MOGADISHU: Somalia’s internal conflict is propelled by a combustible mix of religion, politics, and clan rivalry. Civilians are killed daily in Mogadishu, there are roadside bombs and mortar attacks, and politicians and journalists are targeted. Making matters worse, the country has suffered this year from both floods and drought. This combination of insecurity and natural …

The next few weeks may determine the future of Zionism. This is not an exaggeration. If the upcoming Annapolis peace conference ends the same way as the Camp David summit of 2000, the future of the Jewish state will be in jeopardy. The Israeli people can deal with another deadlock in the endless peace process. …

Russia’s Duma elections this December are almost certain to cement the power of forces loyal to Vladimir Putin. That outcome is likely to confirm Russia’s emergence as the most divisive issue in the European Union since Donald Rumsfeld split the continent into “old and “new Europe. In the 1990s, EU members found it easy to …

TORONTO: As the Annapolis peace summit looms closer, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is trying hard to make meaningful gestures to the Palestinian Authority without risking the dismemberment of his coalition government. It s a tough circle to square, but Olmert deserves the benefit of the doubt. During the week s events marking the 12th …

Nothing preoccupies broad sectors of Egypt’s political and media elite more than the question of the inheritance of power by President Hosni Mubarak’s son. Over the past five years there has been no noticeable shift in the prevailing discourse on the subject, nor has there been any change in the government’s stance save for the …

An unfamiliar country keeps popping up in press reports about drug trafficking: Guinea Bissau. This West African state of 1.5 million people is one of the poorest in the world. Its chief exports? Cashews, shrimp, and cocaine. Cocaine, in a country with no coca bush? That’s right. More than four tons of cocaine have been …

TEHRAN: Why should the Iranian and Israeli people be on the verge of military confrontation? War between Israel and Iran could easily spill over into a regional conflagration that could have devastating consequences given the likely disruption to oil and gas production. Do the Iranian people really want to go to war with the Jewish …

DES MOINES: Visitors from other states and other countries are often surprised to learn that Iowa is not entirely flat and that there is more to the state than cornfields. Perhaps our most intense exploration comes every four years as presidential candidates make their case to the nation by getting to know us first. Those …

PARIS: Few state visits have lasting results. Nicolas Sarkozy’s just completed trip to Washington may be an exception, because the French President may be preparing to bring Nato a highly valued present for its 60th anniversary in the spring of 2009: France’s return to Nato’s integrated military structure, from which Charles de Gaulle withdrew in …

Every time I visit Japan, I make an oath never to go back to that country again. It’s distressing for Egyptians to behold such organization, progress, good behavior – things we all know are useless in Egypt. In fact, they may even be a waste of time because round here, we’re too busy dealing with …

Western Europe’s small democracies have, on the whole, been exceptionally fortunate. Freer and richer than almost anywhere else in the world, countries such as Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland would seem to have little to worry about. This is why the world normally hears less about them than about Afghanistan, say, or Kosovo. Yet all three …

There are over 230,000 Palestinians, most of them living in villages, who do not have access to piped water. This problem, and awareness of it, has existed for years. It is more surprising to learn that in Israel there are an estimated 100,000 people, most living in unrecognized villages, who are similarly deprived. How is …

The recent meeting in the Vatican of the Custodian of The Holy Places, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and Pope Benedict XVI was a seminal event, particularly as it comes at a time when radical Muslims are decrying the role of “crusaders in Middle East politics. It was also the clearest sign yet of a …

CAIRO: From my spot at the end of the queue I wondered how long it would take to get my boarding pass. The airport terminal was bustling with people. Some were headed to Mecca on a short pilgrimage at the beginning of Ramadan, the month when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. Others, in shorts …

There are a few Egyptian economists who do believe that the effects of economic growth must, sooner or later, benefit all Egyptians. These are the people who congratulate the government on the recent rise in the growth rate, which has reached 7 percent after two decades of growing at about half this rate. However, these …

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the East Asia crisis, which began in Thailand on July 2, 1997, and spread to Indonesia in October and to Korea in December. Eventually, it became a global financial crisis, embroiling Russia and Latin American countries, such as Brazil, and unleashing forces that played out over the ensuing …

Is amnesia an integral part of politics? When it comes to the treaty to reform the Union’s institutions, which will be finalized in November, recent events suggest that amnesia does play a central role. Let’s examine the “illness that leads certain EU leaders with questionable scruples to forget even the recent past. Busy with domestic …

The campaign against Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa raging in the Egyptian press these days is enough to make even the most committed journalist lose faith in the media. At university they taught us that the media is the fourth estate, that journalists are watchdogs monitoring the centers of power and that the driving ethic behind …

HELSINKI: It is now easier to access information whenever you need it. You can find a hotel on an interactive map, and book a hotel room from anywhere in the world. You can pay a bill in the middle of the night in your pyjamas and share photos with friends around the globe, all in …

MANILA: East Timor, now known as Timor-Leste, is the world’s newest democracy. It may have a population of less than one million, but it has a proud, heroic history and a rich culture built up over centuries of diverse ethnic and colonial influences. The island attracted Chinese and Malay traders in the 15th century. The …

You’re back, and you’re in one piece! is a phrase that I have been welcomed with alarmingly often over the past two weeks. In Cambridge, it is apparently normal to imagine that I might not survive three months in Pakistan. In fact, it is surprising that I have returned from Pakistan healthy – but not …

In his novel 1984, George Orwell chillingly described a totalitarian regime in which all communication is controlled by a Ministry of Truth and dissidents are persecuted by political police. The United States remains a democracy governed by a constitution and the rule of law, with pluralistic media, yet there are disturbing signs that the propaganda …

If “one man of courage makes a majority, as Andrew Jackson said, then 30 years ago, in November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was such a man. His peace overture to Israel stunned the Middle East. He had, as he put it, gone “to the end of the earth (the Knesset in Jerusalem), and in …

You’d be wrong to think that the current opposition parties in Egypt will affect any form of change in the coming years. Apart from the fact that they are farcical paper tigers that lack the political capability to confront the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), they have also failed to infuse their parties with young …

The skeptics have unassailable arguments: History and a consistent record of failure are on their side. Expectations of success for the Middle East summit in Annapolis are further dampened by weak Israeli and Palestinian governments, an American president in the last stretch of his second term, dysfunctional Israeli and Palestinian body politics, and cynical media …

It’s possible to see, right now, what global warming will eventually do to the planet. To peek into the future, all we have to do is go to Beijing, Athens, Tokyo, or, in fact, just about any city on Earth. Most of the world’s urban areas have already experienced far more dramatic temperature hikes over …

Joseph Stalin once dismissed the relevance of “soft power by asking, “How many troops does the Pope have? Today, many self-styled realists dismiss the United Nations as powerless, and argue that it can be ignored. They are mistaken. Power is the ability to affect others to produce the outcomes one wants. Hard power works through …

Research on animals is performed to gain more knowledge about diseases and how to cure them, and to evaluate drugs for toxicity before testing them on humans. In fact, animal studies have played a vital role in almost every major medical advance. Although researchers are committed to finding new ways to reduce and replace animal …

“Dollar denial, that state of willful blindness in which bankers and central bankers claim not to be worried about America’s falling currency, seems to be ending. Now even European Central Bank Governor Jean Claude Trichet has joined the chorus of concern. When the euro was launched, the US dollar-euro ($:?) exchange rate stood at $1.16/?1. …

I totally agree with the Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, who described the Egyptian illegal migrants who recently drowned as “greedy . Did they not seek jobs where they can be paid in a coveted foreign currency, not our very own local currency? I’m also surprised at the newspapers which attacked the Mufti for what he …