Showing 1 - 10 of 17
What did we miss in run-up to Assad's ouster?
News, Slavoj Žižek, Published on 23/12/2024
» The downfall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria surprised even the opposition, led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, offering fertile ground for conspiracy theories.
Impostors' role in modern warfare
News, Diego Gambetta & Thomas Hegghammer, Published on 18/12/2024
» Israel's detonation of thousands of pagers held by Hezbollah fighters and loyalists in mid-September will be remembered as one of the most ingenious plots in the history of spycraft. It is also a reminder that the most powerful weapon in war is not a fighter jet, a drone, or even artificial intelligence, but rather something much older: impersonation.
No happy ending after Sheikh Hasina's downfall
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 09/08/2024
» It might look like the replacement of Bangladesh's long-serving prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus is a happy ending for a country that seemed to be inexorably sliding towards authoritarianism. After all, Ms Hasina's rule had become so paranoid that she even burned political capital on persecuting Dr Yunus, widely feted for his role in rural development in Bangladesh and beyond. But, although Ms Hasina's exit was overdue, what comes after might wind up being worse.
Help disabled more
News, Postbag, Published on 19/10/2022
» Re: "Bedridden but not alone", (BP, Oct 13).
Crippling blow to the global war on terror
News, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 13/09/2021
» The American-led global war on terror, launched 20 years ago after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks against the United States, was already faltering before President Joe Biden took office. Now it may not recover from the blow delivered by Mr Biden's historic blunder in facilitating the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan. The flag of the world's deadliest terrorists -- responsible for killing over 2,000 US soldiers since 2001 -- flies above Kabul on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Protesters losing their way
News, Postbag, Published on 22/11/2020
» Re: "Pro-govt volunteers hurry to erase graffiti", (BP, Nov 21).
France's failings a lesson for Thailand
News, Editorial, Published on 15/11/2020
» Five years on after the Bataclan massacre, France is once again facing a resurgent Islamist threat. Over the past few months, three separate attacks have rocked the proud secular nation which champions freedom of expression: stabbings near the former office of political satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, the beheading of 47-year-old school teacher Samuel Paty, who showed his students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, and a knife attack in Nice.
Turkey's anxious Erdogan takes on the world
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/02/2020
» Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not an "Islamist", in the extreme sense of the word. He doesn't wear a suicide vest, he doesn't behead people, he doesn't even go around holding one finger up in the air to signify his hatred of those who fail to acknowledge the One True God. But he certainly does like the Islamists a lot.
Whodunnit? Blame always goes to Iran
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 19/09/2019
» US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dismissed the Houthi claim that the Yemeni rebel group had carried out Saturday's strike on two huge Saudi Arabian oil processing facilities. There was "no evidence" that the drones belonged to the Houthis, he said. Instead, he blamed Iran.
Heard of the Holocaust?
News, Editorial, Published on 04/05/2019
» In Israel on Thursday, with sirens wailing as the entire country paused for two minutes of silence for its yearly commemoration of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, who could not have been moved by the sight of pedestrians and motorists standing stock-still on roadsides and in the middle of streets, heads bowed in remembrance?