In Yemen, over three decades of authoritarianism are unraveling in a bloody maelstrom. The regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh has brutally staved off protests against its rule, fueled by frustrations over a lack of political freedoms in the country and the perceived graft of Saleh’s family and cronies. At least 350 people have …
Dictatorships
Senator John McCain Set to Meet Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi
Will they swap stories of life in detention? Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who languished for five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, is to meet on June 2 with Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese democracy activist who before being released from house arrest last November spent the better part of two decades in confinement. The …
Burma’s Suu Kyi Announces High Stakes Political Tour
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Pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi confirmed Monday that she’s planning a visit to Burma’s provinces this summer. “I hope to be able to travel out of Rangoon in the month of June, as soon as I have got rid of all the work that has piled up,” she said in a video …
Can Zuma Pull Off a Surprise in Libya?
South African President Jacob Zuma flies into Tripoli Monday to try to forge peace between Libyan leader Mouamar Gaddafi and the country’s rebels. Top of the agenda, according to Agence France-Presse: persuading Gaddafi to go. Zuma’s initiative, conducted on behalf of the African Union (AU), has met widespread skepticism, particularly …
Bring Your Family: The Secrets of a Hizballah Arms Smuggler
The illicit arms business is booming in Lebanon today, as my colleague Nicholas Blanford pointed out in a story a few days ago.
And while Hezbollah arms dealer Abu Jihad claims that he doesn’t sell weapons to the Syrian opposition, since it would be akin to arming his enemies, he does allow that many Syrians are stocking up for …
Why the G-8 Should Never Meet Again
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 …
Meet China’s Newest Soldiers: An Online Blue Army
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is in the midst of an unprecedented expansion, using ample budgets for everything from developing a blue-water navy to launching a test flight of the country’s first stealth fighter jet last year. Now the PLA has announced the deployment of another crucial military team: a cyber security …
Why Hizballah is on Bashar Assad’s Side in Syria
In yesterday’s address to his followers on the anniversary of the 2000 Israeli pullout from Lebanon, Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrullah was typically bombastic when it came to his views on supporting the desires of the Palestinian people to live in freedom. When it came to Syrians seeking to liberate themselves from a corrupt and …
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 …
Damn Statistics: Top Five False Figures That Mean We Get The World Wrong
News that last week’s shocking claim that 48 women are raped every hour in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is actually a shocking piece of statistical methodology makes me wonder what other parts of our world view are based on erroneous stats. Over the years, I’ve collected a few choice examples of my own but I’d be delighted to …
Conflict over Abyei: Why Sudan Stands “Close to the Precipice of War”
In the last year, to visit Sudan has been to undertake an exercise in schizophrenia. In the run-up to a referendum in January on whether to split Africa’s largest country in two, the mostly Christian south was – against all odds – about to pull off a peaceful and credible referendum on independence, despite medieval poverty and barely …
The Saudi-Iranian Cold War: Is This the Future of the Middle East?
It’s easy to overlook the killing of a single person in violence-plagued Pakistan, not least in Karachi, a seaside metropolis ever in danger of boiling over into sectarian bloodshed. But the murder of a Saudi diplomat by unknown assailants ought to raise eyebrows. Saudi Arabia’s tangled, pervasive influence in Pakistan has been well …
Poor Panama. China’s Just Not That Into You.
The list of countries that have chosen diplomatic relations with Taiwan over mainland China reads like an exercise in national obscurity. The 23-nation compendium includes Burkina Faso, Tuvalu and Saint Kitts and Nevis, along with Palau, Swaziland and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Nevertheless, the People’s Republic has assiduously …