Reform of Iran’s cumbersome permit system has come under the spotlight in recent months. Yet, efforts to minimize the number of licensing documents required for doing business in various sectors of the economy have made slow progress due to resistance from state organizations, among other reasons. Read Here – Al Monitor
A coalition of Muslim nations will form a joint operations room in Riyadh to combat terrorism in Islamic countries, in the first coordinated Muslim military effort to combat extremism. Read Here – Bloomberg
This January King Salman will mark a year as leader of Saudi Arabia. As the new cabinet in Riyadh adjusts to the personal proclivities and vision of King Salman for the year ahead, it will face pressures to maintain its unity and support for a new set of policies for the Kingdom, even as realities […]
Pakistan is there. It is on India’s western border (and until 1971 was also on the eastern border). It cannot be wished away; nor can India pretend it will go away. On the very day the two countries became independent, they inherited a clutch of problems that was the inevitable result of Partition. I know […]
Afghanistan has always been a frontline state. Alexander came in 327 BCE, Babar in 1504 and the British in 1836. In 1843, it became the first country in South Asia to get independence from the British – more than a hundred years before India. In 1979, the Soviet Union entered Afghanistan and since 2001, […]
An Islamic philosopher in Karachi, an ideologue who provides violent ideas to some of Pakistan’s fiercest extremist groups, once told me that there are two kinds of history: dead and living. “Dead history is something on a shelf or in a museum,” he said. “Living history is part of your consciousness, something in your blood […]
The climate worsens slowly, and it will be solved slowly. Its works in time scales years and decades-long, not days or hours. Yet every so often there is an exceptional moment, and we are in one right now. This may be the single most important week for the climate this decade. Read Here – The […]
Hillary Clinton and her allies have seized on Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the country to define the 2016 election as an existential battle between the Democratic front-runner and the dangerous forces of “prejudice and paranoia” as epitomized by Trump — but also echoed by the rest of the Republican field. […]
Together with Turkey and a number of countries in the heart of Europe, Merkel is hoping to seal a complicated deal she recently agreed to with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu at the last EU summit. Essentially, it calls for Europe to provide billions in aid to Turkey in exchange for Ankara doing all it can […]
Turkey is already entangled in a crisis with Russia that has the potential of escalating dangerously. For many, opening up a new front for controversy — this time with Baghdad — may not seem a wise move, but it needs to be assessed within a broader regional context. Read Here – Al Monitor
looking beyond borders 