Okay, so can we finally stop with the idiotic, divisive, and destructive efforts by “majority sections” of Western nations to bait Muslim members with petulant, futile demonstrations that “they” aren’t going to tell “us” what can and can’t be done in free societies? Because not only are such Islamophobic antics futile …
Conflict
Will New Delhi Allow its Troops in Kashmir to Face Prosecution?
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 …
Planet 7 Billion: Five Crisis Hotspots to Watch
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, …
Bombardment of Somali Refugee Camp Is Symbolic of Kenya’s Doomed Invasion
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 …
China and India at War: Study Contemplates Conflict Between Asian Giants
There are plenty of reasons why China and India won’t go to war. The two Asian giants hope to reach $100 billion in annual bilateral trade by 2015. Peace and stability are watchwords for both nations’ rise on the world stage. Yet tensions between the neighbors seem inescapable: they face each other across a heavily militarized nearly …
From Headline News to Banned Search Topic—China’s Take on Occupy Wall Street
China’s state-controlled media seem to enjoy giving a good lecture—particularly when the target is a meddlesome Western government that gives its own sermons on China’s human rights record. So when the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests laid bare American disaffection with the country’s imbalanced financial system, China’s …
Keeping Up with the Gaddafis: A Who’s Who of the Dictator’s Children
With the death of Muammar Gaddafi, TIME looks at the eight children (and one nephew who was adopted as a son) Gaddafi had groomed — to varying extents — to carry his perplexing, brutal legacy forward.
Kenya Invades Somalia. Does It Get Any Dumber?
If the history of war teaches us anything, it’s that invading a foreign country is dicey. Storming across too many borders was the undoing of many of the world’s great conquerors, from Alexander the Great to Napoleon to the Nazis. The last few decades of US foreign policy – Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq – only underline how tricky …
French Legal Threat Against DSK Lifted, But Taint Remains
Less than a week after French prosecutors dropped their criminal investigation for attempted rape against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the woman who brought the charges against the former International Monetary Fund chief said Wednesday morning she won’t pursue her accusations further with a civil suit. The decision announced by writer …
What’s Behind Violence at the World’s Largest Gold Mine?
Rights groups are calling on Indonesia to investigate the fatal shooting of gold and copper mine workers in eastern Indonesia. In a gruesome escalation of a dispute between U.S.-based Freeport-McMoRan and workers from their Grasberg mine, security forces opened fire on a crowd of strikers, killing one man and injuring more than a …
A Step Back From the Brink in the South China Sea
China and Vietnam, which traded accusations this summer over rival territorial claims in the South China Sea, signed an agreement Tuesday outlining basic measures to help settle their ongoing dispute. The agreement, reached during a visit to Beijing by Vietnamese leader Nguyen Phu Trong, calls for China and Vietnam to hold biannual …
With All Eyes on Apple, It’s Easy to Forget Afghanistan
Every day, Mother Jones, an American magazine, publishes a photograph from a war zone or military base. The pictures, taken in places like Ramadi, Iraq, or Kabul, Afghanistan, are labeled with the date, the location and a bracing tagline: “We’re still at war.” Indeed, today marks 10 years since the beginning of the U.S.-led war in …
On Either Side of the Atlantic, Protesters Find Power in Vagueness
Their dilemma isn’t new, isn’t easy, and may eventually require tough choices that will impact the very existence of their movement: How can the growing ranks of the motley anti-Wall Street protest prod an entire system to change when most of the U.S.’s economic establishment, political class, and a significant portion of its …