proceeded against protests by some relatives of the Lockerbie dead. His purpose was to encourage Gaddafi’s perceived desire “to make common cause with us …
Algeria Rescinds Emergency Powers–But Isn’t Bending To Popular Unrest
Was the lifting Thursday of Algeria’s 19-year state of emergency a sign the country’s corrupt, authoritarian regime is responding to the growing public unrest that brought down the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt—and now looks set to topple Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi? Without any doubt. Yet it would be naïve to interpret the repealing …
Broken Promises: How We Failed Afghanistan’s Girls
Imagine that nine years ago, a rich philanthropist decided that your community needed an elementary school. He constructed a nice building, furnished it with desks and blackboards, and maybe even gave you a playground. Now imagine that the school was right in the middle of a vicious turf war between two rival gangs. The teachers at the …