Winners and losers in the Arab revolutions: Central Europe
By Matyas Eorsi We have more and more reasons to be skeptical about predictions of political analysts and even intelligence services. None of us could foresee that a socially-motivated suicide protest…
Parliamentary vs. presidential system debate reignited ahead of round three run-offs
CAIRO: With the elections race nearing its end, political parties and experts rejected statements by Islamists calling for a parliamentary political system, insisting that a semi-presidential system would best serve…
Pope calls for new ethics in gloomy global message
VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI on Monday called for new ethical values in the financial crisis in a gloomy world outlook that also pointed to rising violence in Africa and…
Turkey’s balancing act
By Mohammed Ayoob EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN: Turkey has over the past few weeks become the spearhead of a joint Western-Arab-Turkish policy aimed at forcing President Bashar Al-Assad to cede power in…
In Syria, what does Russia want?
By Hussain Abdul-Hussain Russian policy on Syria might seem planned and coherent, but a closer look shows that Moscow has no imagined end-game for Syria's unrest, and is rather improvising its…
Striking euro gold (and silver)
By Harold James PRINCETON: The alternatives for Europe’s currency, the euro, seem increasingly limited to a desperate muddling through or a chaotic collapse. But there is a bolder and more productive…
Nationwide strike begins in Nigeria over gas costs
LAGOS: A national strike paralyzed much of Nigeria on Monday, with more than 10,000 demonstrators swarming its commercial capital to protest soaring fuel prices and decades of government corruption in…
Iran sentences US-Iranian man to death for spying
TEHRAN: Iran's Revolutionary Court has sentenced an Iranian-American man to death for spying for the CIA, the student news agency quoted a judiciary official as saying, a move likely to…
Mideast state repression set to continue in 2012, says Amnesty
NICOSIA: Violence deployed by Middle East governments to suppress dissent last year is set to continue in 2012, with some states clinging to power "at almost any cost," Amnesty International…
Iraq’s plight imperils US goals
WASHINGTON: Iraq's troubled start to life without US forces calls into question the Obama administration's assertion that it has wound down America's long war responsibly: at least 78 killed in…