WHEN I was in Kabul in the last week of November the main news was that President Hamid Karzai and his senior aides and political allies had a long meeting with the 22 parties of the loyal opposition to, rather grandiloquently, discuss the next elections.
Published12 Dec, 2012 12:15am
THE debate in the American media about the pace of the withdrawal of US and Nato forces has intensified in recent days prompted in part by the non-binding resolution in the Senate calling for speeding up the pullout of US forces.
Published05 Dec, 2012 12:15am
WHEN Mohamed Morsi first took office as president of Egypt, after a narrow win he was derisively referred to as the “spare tyre” because he became the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate only when its leader was disqualified.
Published28 Nov, 2012 12:15am
AFTER his surprisingly convincing victory and the small but significant gains the Democrats made both in the Senate (two seats) and in the house (six seats), President Barack Obama would seem to be well positioned to effect the changes in the American sys
Published14 Nov, 2012 12:15am
BY the time this article appears the results of the American election should be known in what was an unexpectedly tight race.
Published07 Nov, 2012 12:15am
DESPITE the bitterness of the conflict that has raged in Syria for the last 19 months many of us had entertained the hope that the warring parties would honour UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi’s painfully negotiated ceasefire.
Published31 Oct, 2012 12:15am
THE visit to Kabul by Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen along with the 35 ambassadors who participate in the Nato council in Brussels was, from Afghanistan’s perspective, particularly welcome
Published23 Oct, 2012 11:01pm
IN the past few weeks there has been little to suggest that President Karzai, let alone the Afghan people, continue to think of Pakistan and Afghanistan as “conjoined twins”, a phrase that President Hamid Karzai had coined some years ago.
Published17 Oct, 2012 12:15am
THE fall in the value of the Iranian rial from 24,000 to the dollar to 37,500 in two days’ trading last week was a dramatic reminder of the economic difficulties that the West-imposed sanctions have caused for an economy which even otherwise was not doing
Published10 Oct, 2012 12:15am
IT seems that the theme of reconciliation within Afghanistan has by and large dominated the many discussions held on that country in New York over the last fortnight.
Published03 Oct, 2012 12:15am
THE result of the uproar caused in the Muslim world by showing on YouTube a trailer of a movie that will probably never see the light of day was apparent in its starkest form in Karachi.
Published26 Sep, 2012 12:15am
THE furore in the Muslim world over the vicious trailer of the Innocence of Muslims, leading to the death of the US ambassador and three other US embassy officials in Libya, was only one facet of the hebdomas horribilis, or horrible week, that the America
Published19 Sep, 2012 12:15am
I HAD originally planned to write about the Democrats’ National Convention. As part of the national security presentation, I had expected to hear some confirmation that President Obama, if re-elected, would maintain a residual military presence in Afghani
Published12 Sep, 2012 12:15am
IN my last article I had mentioned the virtual absence of Afghanistan and the ongoing war from the campaign rhetoric of the two major American political parties as they move into the last few weeks of the presidential election race.
Published05 Sep, 2012 12:15am
SINCE my article a fortnight ago on ‘green-on-blue’ killings — incidents in which Afghan soldiers or police attack Isaf forces — there has been a further spike in these and in incidents of ‘green-on-green’ killings
Published28 Aug, 2012 11:25pm
THE most recent instances of ‘green-on blue’ attacks in Afghanistan came in rapid succession last week on Tuesday (one US soldier killed in eastern Afghanistan), Thursday (three US soldiers killed after being invited to dinner by an Afghan soldier in Sang
Published15 Aug, 2012 12:15am
ON Friday, the Bashar al-Assad regime suffered another symbolic defeat when the UN General Assembly voted 133 to 12 with 31 abstentions for a Saudi-sponsored resolution that criticised the Assad regime and castigated the UN Security Council for failing to
Published08 Aug, 2012 12:15am
BY the time this article appears it is possible, though not certain, that President Assad’s heavily armed forces will have re-established control of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city and its commercial and economic hub.
Published01 Aug, 2012 12:15am
LOOKING at the headlines over the last month there is one thing that stands out clearly: Pakistan is as much a battle zone as Afghanistan.
Published25 Jul, 2012 12:15am
