political news global
A royal decree allowing women the right to vote can’t hide the decay in the House of Saud. SEPTEMBER 26, 2011 Articles enumerating the advances in women’s rights in Saudi Arabia have, until now, tended to be rather short. There simply hasn’t been much to write about: Saudi women haven’t had many rights, at least…
BEIJING – I had dinner with a few senior European financiers and professors in Beijing last week. When we talked about the euro crisis looming over Europe, we couldn’t but agree unanimously: across today’s small globe, all the major countries on the planet simply lack a strong leader. This is the very…
Syria army defector Hussein Harmoush in TV ‘confession’ Col Harmoush accused activists of “empty promises” Syria Crisis Cracks showing Why the world has waited Who are the shabiha? Deadlock as pressure builds A top Syrian officer who defected from the army and fled to Turkey has turned up in Damascus, retracting key claims about the…
Cairo Thousands of Egyptians stormed the Israeli embassy. The ambassador had to be flown to safety in a military aircraft. In Ankara, too, Israel’s representative was driven out – by the government of Turkey, the host country. The Arab Spring has segued into an incandescent Arab Summer now threatened by a cold snap….
Left behind in America: Who’s to blame for the wealth divide? Take a moment and think about how you feel wealth should, ideally, be spread among the American people. If you’re like the average respondent in a 2010 Harvard Business School/Duke University study, your response was this: The richest top 20…
Julian Assange and his former German cohort Daniel Domscheit-Berg blame each other for the circulation on the Internet of the identities of secret informants from diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks. Now, with lives in danger, the organization risks quickly losing credibility. This story of two bickering computer nerds vying for a place in history —…
Triumphant entry into Tripoli THE noose tightened and tightened and on Saturday night it cinched fast. Through Sunday, August 21st and into early Monday morning, the world watched through scratchy video feeds as Libya’s rebels—now in the heart of Tripoli and with the run of the country—searched for the trap door through…
A human migration that started more than a month A table made of bits and pieces, an old notebook, green crumbling walls: this is where Luul Mohamed, the 46-year-old head of the pediatrics department at Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu examines a hundred children every day. Sheesam comes in with her mother. She…
Libya: Tripoli braces for Gaddafi’s final curtain August 17, 2011 There is little fight left in Libya’s capital as Nato ramps up its air raids and the rebels close in, says Damien McElroy. Nato’s war in Libya has so far been one of false starts and missed deadlines. But with rebels now inside the key…