Hot on the heals of the announcement that President Barack Obama had approved adding 17,000 more US troops to the war in Afghanistan, top US commander in Afghanistan General David McKiernan conceded that the level of violence in the nation was increasing and expressed hope for the surge. Gen. McKiernan’s assessment of the situation was [...]
There has been plenty of talk over the past several months that the Pakistani government had come to some sort of secret understanding with the United States about its continued use of Predator drones to launch attacks on Pakistani soil. But with the Pakistani government publicly denying it and the United States refusing to even [...]
Israeli President Shimon Peres will begin talks with political parties tomorrow as the first stage of making his decision which party to charge with attempting to form a coalition government. The most interesting meeting however will be on Thursday morning, when Peres meets with Yisrael Beiteinu head Avigdor Lieberman to find out which, if any, [...]
While the Kadima Party ended up finishing first in last week’s election, their path to forming a coalition appears to be a rocky one, and even as the rival Likud Party’s own bloc falters Kadima seems to have struggled to hold on to what little support they had. Though Kadima is reportedly in talks with [...]
Today, the United Nations released a report detailing the civilian death toll in Afghanistan in 2008. According to the report, 2,118 civilians were killed in 2008 – 828 by the American-led coalition forces. Most of those were, unsurprisingly, killed in the various air strikes and raids against Afghan villages. While getting exact numbers of deaths [...]
The truce agreement that aims to bring peace to the restive Swat Valley in return for the implementation of Islamic law has been popular among those who it directly effects. The militant factions in the area have been pushing for this for a long time, and the civilian populace is optimistic that it may end [...]
The national spokesman for the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) publicly welcomed the agreement between the NWFP provincial government and the local TTP branch of the Swat Valley regarding the enforcement of Islamic law in Malakand. Maulvi Omar added that the TTP would accept the decision and hoped that the government would implement the agreement in [...]
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei says that Israel’s status as the Middle East’s only nuclear power and its only non-signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is a major obstacle to efforts for global nuclear disarmament. “What compounds the problem is that the nuclear non-proliferation regime has lost its legitimacy in the eyes of Arab public [...]
The European press is buzzing with questions about the revelation that the British nuclear submarine HMS Vanguard and the flagship of the French nuclear strike force Le Triomphant collided with one another under the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The collision was at low speed and the consequences were minimal, but the consequences of two [...]
While most people had assumed that Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman would eventually wind up in the camp of the Likud Party, it seems that a public snub by Likud and growing efforts by the Kadima Party may put him into the centrist party’s bloc. “Bibi doesn’t have Lieberman,” according to Kadima member and Vice [...]
