VIENNA: Negotiations at the United Nations High Level Summit on drugs in Vienna last week fell flat. Although 25 countries officially stated their support for proven methods such as needle exchange and overdose prevention, the summit’s outcome was a watered-down political declaration that fails to acknowledge crucial lessons that have been learned over the last …
Too much focus has been placed on President Barack Obama s new withdrawal plan and too little on other aspects of the situation likely to impact on US Iraq policy. Likewise, regarding Iran, excessive attention has been accorded renewed interest in US-Iranian engagement and questions like the possible adverse impact of the appointment of Dennis …
Will President Barack Obama keep the promises he made during his election campaign? It may be too early to say, but some observers think he already went back on one promise in the case of Iraq. His promise to pull out early was, under pressure from the US army, changed. His decision now is to …
After nearly two months in office, the new US president appears to be approaching the Islamic regime in Tehran with a great deal of caution. He has been careful to distance himself from the radical stance his predecessor adopted. Gone are the days when the US president called the Islamic regime part of the axis …
MEXICO CITY: Shortly before America’s elections last November, then vice-presidential candidate Joseph Biden was widely criticized for predicting that an Obama administration would almost certainly be tested by what he called a “generated international crisis, in much the way that the Soviet Union “tested John F. Kennedy shortly after he assumed office. Biden did not …
NEW DELHI: With the world’s most developed economies reeling under the incubus of what is already being called the Great Recession, India at the beginning of the year took stock and issued a revised estimate for GDP growth in the 2008-2009 fiscal year. Its projection came out at a healthy 7.1 percent. It is striking …
US President Barack Obama ran his campaign for the White House on a platform of sweeping change to his country s domestic and foreign policies. So far, he seems to have stuck to his guns on these promises, especially on the domestic scene, most recently by lifting the ban on stem cell research. Obama s …
CAIRO: I cannot believe the rumor that claims that the National Democratic Party has taken over Yassa Pasha Andraus Palace, a landmark historical palace in Luxor. The palace has a picturesque architectural style, which dates back more than a century ago. I cannot believe either that the owners of this palace are alive and everyone …
DAKAR: In Senegal, Islam plays a very important role: it informs the entire domain of collective thinking. Because some religious texts are interpreted in ways that label women as inferior, many feminists posit that Islam is an obstacle to women s emancipation. However the role of women in Senegal s pervasive religious context is more …
PRINCETON: As I tour the US promoting my new book, The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty, I am often asked if this isn’t the wrong time to call on affluent people to increase their effort to end poverty in other countries. I reply emphatically that it is not. There is …
CAIRO: The stand-off between a group of disgruntled journalists at Al-Ahram newspaper and its chairman of the board Morsi Attallah earlier this week has set a healthy precedent in a media organization that is deeply embroiled in maintaining the authority of the Egyptian regime. Al-Ahram was founded in 1875 and is the second oldest Egyptian …
BRUSSELS: Three years ago, Sri Lanka elected Mahinda Rajapaksa as president because he pledged to take the offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the guerillas who have been fighting for 25 years to carve out an independent homeland for the country’s Tamil minority. Many well-meaning people saw Rajapaksa’s promise as warmongering, and, even …
NEW YORK: On March 8, International Women s Day marked women s accomplishments and challenges in achieving equality. One of the most profound challenges women continue to face, however, is domestic violence, as painfully illustrated by the recent murder of Aasiya Zubair by her husband, Muzzamil, in New York. In 2009, three women will die …
The only difference between the Darfur massacre and previous Arab massacres is the image. What happened inside Arab prisons in the past happened far from the cameras, international observers and the reports of international human rights organizations. If the International Criminal Court (ICC) had existed five decades ago and the Arab regimes genocidal crimes since …
LONDON: Bipartisanship seems to have taken a drubbing in Washington since President Barack Obama got to the White House. Like most recent American presidents, Obama campaigned on a promise to work with his political opponents for the greater good of the country. Bill Clinton said much the same thing before he was elected, and then …
NEW YORK: In a way, the stir aroused by the decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict Sudan’s President Omar Al-Beshir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur is a surprise. After all, the Court has no means of its own to arrest anyone in Sudan, much less a head of …
NEW JERSEY, US: Every day, we are bombarded by politicians and pundits with a list of political analogies: Operation Iraqi Freedom is the next Vietnam or the war on terror is a modern Cold War . Analogies are invaluable to the human experience. They make us better aware of the world and help us learn …
SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates: Since the mid-1990s, Western-style television programs in the Arab world have stirred much controversy over their potentially detrimental effects on the region s social values and traditions. And no television genre has created as heated a public debate in Arab societies as reality television. But while critics may have a point …
Tolerance among the contending ideologies that dominate Egypt s political and cultural milieu is scarce. The major ideologies that battle for Egypt s mind and soul are marred by their tendency not only to claim that their version of truth is overriding, but also to rule out altogether the validity of “different interpretations than their …
LONDON: The cost of sending troops and military hardware around the world to provide security when and where it is needed is causing major financial headaches across Europe. Indeed, Europe’s finance ministries face a dilemma over how much of their stretched national budgets to allocate to the military; and European defense officials must somehow ensure …
NEW HAVEN: World Kidney Day, to be held on March 12, is part of a global health campaign meant to alert us to the impact of kidney disease. Sadly, there is little to celebrate. According to the International Society of Nephrology, kidney disease affects more than 500 million people worldwide, or 10 percent of the …
PRINCETON: Everyone now knows that we are in the worst economic crisis since the 1930’s. The protectionist responses are sadly familiar: protests against foreign workers, demands for trade protection, and a financial nationalism that seeks to limit the flow of money across national frontiers. In the 1930’s, however, economic nationalism was not the only show …
WASHINGTON, DC: The Obama administration’s decision to withdraw the bulk of United Sates troops from Iraq over the next 19 months has sparked fears that Iraq will once again plunge into the wide-scale and debilitating violence that it endured from 2004 to 2007. Those fears are, for the most part, overblown. There are good reasons …
NEW YORK: Bishop Richard Williamson has some very peculiar, and frankly odious, views: that no Jews were murdered in gas chambers during World War II; that the Twin Towers were brought down by American explosives, not by airplanes, on September 11, 2001; and that Jews are fighting to dominate the world “to prepare the anti-Christ’s …
NEW YORK: Some people thought that Barack Obama’s election would turn everything around for America. Because it has not, even after the passage of a huge stimulus bill, the presentation of a new program to deal with the underlying housing problem, and several plans to stabilize the financial system, some are even beginning to blame …
It seems that the annexing of what used to be the refined Maadi district by the governorate of Helwan, where iron and steel plants and public slums thrive, was a disaster on many levels. In addition to the greed of the new district council staff and their easy-going attitude when it comes to cracking down …
ISLAMABAD: The West seems stunned by the sudden turn of events in Pakistan. The Pakistani government recently negotiated a truce with The Movement for Enforcement of Sharia (TNSM), endorsed by the local Taliban in Pakistan, to introduce sharia-based law in the tribal Malakand area. The Chief Minister of the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), Ameer Haider …
NEW YORK: In one week, Michelle Obama sat for a formal White House portrait, dressed in somber, tailored clothes; posed for a snazzy People magazine cover, dressed in a slightly down-market, hot-pink lace outfit that showed plenty of skin; let the national media know that the First Family would be getting its new puppy from …
The International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Al-Beshir, though expected, has lit a fire under Arab and African leaders whose own despotic regimes may very well find themselves on the wrong end of the ICC stick – with no carrots in sight. Since the court was set up in 2002, this is …
TEL AVIV: Ever since Turkey’s establishment as a republic, the country has oscillated between the Western-oriented heritage of its founder, Kemal Ataturk, and its eastern, Ottoman legacy. Never resolved, modern Turkey’s deep identity complex is now shaking its strategic alliances and recasting its regional and global role. Indeed, Turkey’s changing perception of itself has shaped …
