(RFE/RL) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai held talks with Qatari leaders in Doha on March 31 to discuss possible peace talks with the Taliban. Qatar’s state news agency QNA reported that Karzai met with senior Qatari officials, including the emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, but did not provide details of the meeting. Karzai’s office said [...]
Karzai Holds Talks With Qatari Leaders
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Don’t Blame The Iraq Debacle On The Israel Lobby – OpEd
By Stephen Zunes Given the enormous tragedy of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the war’s tenth anniversary has inevitably raised the question of “why?” As many of us predicted in the lead-up to the war, the official rationales for the U.S. invasion of Iraq—namely, that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction” and had operational ties [...]
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New Models Predict Drastically Greener Arctic In Coming Decades
New research predicts that rising temperatures will lead to a massive “greening,” or increase in plant cover, in the Arctic. In a paper published on March 31 in Nature Climate Change, scientists reveal new models projecting that wooded areas in the Arctic could increase by as much as 50 percent over the next few decades. [...]
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China’s Michelle Obama – Analysis
“China’s new soft power”, “A Media Sensation” — these were some of the expressions used by the Chinese media in their reports on Peng Liyuan, the second wife of President Xi Jinping, who accompanied him on his just-concluded first State visit to Russia, Tanzania, South Africa and Congo The correspondent of the Channelnews Asia reported: [...]
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India: Proposed Nomination Of Retiring Chief Of NIA To NHRC – Analysis
The media has reported that Smt.Sushma Swaraj, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and Shri Arun Jaitley, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, have strongly objected to a proposal from the Government to appoint Shri S. C. Sinha, the retiring chief of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), as a member of [...]
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Erdoğan Approved Talks With Kurdistan Regional Government On Energy Deal – OpEd
By Mert Özkaplan Even though the United States and the central government of Iraq have objections concerning an energy deal between Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), it seems that Turkish Prime Minister is out to sign a major energy deal with Iraq’s KRG and carry bilateral relations one step further. Turkish authorities are [...]
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Georgian Church Against Ratification Of European Charter On Minority Languages
(Civil.Ge) — The Georgian Orthodox Church said on Sunday that ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages was “unacceptable”. “Discussions have been renewed recently about the European charter of regional and minority languages, which we think is unacceptable, because it will cause strengthening of separatist movement and creation of new grave problems [...]
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Kosovo Under Autonomy – OpEd
Kosovo Under Autonomy endeavors to provide new analyses of several controversies surrounding the relationships between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo between 1974-1990: the causes of increasing demographic disparity, the extent of Albanian aspirations for autonomy within or separation from Yugoslavia, the causes of Serbian migration from Kosovo, the degree of influence of nationalist intellectuals on [...]
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Syria Video: A New Web Service That Maps And Aggregates Syrian War Video
Syria Comment Announces a new web service: Syria Video, which can be found at http://syriavideo.net Syria Video is a web application that maps and aggregates Syrian war videos by tracking a large number of YouTube channels. The channels have been identified as reliable and tied to specific towns or regions of Syria. Syria Video collects all [...]
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CITC Warns Internet Apps To Follow Saudi Arabia’s Rules
Saudi Arabia’s Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) has warned of appropriate measures if providers of Internet messenger applications such as Skype, WhatsApp and Viber fail to comply with its rules. These applications allow text and audio communication over the Internet. Some telecom applications over the Internet protocol currently do not meet the regulatory conditions [...]
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Death Of Hugo Chávez Divides Venezuela
By Valentina Oropeza Dressed in red from head to toe and with a brown rosary in hand, Lucía González withstood 14 hours under a merciless sun, dying of thirst and hunger, to get close for two seconds to the coffin of President Hugo Chávez and personally bid him farewell. “Thanks to my comandante today I [...]
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Falling Gasoline Use Means U.S. Can Just Say No To New Pipelines And Food-To-Fuel – OpEd
By Janet Larsen Freeing America from its dependence on oil from unstable parts of the world is an admirable goal, but many of the proposed solutions – including the push for more home-grown biofuels and for the construction of the new Keystone XL pipeline to transport Canadian tar sands oil to refineries on the U.S. [...]
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Portugal And Japan: A New Course Or Just Historical Momentum? – Analysis
By Pedro Amaksu Raposo Portugal and Japan’s bilateral relations began in 1543, when Portuguese traders reached Tanegashima in the south of Japan. The visit of Minister of Foreign Affairs Paulo Portas to Japan from 27 to 29 March 2013 occurs at a time when, for the second time since the 1950s, Portugal has a positive [...]
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Kenyatta’s Winning Game
By Bernard Momanyi Political analysts in Kenya say Uhuru Kenyatta’s election as president is largely due to energetic campaigning which won him significant numbers of votes in areas traditionally supportive of his main rival, Raila Odinga. After a protracted counting process, Kenyatta was declared winner on March 9 with 4,000 votes over the 50 per [...]
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Armenia: Do Iran’s Sheep Pose A Threat To National Security?
By Marianna Grigoryan A pending agreement for Iran to graze sheep inside Armenia has sparked a furor among Armenian environmentalists and nationalists over whether or not the prospective deal poses a threat to the country’s national security. Under the reported terms of the deal, Iran will acquire a five-year lease on 52,000 hectares of land [...]
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The Messages Of Russia’s Military Exercise In The Black Sea – Analysis
By Habibe Özdal Putin, Russia’s president, ordered for a military exercise in the Black Sea after his participation to the BRIC Summit on 28 March 2013 in South Africa. Under his command, the navy ships set forth on Sevastopol Harbor of Ukraine. During the three day drill 36 warships and over 7,000 military personnel were [...]
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Arab Government Responses To Demands For Political Reform – OpEd
By Ambassador (R) David Mack This is a historic time in the Arab world, like de-colonization after World War II. The combination of Arab cultural unity, the demographic impact of the youth bulge, and the information tools of satellite television and social media have accelerated popular demands for rapid political change. Americans feel a natural [...]
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Libya Security Problems Persist
By Essam Mohamed Libyan legislators on Tuesday (March 26th) asked the defence and interior ministries to dispatch security forces to the restive south-eastern city of Kufra. The General National Congress (GNC) called for stationing units within the city, creating checkpoints and opening safe corridors for citizens. Ethnic clashes between the Toubou and Zuwayya tribes led [...]
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US Concerned About Situation In Central African Republic
The United States remains deeply concerned about the serious deterioration in the security situation in the Central African Republic (CAR), said U.S. State Department in a statement released late Sunday. “We strongly condemn the illegitimate seizure of power by force by the Seleka rebel alliance, Michel Djotodia’s self-appointment as president, and his suspension of the [...]
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South Korea President Taking North Korea Threats ‘Very Seriously’
By Steve Herman South Korean President Park Geun-hye, says she is taking “very seriously” the continuing stream of threats from the North that many fear could lead to hostilities on the peninsula. “There should be a strong response in initial combat without any political consideration” if North Korea launches a provocation against the South,” said [...]
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