A R A B I C A ارابيكا SYRIA OPPOSITION*Al Jazeera reports that members of the Syrian opposition told the network that “Syrian security agents were killed by soldiers because they refused to fire on unarmed civilians in Jisr al-Shughour.” The town, located off the highway between the northern city of Aleppo and the port […]
Category: Geopolitics
A popular tourist destination before the North African uprisings, Djerba Island off the coast of Tunisia is now teeming with “five-star” refugees, Gaddafi spies and exiled Libyan revolutionaries.
A R A B I C A ارابيكا Syria: Controlling The Message *A video clip is circulating of two funeral processions in the eastern Syrian desert town of Deir Azour one day after security forces fired on protesters and killed two people, a 16-year-old and 17-year-old boys. The group broke out into chants of “the […]
A Chinese analysis of why Kim Jong II has provoked a new impasse with his southern neighbor. The North Korean leader has a special knack for provoking crises as a means to obtain concessions.
The French Ministry of Defense plans to follow the example of the United States and house all of its various departments and offices under a single roof. The winning design for the French “Pentagon” – which will actually be a hexagon – was made public thi
Editorial: Brazil, China and the other so-called BRICS countries are demanding a political role proportional to their economic importance. Is a global power shift forthcoming? Not necessarily says Le Monde’s Alain Frachon, who says the BRICS bloc is still
Lobsang Sangay will soon replace the Dalai Lama as the head of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. In an exclusive interview with Le Temps, the Harvard-educated legal scholar talks about China, Tibet, the Internet and the power of trust.
Following the Spanish “Indignados,” a Portuguese protest movement wants civil society to be at the center of politics. But the country’s financial solvency may have last say in Sunday’s vote.
A R A B I C A ارابيكا YEMENI ATTACK*As Yemeni state television aired a photo montage of President Ali Abdullah Saleh accompanied by background music, the crawl beneath reads: “President Saleh, may God protect him, is in good health and reports of his death are untrue.” Al Arabiya and other news outlets reported that […]
A veteran Turkish reporter travels to a Kurd stronghold to gauge reaction to Erdogan’s recent anti-Kurdish rhetoric ahead of the Prime Minister’s expected victory for a third term on June 12.
Editorial: Without offering any hard details, Ex-Education Minister Luc Ferry went on television to say that a former cabinet minister took part in an orgy with young boys. Le Monde says Ferry is the one who’s guilty here – either of not reportin
It’s anyone’s guess who will come out victorious when Peruvians go to the polls Sunday to elect their 94th president. Each of the two closely matched candidates – Keiko Fujimori and Ollanta Humala – brings some baggage from the past.
A R A B I C A ارابيكا A CHILD IN SYRIA*With more than 70,000 members, the facebook group “We are all the hero-martyr Hamza Ali al-Khatib,” named for the 13-year-old boy who participated in a protest on April 29th outside Daraa. His tortured, mutilated body was returned to his family by Syrian intelligence last […]
The Shouwang Church and other Protestant Christian groups have a potentially powerful mix of Calvinist ideology, social activism and influence among China’s educated elite — even members of the ruling Communist party.
Algerian journalist Khaled Sid Mohand spent 25 days last month locked up in one of Syrian President Bachar Al-Assad’s prisons. Questioned, threatened and beaten, here is his story.
Nepal’s major parties have hammered out a last-minute deal to save the Constituent Assembly. But six years after the end of a bitter civil war, the country’s divisions still remain raw.
A R A B I C A ارابيكا THE BLOGGER & THE ARMY*A new Google forum tweeted out by Wael Ghonim asks Egyptians to take part in a dialogue with the country’s ruling military council, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. The discussion forum “is a democratic way to raise questions about the council, […]
Editorial: In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the phase-out of nuclear energy in Germany has been decided so quickly, and with so little thought, that it skirts the edges of democratic legitimacy.
Categories
Silvio Berlusconi: The Magic Is Gone
Editorial: The drubbing suffered in local elections shows Silvio Berlusconi increasingly obsessed with his own personal and judicial woes — and losing touch with the sentiments of everyday Italians. La Stampa editor Mario Calabresi weighs in.
Editorial: There’s nothing that the Chinese people hate more than a corrupted official. But the government should do more to root out corruption than play to the public’s basest instincts for revenge. Still, don’t expect China&a
A R A B I C A ارابيكا DRIVING DEBAUCHERY*The campaign against women driving in Saudi Arabia continues to grow, as a “Saudi religious figure named Mohammed al-Manjad said he considers a woman driving a car sexually immoral because if she gets behind the wheel of a car, she is surely practicing other forms of […]
Human rights violations committed during Uruguay’s 1970s and 1980s-era military regimes have come back to haunt the South American country, where the legislature’s recent failure to revoke a stubborn amnesty law has sparked a major political crisis.
The deadline for evacuation zones will interrupt centuries of farming in the region near the damaged nuclear plant. Some livestock will be sold, others will be slaughtered, adding to the animal death toll in the wake of the March earthquake and tsunami.
An overview of the Libyan sovereign wealth fund’s bad moves, including investments in some of Italy’s top firms such as energy giant ENI and industrialist Finmeccanica
Europe has been clamoring for one of their own to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and keep the continent’s lock on the key post. For the sake of democracy and development, that’s a bad idea, says Xu Guoping of South Centre agency.
A R A B I C A ارابيكا TRUTH AND/OR BETRAYAL*Omar Suleiman, the man who headed Egypt’s feared intelligence services for 20 years, and who announced President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation on live television in February, testified in front of a criminal court that the former president had “full knowledge of every bullet fired into Tahrir […]
In recent years, authorities in Thailand have increasingly applied an antiquated lèse-majesté law to silence critics of authorities. On Friday, a dual U.S./Thai citizen became the latest person arrested for allegedly insulting the country’s ailing king.
The arrest of war criminal Ratko Mladic demonstrates how the EU can be a force for stability, especially when it holds out the possibility of membership.
Three months after Mubarak’s ouster, foreign investors and tourists have deserted the country, while the Arab spring has raised people’s expectations higher than ever.
A R A B I C A ارابيكا YEMEN*Al Jazeera reports that hundreds of Yemenis are packing and leaving Sanaa as gun battles continue throughout the city between supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and a powerful tribal chief who defected and joined the opposition. Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar is the head of a tribal federation […]
A R A B I C A ارابيكا PROPAGANDA MACHINEState media coverage in the Arab world shares a number of traits. Whether its urgent, front-page coverage for various leaders sending and receiving cables of condolence and congratulations, or “news’ reports that raise more questions then they answer, state media is largely an anachronistic propaganda conglomerate […]
A report by a pair of German academics accuses the Left Party of becoming increasingly anti-Semitic. While the party’s top leadership dismisses the yet-unpublished study as “nonsense,” others within the Left say there may be some truth to the allegations.
A R A B I C A ارابيكا AUTO REVOLUTION*The fallout from the arrest of a Saudi woman, Manal al-Sharif, continues. Last week, al-Sharif posted a video of her driving in east Saudi Arabia on YouTube. She was arrested and remains in custody for violating the public order. The Facebook reaction was swift. The “I […]
Officially dissolved in 1992, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) continues to exert influence in Algeria, where it recently helped negotiate the release of 7,000 prisoners from the country’s bloody civil war. It may be the boost the Islamic group needs to
Editorial: At the E-G8 in Paris, world leaders and digital stars could build the foundations of a new dialogue — and expand the ‘infrastructure’ — to allow for the Internet to bloom, and the economy to reap the benefits.
A R A B I C A ارابيكا TO DRIVE OR NOT TO DRIVE*A Saudi woman named Manal al-Sharif was arrested for violating the public order after she was caught driving in the eastern part of the country. *Budoor tweets, “King Abdullah signals that women will soon be allowed to drive!” linking to an interview […]
Jailed and tortured under Muammar al-Gaddafi, whose son ran the rival team, Benghazi’s local club supporters are now at the heart of the Libyan revolution.
The “spectacle” that the American judicial system has made of Dominique Strauss-Kahn is not only “unbearable,” it is also “disgraceful,” argues French sociologist Michel Fize.
A R A B I C A ارابيكا SYRIA LIVE*On the Friday billed as the “Day of Freedom,” the Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera satellite channels unveiled a double blow to the regime of Bashar al-Assad: Both channels aired live feeds of massive protests around the country. It is not clear how this happened since […]
Editorial: The next IMF chief should hail from the Old Continent, and the best European candidate is (another) French Finance Minister, says France’s top business daily