Archives for 2009

Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, just convicted of espionage and sentenced to 8 years in prison, should be afforded every opportunity for a thorough legal defense in her appeal, according to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Saberi’s conviction and sentence are an irritant in the attempt to President Barack Obama to improve relations with Iran, and Ahmadinejad, […]

The review by Daniel Levy of the New America Foundation of my new book, Engaging the Muslim World in The American Prospect is now available in full online (click here). Here is one excerpt from Levy’s review: ‘ . .. Engaging the Muslim World is rich in policy prescriptions across a diverse range of subjects. […]

First the Israeli government built a separation wall right through a Palestinian village, Bilin, on the West Bank inside the Palestine Authority (i.e. beyond the Israeli border). Then young people assembled regularly to protest that their village was cut in two, with villagers on each side now unable easily to visit, and with the villagers […]

Iraqi defense ministry spokesman Muhammad al-Askari said Friday that the recent string of bombings in Iraq would not delay the US military withdrawal. He told Agence France Presse, “It would be good for Al-Qaeda if US forces stayed in Iraq, because they could justify their kidnappings, bombings and killings . . .” Aljazeera English reports […]

The Afghan government says that it will amend a recently passed law that puts Afghanistan’s Shiites under the law of their branch of Islam for personal status purposes. The law allowed marital rape and detracted from the rights of women in other ways, as well. The government’s pledge to amend the law so as to […]

A parked car bomb in the northern oil city of Kirkuk killed 10 policemen in a passing convoy and wounded 20 other persons on Wednesday. Kirkuk is the object of a lively struggle among Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen. The Kurdistan Regional Government wants to annex it, and struggles over the status of Kurdistan have delayed […]

Avi Lewis interviews former Deputy Secretary of State for Aljazeera English: Armitage admits: 1. He and his boss Colin Powell lost a major battle within the Bush administration on whether the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war applied to guerrillas captured during the “war on terror.” 2. That the Bush administration engaged […]

On a wide range of fronts, human and civil rights in Iraq are in trouble. Amnesty International says that there has been a spate of killings of gay men, with 25 murdered in the past two weeks, apparently in some cases with police condoning the attacks. Three were killed in Sadr City, where the Mahdi […]

Kenneth T. Walsh at US News & World Report gives details of President Obama’s handling of the Somali pirates’ holding of Captain Richard Phillips hostage. The crisis began early in the morning of April 8, when Somali pirates boarded the Maersk Alabama. The crew captured one pirate, and three others took Captain Phillips hostage. He […]