Everybody wants a piece of Turkey. On my sweep through Egypt and Tunisia, virtually everyone I met invoked the nation that bestrides the Bosphorus as one they’d like their own country to emulate. The Turks had just had a general election, and Arabs had watched it unfold on Al Jazeera and other TV channels. The vote was clean, mostly …
Dictatorships
French Military Admits Supplying Arms and Ammo To Libyan Rebels
U.S. President Barack Obama soon won’t be alone in taking flack about the legality of certain moves he’s made on Libya. On Wednesday, French military officials confirmed press reports that France has dropped arms and ammunition to Libyan rebels in what will doubtless spark protests that such action violates limitations the United …
Greece’s Turmoil: A Brief History of the General Strike
As Greece withstands the second day of a 48-hour general strike shutting down much of the country, it’s worth considering the history of this radical, dramatic tactic. The pervasive feeling in the debt-ridden Mediterranean country seems to be a sense that something has altogether broken in their society. One middle-aged Greek told TIME …
What Would Orwell Say: How War in Libya Makes Language Suffer
In the aftermath of World War II, George Orwell reflected on politics, power and language: “When the general atmosphere is bad,” he wrote, “language must suffer.” To wage war, to justify empire, the politicians of his time mashed words, turning English to euphemistic mush, he said. In turn, the “sheer cloudy vagueness” of political …
In Libya, the Clock Is Ticking Toward NATO Failure
Western leaders may insist that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is weakened, isolated, irrelevant, and about to bow out, but their words hide hide a growing anxiety in Western capitals about the implications of his tenacity. Three months and counting into a bombing campaign that has yet to force out the regime, there’s growing …
Clinton Condemns Use of Rape, Sexual Violence in Libya Conflict
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi are using rape as a weapon of war. In a statement released Thursday, she says the United States is “deeply concerned” about reports of “wide-scale” rape in the Libyan conflict. Citing the International Criminal Court’s findings and the case of Eman al Obeidi, she …
Russian Politico, Chess-Master and UFO Enthusiast Comforts Gaddafi
Simon Shuster reports for TIME that proponent of alien lifeforms, chess, and anti-Western dictators Kirsan Ilyumzhinov visited with Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi Sunday evening. Ilyumzhinov, a Russian politician and former head of the Russian republic of Kalmykia, sat down with the embattled leader to offer him some comfort and play a game of …
Why the U.S. Secretly Intercepted a North Korean Vessel
The New York Times claims the U.S. managed to turn around a North Korean ship, allegedly bound for Burma carrying weapons parts used to make missiles. The article, quoting anonymous American diplomats present at a meeting in Washington with dignitaries from a number of Southeast Asian governments, details how the American warship U.S.S. …
Honk If You Support Saudi Women!
If a group of Saudi activists get their way, this Friday June 17 will mark the start of Women2Drive, a campaign to get the country’s women behind the wheel. The call to action came after the arrest and detention Manal al-Sharif, a 32-year-old tech specialist, who last month posted a YouTube video of herself driving a car. Saudi …
Where’s a Deposed Dictator to Go? Five Top Tyrant Retirement Homes for Gaddafi
With NATO ever more confident of, and explicit about, deposing Muammar Gaddafi and the Libyan leader losing even some of his longest-standing supporters in Africa, the question increasingly becomes not whether he will go but, assuming he survives, where. Here’s five possible retirement homes for the 69-year-old.
1. Zimbabwe. Even if …
The Syrian Conflict: Confusion Central
The popular uprising against Syria’s brutal regime that appears to be evolving towards full-blown civil war is of course serious business—deadly serious, as the reported 1,110 lives claimed in nearly three months of clashes demonstrate. But it’s also become a major source of head scratching among international observers. Whether …
In Saudi Arabia, Lingerie Reveals All
Majid wants to show me a negligee. Its on sale, and comes with a racy black and red striped thong. When I demur, he eagerly shows me a frilly lace concoction in yellow and tells me that it matches a bra that is also on sale. Quickly he jets a look at my figure, enveloped in a voluminous black abaya and ventures a guess. “D cup?” He …
Mugabe’s Latest Gift to Zimbabwe: the Secret of Living Longer
Good news from Zimbabwe where, despite Western media reports of political crisis, economic stagnation and widespread poverty, the electoral roll indicates the country is actually one of the healthiest on earth. The October 2010 count finds 41,100 voters in Zimbabwe aged 100 or more – four times the number of centenarians in Britain, …