By Mona Yahiya Precarious political and security conditions in Tunisia are taking a toll on the economy. Standard & Poor’s (S&P) and Moody’s Investors Service recently downgraded Tunisia’s credit rating because of the country’s delay in forming a new government, Economic Affairs Minister Ridha Saidi confirmed on Friday (March 1st) at a cabinet meeting dedicated [...]
Political Tensions Hurt Tunisia Economy
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Burma: Government Admits To ‘Restructuring’ Censorship Board
By Shwe Aung The Burmese government has admitted that a new “supervisory committee” has been formed, which will carry out many of the same functions of the former censorship board, including monitoring media output and revoking publishing licences of newspapers deemed to “violate” regulations. A spokesperson for the President’s Office told DVB that a group [...]
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Olympic Overstate: Sochi Embezzlement Reaches $506mn
Russia’s Audit Chamber has disclosed massive over-expenditure of budget allocations while constructing venues for Sochi Olympics. The wasteful spending of the state-run company responsible for most of construction works has reached US$506 million. The executives of the Olympstroy Company have been systematically overstating costs which, according to the latest estimates, have reached $50 billion, making [...]
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Iran: Prosecute Officials In Detained Blogger’s Death, Says HRW
Iran’s judiciary should conclude a speedy, independent, and transparent criminal investigation followed by prosecution of those believed responsible for the death of the blogger Sattar Behesht. Beheshti died in the custody of Tehran’s cyber police in November 2012. Iranian officials should stop harassing his family and hampering their efforts to seek justice and ensure that [...]
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Saudi Arabia King Approves Expansion Of Prophet’s Mosque
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah yesterday approved the master plan for the largest expansion of the Prophet’s Mosque, after experts made necessary changes onto the plan as per his instructions. Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf said the mosque’s capacity would go up to more than 1.6 million worshippers after the project’s completion in [...]
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South Africa Could Do Better, Says OECD – Analysis
By Richard Johnson “Despite considerable success on many economic and social policy fronts over the past 19 years, South Africa faces a number of long-standing economic problems that still reflect at least in part the long‑lasting and harmful legacy of apartheid,” according to a new report by the prestigious Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [...]
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ICAN Resolved To Ban Nukes – Analysis
By Ramesh Jaura A global movement to outlaw nuclear weapons is in the making with significant support from Norway, which is protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella as a member of the 28-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This emerged from a two-day ICAN Civil Society Forum in Oslo. Some 400 youthful participants gathered in [...]
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Successful PSLV-C20/SARAL Mission: India’s French “Space” Connect – Analysis
By Ajey Lele On February 25, 2013 India successfully launched its PSLV-C20/SARAL mission and delivered a ‘packet’ of seven satellites in space. This was the 23rd mission of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), an indigenous rocket developed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). And, this was the 22nd continuously successful mission of this [...]
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Anti-Government US ‘Patriot’ Groups Ramp Up Again – OpEd
By Mark Potok It’s déjà vu all over again. Twenty years ago, the passage of the Brady gun control bill helped ignite the first wave of the “Patriot” movement, a combustible mix of gun-toting militias and baseless conspiracy theories about government perfidy that culminated in the 1995 mass murder of 168 people in an Oklahoma [...]
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North Korea Imposes No-Fly, No-Sail Zones Off Both Coasts
North Korea has set no-fly and no-sail zones off its east and west coasts that indicates it will conduct major military drills, but test firing of short-to-medium-range missiles cannot be ruled out, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said on Wednesday. “The North’s military … is preparing large-scale combined military exercises so it may have blocked [...]
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Centcom Chief Supports Afghan Prisoner Transfers
By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr. The commander of U.S. Central Command told Congress today that he supports the decision to release high-value prisoners to the Afghan justice system and described how he envisions ending the threat of IEDs. Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis testified before the House Armed Services Committee [...]
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Too Much, Too Soon For Burma? – Analysis
By Steve Hirsch Donors of foreign aid to Burma are now making many of the same mistakes in that country as they have elsewhere in the past, according to a study on overseas assistance to the country as it reforms after decades of military rule. The report entitled, “Too Much, Too Soon? The Dilemma of [...]
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A Short Open Letter To Secretary Of State Kerry – OpEd
Dear Secretary of State, I have a question for you. Before you arrived in Turkey, its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told a United Nations forum in Vienna that the international community should consider Islamophobia as a crime against humanity “like Zionism or anti-Semitism or fascism.” When Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu condemned Erdogan for “comparing [...]
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Swiss Catholic Bishops Allow Morning-After Pill For Rape
Women who have been raped may use emergency contraception under certain conditions, the Swiss Catholic Bishops Conference has ruled, echoing recent changes in the positions of their German and Spanish counterparts. The use of the morning-after pill has only been approved when there is a contraceptive effect, the bishops’ spokesman Walter Müller told the Swiss [...]
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Many Israelis Agree With Erdogan On Zionism – OpEd
By Osama Al Sharif IT is striking that Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent characterization of Zionism as a crime against humanity on equal footing with fascism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, was denounced by the White House and ardent pro-Israel congressmen, when in fact a good number of Israelis and Jews around the world are equally critical, if [...]
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Microsoft To Not Appeal €561Mln EU Fine – Report
Microsoft has said that it will not appeal the €561 million fine it was handed by the European Union, tomshardware.com reports. The European Union imposed a €561 million fine on Microsoft for failing to offer the browser ballot screen it promised to ship with all versions of Windows. The ballot screen is a pop-up designed [...]
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UN Demands Release Of Peacekeepers Held In Golan Heights
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council strongly condemned the detention today by “armed elements of the Syrian opposition” of a group of United Nations peacekeepers who monitor the ceasefire in the Golan Heights between Israel and Syria, and demanded their immediate release. A statement issued by Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said that 21 peacekeepers from [...]
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Independent UN Expert Urges Release Of Findings On CIA Interrogation Practices
A United Nations independent expert today urged the Governments of the United States and the United Kingdom to release the findings of confidential inquiries into the detention and interrogation practices of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the administration of President George W. Bush. In a report to the UN Human Rights Council, the Special [...]
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Kim Dotcom Can Sue New Zealand Intelligence Service For Spying On Him
A court in New Zealand has ruled that Megaupload boss Kim Dotcom can sue the country’s foreign intelligence service for illegally spying on him, BBC News reported. The court rejected a challenge to an earlier ruling allowing him to sue the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) over his treatment. The GCSB worked with U.S. officials [...]
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Farewell To Chavez: Thousands At Funeral Procession
Thousands of people took the streets of Caracas to accompany President Hugo Chavez on his final journey toward the military academy of the capital. Accompanied by crowds on either side, the President’s body was placed at the center of the mortuary, home to the remains of the ‘Libertador’ Simon Bolivar, icon of the battles for [...]
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