In the spring of 2000, Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif stood in a jail cell in Pakistan‘s notorious Attock Fort as members of the local and international press looked on. Imprisoned by the army chief he appointed, Sharif appeared utterly demoralized and even pitiful. It was a radical reversal of fortune for a man who just two […]
Pakistan is on the verge of an historic moment: This spring, for the first time, an elected administration will hand off power to another one after serving out its term. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government, which came into power in 2008 following reasonably free and fair elections, holds a number of dubious distinctions — […]
Australia may be set for a record 22ndstraight year of economic expansion, but it will not save the federal budget or Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s job. That was the message from the latest economic data along with an election in Western Australia state, where voters handed Gillard’s Labor Party another drubbing. Read Here – The […]
India does not reconcile contradictions so much as inhabit them. Is there one god? Three? Gods? Without number? Yes, yes, and yes. Visitors are instructed to leave their Cartesian logic at passport control. This is contrary to my all-too-binary nature. But after two weeks in Delhi talking to people about the wrinkled, lumbering, battle-scarred pachyderm […]
The stand-up comedian Beppe Grillo, like the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini before him, has a craving to take over the piazza and mesmerise the crowd. Where once young Italians chanted the mantra ‘Du-ce! Du-ce!’ now they chant ‘Bep-pe! Bep-pe!’. But it is not just a shared need to rant and rave at large numbers of […]
India’s government may curb spending growth in the budget tomorrow to pare the widest fiscal deficit in major emerging nations, seeking to boost the central bank’s scope to reduce interest rates as the economy falters. Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram will keep deficit goals set in October of 4.8 percent of gross domestic product for the year through March […]
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who was jailed for corruption and sodomy, predicted a smooth transition when his coalition ousts the government that has ruled Malaysia for 55 years in elections that may be held within weeks. Read Here – Bloomberg
This hardly seems like the moment to ask what type of state will emerge in Libya. Two years on from the uprising that eventually toppled Muammar Qaddafi, the country hardly has a functioning state at all. There is still no constitution and there may not be one for months. The parliament, elected less than a […]
The recent assassination of a leading secular opposition figure in Tunisia has cast a dark cloud on what many had hoped would serve as a model for democratic transition in countries swept by the Arab Spring. The sad fact is that many revolutions lead to renewed dictatorships. But the good news is that even a […]
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 […]
looking beyond borders 