What was most significant about the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit that was held in Tehran recently was that almost all of its 120 members gathered there in the face of U.S., allied western nations and Israeli attempts to pressure and isolate Iran to abandon parts of its nuclear programme. Great pressure was even brought on […]
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes his final appearance at the United Nations this week as a leader vilified abroad and with dwindling popularity at home. With nine months left before his final term expires, Ahmadinejad, 55, presides over an economy hobbled by European and U.S.-led sanctions and a currency collapse that’s firing inflation. As Israel repeatedly warns that it may bomb Iran […]
Iran may be on the firing line, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was as calmly combative as ever Sunday, dismissing Israel’s military threats and predicting that nothing will happen in the nuclear talks until after the U.S. presidential elections. In an interview on the eve of his visit to the United Nations, Ahmadinejad seemed unfazed by recent months of speculation […]
Mohammadi Younus grew up in Ghazni Province, in the east of Afghanistan, and studied medicine in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. He had “a problem with the Taliban… a political problem” during the dark days of their rule, and he landed in jail. He decided to leave the country and crossed into Iran. Read Here […]
BINYAMIN NETANYAHU’S fixation with Iran’s nuclear programme has had one positive side-effect—for the Israeli prime minister, at least. While Iran occupies centre-stage, fewer people badger him about the long-stalled Israel-Palestine peace process. Meanwhile, more homes are being built in Israeli settlements deep within the Palestinian West Bank, placed there deliberately to thwart the possibility of […]
For a long time, the major powers had hoped that imposing strenuous sanctions on Iran could produce an interlocutor willing to negotiate honestly and to adhere to an exacting arms control agreement. But time may no longer permit the patient exercise of coercive diplomacy. Read Here – New York Times
In the complex chessboard where the New Great Game in Eurasia is being played, both Kings are easy to identify: Pipelineistan, and the possible, multiple intersections of a 21st century Silk Road. Few have noticed a crucial meeting that took place during the recent Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran, between senior Foreign Ministry diplomats […]
THE imagery is graphic enough. A mob scales the walls of the American embassy in the Egyptian capital, raises an Islamist banner and burns the Stars and Stripes. A female announcer dons a headscarf on state television for the first time in its 50-year-long history. Bearded police officers demonstrate for an end to the force’s […]
The storming of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday echoed events following the 2005 Danish publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that led to widespread protest in 2006 and assaults on Danish embassies around the world. Today, Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, and his government are playing the same role that his predecessor Hosni […]
Who lost the Arab Spring? After the murder of the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three other American diplomats in Libya, President Barack Obama’s performance during the upheaval in the Arab world will inevitably become a highly charged political issue. Read Here – The National, Abu Dhabi
looking beyond borders 