The G-8 wraps up its 37th conclave May 27 at the French seaside resort of Deauville. By now, you may have seen some of the gathering’s glitzy snaps. Two seem to define the occasion: one of President Obama and Europe’s top potentates taking a chummy stroll along the Normandy coast, the other of pregnant French first lady Carla …
Libya
Obama in London: All Hope and Glory, Signifying Nothing?
President Barack Obama — in a speech before the British parliament that drew approving nods rather than the aerobic repeat ovations that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had elicited on Capitol Hill a day earlier — sought to reassure Britons that the transatlantic relationship remains “special”. More importantly, he wanted …
Bahrain’s Voiceless: How al-Jazeera’s Coverage of the Arab Spring Is Uneven
A couple of weeks ago, the Qatari English language daily the Peninsula ran the provocative headline, “Why Are We So Timid?” in its Saturday special issue. “Freedom eludes the Qatari media even as the country’s top leadership is keen to promote free expression and has lifted all kinds of restrictions on the local press,” opined …
Obama: So Loved in Britain, He Might Consider Staying
The President was supposed to arrive for his two-day state visit to the U.K. on the morning of May 24. Instead, a plume of volcanic ash from Iceland forced a change of plan that saw POTUS curtail his trip to his ancestral homeland, Ireland, and head for London before Air Force One could be grounded. As officials scrambled to find him a …
Facing the Threat of Piracy, China Starts to Talk Like a Superpower
On a visit to the U.S. this week, China’s top military commander Chen Bingde suggested that the international coalition patrolling the Gulf of Aden and the waters off the coast of Somalia ought to take decisive action against pirate dens on land. So far, the counter-piracy strategy has focused on the pirate “mother-ships,” usually …
Bin Laden’s Posthumous Tape: The Sad Nothings of a Dead Man
Through an Islamist website, al-Qaeda apparently released a 12-minute audio tape recorded by Osama bin Laden shortly before his May 2 death at the hands of Navy SEALs. In it, the deceased terrorist mastermind lavishes praise upon the protest movements of the Arab Spring, insisting that “the winds of change will envelope the entire Muslim …
Why Obama’s Mideast Speech is For Domestic, Not Arab Consumption
The question among Middle East watchers over Thursday’s planned speech on the Arab Spring by President Obama has been this: Why would he address the Arab world at a moment when his policies have little hope of reversing diminished U.S. standing? After all, the Arab consensus views Obama has having failed miserably to deliver on the …
Al-Qaeda’s Alleged New Leader: Who Is Saif al-Adel?
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, …
Global Briefing: Crimes and Misdemeanors
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 …
Signs of Fatigue and Unease as Europe Struggles with Libyan and Syrian Crises
Despite intensified NATO bombings and important gains made by the rebels who are fighting loyalists of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Tuesday, it seems increasingly clear that the clock is ticking on the international community’s involvement in Libya’s civil war — and that doubts about the outcomes of other Arab Spring uprisings …
Arrested Suspects Increase Speculation Of Al Qaeda Involvement In Marrakech Bombing
A full week after a bomb devastated a popular tourist café in Marrakech killing 16 people and injuring 21 others, Moroccan authorities announced the arrest of three suspects in the attack. Yet despite the information released in the wake of those detentions, it’s still uncertain whether the strike was the work of local extremists …
In Libya’s West, Battles Rage Along the Tunisian Border
The battle for Libya spilled across the border on Friday as forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi clashed with Tunisian troops after chasing rebel fighters through the mountainous border areas. They also fired shells into the Tunisian town of Dahiba, wounding one resident. The fighting erupted nearly a week after the rebel forces had …
Why Americans Care More Than Brits Do About the Royal Wedding
A quick glance at the news from the real world and it’s not hard to see why the media-consuming public of the United States appears willing to lose itself in the fantastic miasma created by saturation coverage of the Disney-for-adults spectacle of a British royal wedding.
There’s nothing new about the decline of the erstwhile empire …