Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
The hard right goes soft
PARIS: The central paradox of French politics was confirmed once again on March 27. In a nationwide vote to select local authorities (the so called Conseiller Général), the far-right National Front gained 11 percent of the votes cast, but secured only 0.1 percent of the seats. This discrepancy between the National Front’s popular strength and …
Pressing issues: The future of the media
By Rania Al Malky The Feb. 12, 2011 edition of state-owned Al-Ahram daily is a collector’s item. After nearly six decades of performing its loyal role as apologist for successive totalitarian regimes, earnest publicist of the head of state and mouthpiece for his ruling party, culminating three weeks of deliberate misinformation about Egyptian demonstrators demanding the …
The road to fiscal crisis
By Simon Johnson WASHINGTON, DC: It has become fashionable among Washington insiders — Democrats and Republicans alike — to throw up their hands and say: We ultimately face a major budget crisis in the United States, particularly as rising health-care costs increase the fiscal burden of entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid. But then the same people …
Greasing the brave new market’s skids
By Esther Dyson NEW YORK: Internet firms are supposed to be all about the cutting edge, but reality and buzz sometimes conflict. Consider Groupon: its focus is the power of groups, but its actual business is the old standby of direct-mail marketing and coupons. But Groupon is spreading that model to a much wider audience — …
Beyond Raymond Davis
By Syed Babar Ali and Wendy Chamberlin LAHORE, Pakistan/WASHINGTON, DC: With the release of Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor held by Pakistan for the past month, in exchange for compensation to the families of the men he killed, we close the door on the latest in a long series of incidents that have undermined trust and …
Stick to the resolution
By Gareth Evans MELBOURNE: The international military intervention in Libya is not about bombing for democracy or for Col. Muammar El-Qaddafi’s head — let alone keeping oil prices down or profits up. Legally, morally, politically, and militarily, it has only one justification: protecting Libyans from the kind of murderous harm that Qaddafi inflicted on unarmed protestors …
Japan’s new model political leadership
By Karel van Wolferen AMSTERDAM: Amid the horrifying news from Japan, the establishment of new standards of political leadership there is easy to miss — in part because the Japanese media follow old habits of automatically criticizing how officials are dealing with the calamity, and many foreign reporters who lack perspective simply copy that critical tone. …
Imperialism reclaimed
By Robert Skidelsky LONDON: History has no final verdicts. Major shifts in events and power bring about new subjects for discussion and new interpretations. Fifty years ago, as de-colonization accelerated, no one had a good word to say for imperialism. It was regarded as unambiguously bad, both by ex-imperialists and by their liberated subjects. Schoolchildren were …
Memo to Bangladesh: if it ain’’t broke, don’t fix it
By Eliot Daley PRINCETON, New Jersey: Ask any American what they know about Bangladesh, and you’re likely to hear one of two things: It’s a backward place cursed with floods, droughts, overpopulation and poverty; and/or it’s the fortunate place where social innovation supported by donors, the government and the poor themselves has captured the world’s attention, …
The wrong German foreign policy
By Joschka Fischer BERLIN: German chancellor Angela Merkel likes to navigate politically by line of sight – and a very short line of sight at that. But when fog clouds your visibility, you’re not an instinctive driver (as seems to be the case here), and you have misplaced your eyeglasses, you place not only yourself at …
Grameen vs. Bangladesh
By Jagdish Bhagwati HONG KONG: The feud in Bangladesh between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Mohammed Yunus, the founder of the microloan-making Grameen Bank and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is being portrayed as a modern-day replay of the famous battle between the wicked Kauravas and the virtuous Pandavas in the Indian epic, the …
Europe and the Arab spring
By Jean Pisani-Ferry PARIS: In 1989, the wall separating the two halves of Europe suddenly collapsed. Within the space of a few months, a hitherto seemingly immutable order gave way to commotion and impatience. At first, the old countries of Europe were paralyzed with fear of the unknown and anxiety about immigration — and then they …
Stock market in the green, Egypt in the red
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: Following two months of closure, shrouded in mystery and plagued by vague rumors, the Egyptian Stock Exchange finally opened Wednesday, exceeding all expectations. By the end of trading Thursday the broader EGX 100 index closed up 0.86 percent, while the main EGX 30 fell merely 3.73 percent, a far cry …
Mubarak prophecies about the Muslim Brotherhood
By Sarah Tonsy Despite being on the political platform since 1929, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) managed to fulfill every prophecy of the Mubarak regime regarding Islamic movements in Egypt. First, the fact that there is no difference between moderate and extremist Islamic movements in Egypt, which was also pointed to in John Esposito’s book, “Political Islam.” …
The Turkish chimera
By F. Stephen Larrabee WASHINGTON: The dramatic revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya have acted as a catalyst for a broader Arab awakening that has fundamentally shaken the Middle East’s political order, which has been in place since the late 1970’s. While it is too early to predict the final outcomes, several important regional implications are …
For Palestine, democracy is not a one-size-fits-all model
By Natalia Simanovsky TEL AVIV: Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has recently been on the receiving end of a barrage of criticism from those who claim that the measures he implemented, and were authorised by President Mahmoud Abbas as part of their state-building plan, are undemocratic. The plan, entitled “Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State”, …
The dark underbelly of finance
By Luigi Zingales CHICAGO: If you thought that America’s financial sector had gotten enough of bad publicity, think again. The insider-trading trial of Raj Rajaratnam, a billionaire hedge-fund manager, has now begun. It is likely to provide an especially lurid exposé of the corrupt underbelly of the financial world. Rajaratnam’s trial is remarkable in many ways. …
Stop the US war on Libya and Bahrain
By Joseph Cachia Washington showed its true intentions by pushing through a UN Security Council resolution that amounts to a declaration of war on the government and people of Libya. A US attack is the worst possible thing that could happen to the people of Libya. It also puts the unfolding Arab revolutions, which have inspired …
Qaddafi: Survival is not an option
By Alon Ben-Meir President Obama has already developed a reputation for tough talk and little action. Worse yet, the United States’ cautiousness in the wake of the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan-while understandable-threaten to paint a picture of the Obama White House as weak, ineffectual and cowardly. Just days into a military campaign to cripple Colonel …
Is Algeria prepared for a new revolution?
By N. Hafid ALGIERS: After Tunisia and Egypt, Algeria was the third Arab country that attempted to start a social and political revolution. However, the two marches of 12 and 19 February organized by the National Coordination for Change and Democracy (CNCD), demanding essentially a repeal of the state of emergency and a “change of system”, …
AN ISRAELI VIEW: It’s just as well the world is busy elsewhere
By Yossi Alpher The brutal murder some 10 days ago of five members of an Israeli family in the settlement of Itamar, presumably by Palestinian terrorists, has to be seen in several contexts. They seemingly form concentric circles of ramifications, beginning with the local and reaching the regional and even global. The local context is one …
A PALESTINIAN VIEW: Two wrongs don’t make a right
By Ghassan Khatib The horrible murder that took place in the Israeli settlement of Itamar in the West Bank and the killing of a family, including three Israeli children, by an unknown assailant was condemned in the strongest possible language by many Palestinian officials, opposition and opinion leaders and journalists. The exploitation of the deaths of …
Mobinil delays 2010 dividend distribution
CAIRO: Egyptian mobile operator Mobinil said on Tuesday it would delay the distribution of cash dividends from its 2010 profits due to the country’s economic and political situation. In February, Mobinil said its net income fell about 38 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, hit after fierce competition forced it to keep prices low …
Italy facing immigration emergency
ROME: Italy is facing a humanitarian and sanitation crisis on the tiny island of Lampedusa following the arrival of some 15,000 Tunisian boat people amid fears more migrants will flee there following coalition airstrikes on Libya. Lampedusa is currently housing some 4,800 Tunisians, almost doubling the island’s population of 5,000 and putting a severe strain …
Sarkozy goes to war
By Dominique Moisi PARIS: In 2003, France, under President Jacques Chirac, took the lead in opposing America’s planned invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin’s flamboyant speech at the United Nations encapsulated the “spirit of resistance” against what proved to be a dangerous adventure. In 2011, under President Nicolas Sarkozy, France has …
Solidarity with Japan
By Vaclav Havel, Desmond Tutu, and Richard von Weizsäcker PRAGUE: The shattering earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11 have wrought devastating physical damage — aggravated by the threat of a nuclear disaster — across the country’s northeastern coastal areas, and have rekindled grave fears in the only country to have experienced fully the atom’s …
Obama goes South
By Jorge Castañeda MEXICO CITY: US President Barack Obama’s current swing through Latin America will probably be short on substance, long on rhetorical flourishes and symbolism, and may include a few announcements affecting American business in the region. More importantly, he will see real success stories, and how Latin America as a whole has changed. The …
Israeli civil society, democracy and political change
By Naomi Chazan At precisely the same time that civil society has emerged as the catalyst in democratically-driven upheavals in the Arab world, Israel’s civil society is increasingly threatened. There is a direct correlation between the rising centrality of civil society as the locus of opposition to government policies and the intensified efforts of neo-nationalist groups …
Italians rescue Egyptian migrants in Sicily
ROME: Around 50 Egyptian migrants were rescued by Italians after their small fishing boat ran aground in the seaside town of Riposto in Sicily early on Monday, local officials said. The boat is Italian and officials are attempting to trace its origins. "We’re not sure who helped them because there was no one in or …
The forgotten genocide
By Sanjeev Sanyal NEW DELHI: It is exactly 40 years since the Pakistani military regime of Yahya Khan initiated “Operation Searchlight” in March 1971. That military expedition was but the latest in a series of pogroms carried out to intimidate the restive population of what was then called East Pakistan — today’s independent Bangladesh. What followed …