Chokri Belaid knew that his life was at risk. The secretary general of Tunisia‘s Unified Democratic Nationalist Party, and a key member of the secular opposition front, had been receiving death threats for months. When he was killed yesterday outside his home in Tunis, however, the fear was that it was the country that was […]
No decade in history has experienced such an increase in urban population as the last. From Tokyo-Yokohama, the world’s largest urban area (population: 37 million) to Godegård, Sweden, which may be the smallest (population: 200), urban areas added 700 million people between 2000 and 2010. Nearly one in 10 of the world’s new urban residents were in […]
Befitting an individual who will be turning 90 this year, Lee Kuan Yew is increasingly reflective these days—about his life, the memories that he shared with his wife of 60 years, and the lives that their three children have led. Unlike most his age, however, he is also preoccupied with the challenges that his country […]
With its civil lawsuit against credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s, the US Justice Department is embarking on one of the most aggressive efforts yet to hold Wall Street accountable for the financial crisis. Will anything change? Read Here – Christian Science Monitor
China‘s positive economic influence has been surging in surrounding countries over the past five years, as the nation overtook the United States to become the largest trading partner of 124 economies by 2011. The number was only 70 in 2006. The US may not be as thrilled. The country has seen a sharp decrease in […]
Once again, Egyptian protestors have taken to the streets to lash out against the disappointing political transition there. This latest turmoil, which began on the second anniversary of the January 25 uprising, is worse and has lasted longer than previous confrontations. Last week, the fighting was most intense in Suez, Ismailia, and Port Said, where […]
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid began an official visit to Chile and Argentina on Tuesday night. This is the first ever visit of an Indian Foreign Minister to Santiago. The fact that Mr. Khurshid will be there less than four months since taking charge is hopefully a sign of evolving priorities towards the region. On […]
What if the government could know the future? It’s trying. Armed with billions of tweets, Google (GOOG) searches, Facebook (FB) posts, and other publicly available social-media and online data, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is sponsoring research projects involving 14 universities in the United States, Europe, and Israel with the goal of using advanced analytics to […]
The U.S. military was closely tracking a one-eyed bandit across the Sahara in 2003 when it confronted a hard choice that is still reverberating a decade later. Should it try to kill or capture the target, an Algerian jihadist named Mokhtar Belmokhtar, or let him go? Belmokhtar had trained at militant camps in Afghanistan in the […]
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is going American in a big way by setting the next national election seven months from now. The record length of the campaign is bad news for her opponent, Tony Abbott, and may be even worse for the nation’s 23 million people. Turning to a permanent campaign like that of the U.S. is […]
