The government of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made its answer to Palestinian membership in UNESCO, and it’s an interesting one: Accelerating construction in the West Bank settlements.
Construction of some 2,000 housing units will be hastened to bring more Israelis onto Palestinian land captured by Israel in the 1967 …
It’s hardly unexpected that a U.S. political-media culture that routinely repackages yesterday’s panicky improvisations as today’s established “doctrines” has seen many in Washington hail Libya as “the new model” for U.S. intervention abroad. With comparatively limited investment of Western treasure — and no troops on the ground, …
In August 2010, against the backdrop of last year’s fierce stone-pelting protests in Kashmir, I asked Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, about one of the protestors’ demands: the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), a controversial law that gives Indian troops broad protection …
An excellent story by Reuters just went up today describing why it is a people known to be as siege-prone, strike-happy, and demonstration-loving as the French have not followed Greek, Spanish, American, British, Indian, and other protestors staging relatively successful Occupy movements these days. The piece notes how that docility …
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the ideal test-bed for the proposition that the United States can compensate for the decline of its ability to influence events through military and economic muscle through “smart power“, putting diplomacy in the lead and leveraging more limited U.S. hard power through coalitions and making use …
From the farce of Borat to the ignorance of Herman Cain, the politics and people of Central Asia get short shrift in the U.S. But deride the ‘Stans at your peril. The old crossroads of the Silk Road now rest upon 21st century geo-political faultlines, etched by the competing strategic interests of Russia, China, and the U.S. …
As predicted, the relief and relative calm produced by the Oct. 27 agreement between European Union leaders battling the tightening euro zone debt crisis didn’t last long. Markets just aren’t ready to do with the fruits of optimism when there’s still so much to be made from low-hanging pessimism. Less expected, however, were …
Ai Weiwei’s ordeal isn’t over. The artist and activist, who was released in June after three-months in detention, says the Chinese government is seeking $2.4 million in back taxes and fines from him. A notice delivered Tuesday ordered Ai to pay up within about 10 days, or face unspecified measures, reports the AP. The burly, bearded …
In November 2006, as ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko lay dying of radioactive poisoning, his wife Marina held a bedside vigil. At first doctors at his London hospital blamed an E. coli infection for Litvinenko’s yellowing skin, sunken eyes and dramatic weight loss. But Marina sensed something more sinister. “We asked many times …
The following is a guest post from TIME contributor Joe Jackson.
As the planet’s population climbs towards a new U.N.-projected peak of 10.1 billion by the turn of the next century, competition for resources within and between states will likely intensify. So too, goes the logic, will the number of resulting conflicts over oil, …
Unesco’s approval of full membership for Palestine is not without practical significance: The U.N. organization bestows and enforces the status of World Heritage Site, and with portions of the Heritage-aspirant Dead Sea located in Palestinian territory, as well as Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity and the Hebron tomb of Abraham and …
Kenya’s hasty invasion of its northern neighbor Somalia took a tragic turn late Sunday when, according to witnesses on the ground, the Kenyan air force bombed a refugee camp sheltering those fleeing Somalia’s famine, killing three children and two adults. A spokesman for the Kenyan military in Nairobi insisted that the bombers killed …
According to U.N. demographers, today, Oct. 31, marks a population milestone: 7 billion. (See TIME’s special report: The World At 7 Billion) Although there is some debate as to where, exactly, the 7 billionth child was born —Plan International, for one, says the title goes to India—U.N. officials bestowed the symbolic honor on …