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 …
arab uprisings
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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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 …
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 …
Strong Obstacles Remain to Western Military Intervention in Libya
An international community that in 2005 at the United Nations adopted the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) protocol might seem obliged to intervene directly in Libya. R2P, after all, holds that if a state is unable to protect its citizens from genocide or other mass atrocities, the international community has a responsibility to …
After Egypt, A Palestinian Techie Takes to the Streets
Like most Palestinian children, Mohammad Khatib was raised to avoid politics, widely understood as a shortcut to an early grave or an Israeli prison. Khatib took the advice and bent to his studies. But on Feb. 2 he noticed that a friend had updated her Facebook status to say she was going to demonstrate in solidarity with Egyptians …
Gaddafi’s Ministry of Silly Outfits: a TIME Gallery
We mentioned in an earlier post that, yes, it has become a little cliche to gawk at Muammar Gaddafi’s sartorial decision-making. Unlike other publications, we even deliberately refrained from publishing our amassed photos of the now-isolated Libyan dictator’s wardrobe while security forces in his employ gunned down ordinary Libyans. …
With Friends Like the Gaddafis…
It seems only yesterday (actually it was last November) that students from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an institution of such international renown that like the BBC it usually goes by a three-letter acronym, led protests about changes to the funding of higher education in Britain. Once again, LSE students are …
The Craziest Guy in the Room: A Portrait of Gaddafi
Three inches from one of the most notorious dictators in history, the photographer Platon focused tightly on the black eyes glaring at him through his lens. “There was nothing in them,” he said. “It’s like his soul had been scooped out of his head and taken away.”
The result, a dark and menacing portrait of Libyan leader …
Global Briefing, Feb. 28, 2011: Ten Stories to Start Your Day
Not in Bloom — TIME’s Austin Ramzy chronicles the ‘sad farce’ of China’s would-be Jasmine revolution.
The Palin Doctrine — Foreign Affairs asks what Tea Party populism means for American foreign policy.
The Right’s Might — A flagging Europe is at risk of a fascist renaissance, warns Ian Kershaw in the National …
Sarkozy’s Cabinet Shuffle: Will Anything Change?
Though hastily organized in appearance, the cabinet shuffle announced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy Sunday night was in fact designed to do something that had long become inevitable: dump scandal-plagued Foreign Affairs Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie. But while Sarkozy justified the shake-up as necessary to get France’s sidelined …