It was an injustice that led a 26-year-old Tunisian street trader called Mohammed Bouazizi to douse himself in petrol and strike a match. The resulting conflagration killed Bouazizi, crackled through Tunisia, chasing out its despised President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, and sparked uprisings across the region that are still burning …
There He Goes Again: Threatening To Suspend Schengen Accords, Sarkozy Drifts To the Extreme Right
It would be tempting to give French President Nicolas Sarkozy points for being consistent, except his incessant efforts to approximate the positions of surging extreme-right leader Marine Le Pen have proven so catastrophic it’s difficult not to wonder if the Elysée isn’t suffering from a deep and dysfunctional learning disability. …
After Petraeus: Why Starting Over Isn’t a Good Thing in Afghanistan
When asked about the lessons of Vietnam, military historians often quipped that ‘we didn’t fight one war for ten years, we fought ten wars for one year each.’ The same could be said of Afghanistan. Troops come in, learn the lay of the land, and leave, oftentimes within the span of six to fifteen months, depending on which country …
Couch Potato Briefing: Journalists in Warzones
Here’s our weekly installment of films to watch over the weekend — this week, we pay homage to Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, stellar photojournalists who were killed April 20 while on assignment in Misratah, Libya.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DjqR6OucBc]
Restrepo
Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger’s …
Bernard-Henri Lévy: France’s Libya Warmonger-in-Chief
French media celebrity (and one time philosopher) Bernard-Henri Lévy has been called many things over the years by his equally large and outspoken armies of detractors and supporters. “Curveball”, however, was never among them. It might be time to consider adding that name to the list. Because Lévy was essential to French President …
McCain Visits Rebels In Libya And Calls For Increased Support
Is Sen. John McCain’s visit Friday morning to the Benghazi strong-hold of Libya’s rebel forces a sign of creeping escalation in the conflict with strongman Muammar Gaddafi that may lead to eventual troop deployment by Western nations? Impossible to know at this point, of course, but events coinciding with McCain’s visit to …
Global Briefing, April 22, 2011: Medvedev’s Moves
Berbers Do Battle — A rebel victory in Libya’s mountainous west may solidify the alliance between Arab rebels and Berber tribes, says Graeme Smith in the Globe and Mail; Read TIME’s Ishaan Tharoor on the fighting in western Libya, here.
Tempests, Teacups — Writing in the New Yorker, Peter Hessler, a Peace Corps …
In Chongqing, A Rare Win for the Defense
The odds didn’t seem good for Li Zhuang. A defense attorney who had already once fallen afoul of the law, Li was back on trial this week in Chongqing, the southwestern Chinese megacity that has been waging a very public campaign against organized crime. In 2009, as the anti-gang campaign was starting, Li briefly represented Gong …
In Libya’s Forgotten West, Rebels Gain Ground
According to reports, rebel forces fighting the regime of Muammar Gaddafi seized a strategic Libyan border crossing with Tunisia in the country’s remote, rugged west. Tunisia’s state news agency reported that at least 13 officers formerly serving the Gaddafi regime fled across the Tunisian border to the town of Dehiba, as rebels took …
Introducing the TIME 100: The World’s Most Influential People
TIME unveiled the 2011 edition of the 100 Most Influential People in the World today and there are more than a few on the list who appear in stories on this blog. Before you get too riled up about the presence of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of a murderous dictator, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, or even Ahmed Shuja Pasha, chief of …
In Little Iran, There’s No Mistaking the Stakes
You really could be in Iran, traveling the roads of Lebanon’s south. The billboards of the martyrs look newer, the young men honored by them having perished not in the 1980s, when Iran and Iraq fought to the death, but just five years ago, when Israel launched an assault on the stronghold of Hizballah, the Lebanese Shiite militia …
Sarkozy To French Companies: Give People Money. That’s An Order.
Barack Obama, don’t try this at home (as if…):
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is attempting to fulfill his 2007 campaign promise to boost long-stagnant household purchasing power—easily the biggest plank in a wider election platform that has, also, mostly come to naught. So, four years on, monumentally unpopular, and up for …
Global Briefing, April 21, 2011: Gimme Shelter
Troublemakers — Damascus claims subversives out of Lebanon are inciting unrest in Syria, says Nicholas Blanford in a dispatch from Wadi Khaled. But his visit to the border seems to provide evidence that the traffic is the other way around.
Killed in Action — Two photojournalists were killed in Libya yesterday. The New York Times‘ …