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 …
Violent Migrant Protests in Guangdong: The Latest in a Wave of Chinese Social Unrest
Take a map of China, and begin pressing thumbtacks into it for each spasm of violence: an eruption of ethnic Mongol anger against majority Han citizens in the northern region of Inner Mongolia a few weeks ago; bomb blasts set off last month by disgruntled citizens in eastern Jiangxi province and northwestern Gansu province; and …
Israel’s Best Hope to Thwart Palestinian U.N. Plan May Be Palestinians’ Own Strategic Doubts
Israel’s government currently lacks a credible plan for getting it out of a diplomatic tight spot if the Palestinians go ahead with a plan to seek U.N. recognition of a state in September. But don’t bet against the Palestinian leadership letting the Israelis off the hook as a result of their own divisions over whether to go the U.N. …
Somalia: Deadly, Even For al Qaeda
The reported death of the mastermind of the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Nigeria Tanzania finally brings to a close the opening chapter of what went on to become the war on terror. Photographs and DNA analysis on the bodies of two men shot and killed at a Transitional Federal Government (TFG) roadblock in Mogadishu overnight on …
Et Tu, Jacques? Chirac Backs Socialist Over Sarkozy For 2012 Presidential Election
It’s certainly not a kill shot, but the re-election hopes of French President Nicolas Sarkozy have taken another groan-eliciting body check—this time from Elysée predecessor Jacques Chirac, who said he’d vote for a leading Socialist rival François Hollande over his fellow conservative. However, given Chirac’s previous status as …
Couch Potato Briefing: Sex, Power and the Heroic Futility of War
Global Spin’s weekly guide to the rental movies that explain the week’s big news events
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK6VTMev0uo]
The Alamo
A small group of brave men find themselves hopelessly outgunned, yet unwilling to surrender their ideals and their freedom, fight to the death against overwhelming odds. It’s a …
Power Play: How the Childish Behavior of Top Politicians Shapes the World
Democracy is an exercise in adulthood. We don’t want our elected leaders to style themselves, as despots so often do, the fathers of our nations, but we assume them to be responsible grown-ups, focused on carrying out the mandates we have granted them. It’s a nice idea. Unfortunately the more we find out about our political masters—and …
Orphaned By Front-Runner Strauss-Kahn’s Melt-Down, French Socialists Still Favored To Beat Sarkozy In 2012 Presidential Election
Much attention has understandably been focused around the world of late on the legal woes former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn faces in the U.S. Yet less has been directed to the question of how the fall of the man who had been the odds-on favorite to win the French presidential elections next year has affected …
Video of Extrajudicial Murder Raises the Heat on Pakistan’s Under-Fire Military
[youtube=http://youtu.be/Rx-nifsdD00] Warning: Video contains graphic footage.
A video of Pakistani paramilitary soldiers shooting an unarmed young man in Karachi and leaving him to bleed to death has stoked growing anger at the country’s military. Sarfaraz Shah was stopped by soldiers in the Sindh Rangers, an outfit of the army …
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 Drumbeats of War? Tensions Rise in the South China Sea
Disputes over the South China Sea often provoke feelings of déjà-vu. That was especially the case this week, when Vietnam accused a Chinese ship of deliberately cutting exploration cables that were being towed by a seismic survey vessel working for PetroVietnam, the state-run oil and gas group. Vietnam says the June 9 incident occurred …
A Separation of Church and State? Not in the UK, Mate
The British government has no mandate to pursue its austerity policies, according to Dr. Rowan Williams. Dr. Williams is not an opposition politicians or firebrand activist; he’s the Archbishop of Canterbury and primate of the Church of England. But in his capacity as guest-editor of the latest edition of the leftie magazine New …
Despite His Dire Legal Problems, Could DSK Return To Politics?
Please read the entire story before putting the vats of tar to boil and splitting the pillows for their feathery content.
My current piece on time.com isn’t making the argument that Dominique Strauss-Kahn should return to politics once his current legal battle is over (which at any rate, if things go badly for him, could be several, …