MIDEAST: Olmert Walks Razor’s Edge in Peace Talks

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has issued a dire warning to his people. Failure to reach a negotiated two-state settlement with the Palestinians, he has declared, will mean the end of the State of Israel.

POLITICS-MIDEAST: Why Annapolis Is About Iran

It was initially billed as a "peace conference" to decisively address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But as President George W. Bush's ambitious Annapolis gathering approached - his most intensive effort to restart peace talks in seven years - any prospect of a comprehensive breakthrough appeared as distant as ever, as Israeli and Palestinian leaders struggled to agree on a joint statement until the last minute.

HELSINKI PROCESS: Farewell to a Unique Forum for Dialogue

The Helsinki Process on Globalisation and Democracy was launched five years ago by Finland and Tanzania with the aim of addressing international divisions, to achieve an inclusive globalisation process based on human and environmental security.

POLITICS-US: Petraeus Sought to Prevent Release of Iranians

Recent statements by the U.S. military that Iran had pledged to stop supplying weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq and that this alleged flow of arms may have stopped in August were part of a behind-the-scenes struggle over whether the George W. Bush administration should make a gesture to Iran by releasing five Iranian prisoners held since January.

COMMONWEALTH-PAKISTAN: Suspended, But Not Banished

The headlines over suspension of Pakistan from the Commonwealth conceal some of the nuances of this action. The nuances were born of considerable differences that surfaced within the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) that finally took the decision.

POLITICS-US: The Nuclear Cowboys

What do the current Pakistani political crisis, Israel's September air strike against Syria, and Iran's continued pursuit of nuclear enrichment all have in common? All three events reflect the aggressive policies adopted by the George W. Bush administration to deal with the growing threat of nuclear proliferation.

IRAQ: Toward National Reconciliation or a Warlord State?

While the vast majority of analysts here agree that sectarian violence in Iraq has declined sharply from pre-"surge" levels one year ago, a major debate has broken out as to whether the achievement of the Surge's strategic objective - national reconciliation - is closer or more distant than ever.

POLITICS-PAKISTAN: Towards Democracy Musharraf-Style

As President Gen. Pervez Musharraf congratulated the outgoing national assembly for being the first ever in Pakistan’s 60-year history to complete its term (on Nov 15) and swore in a new 24-member caretaker government to supervise general elections in January, the flaws in these ostensibly positive moves towards democracy were glaring.

POLITICS: Israel’s Syrian Airstrike Was Aimed at Iran

Until late October, the accepted explanation about the Sep. 6 Israeli airstrike in Syria, constructed in a series of press leaks from U.S. officials, was that it was prompted by dramatic satellite intelligence that Syria was building a nuclear facility with help from North Korea.

MIDEAST: Olmert Begins to Rival Abbas in Weakness

An oft-repeated argument in Israel against signing a peace deal with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is that he is a weak leader who lacks the political clout to implement an agreement. But anyone observing Ehud Olmert over the last few weeks might well be making similar assertions about the Israeli prime minister.

PAKISTAN: Constitution Under the Jackboot Yet Again

Pakistan has seen several coups and military dictators in the 60 years of its existence, but President Gen. Pervez Musharraf will go down in history as the man who staged a coup against his own government.

POLITICS-US: Seizure of Iranians Failed to Validate Bush Line

The George W. Bush administration's campaign to seize and detain Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials in Iraq, presented by Bush himself last January as a move to break up an alleged Iranian arms smuggling operation in Iraq, appears to have run its course without having been able to link a single Iranian to any such operation.

POLITICS-US: The World According to Pat

In a two-week span that saw several conservative Christian evangelical leaders finally climb down off the fence and begin spreading their endorsements across the field of Republican Party presidential candidates, it was the unexpected endorsement by one of Christian conservatism's longtime leaders that garnered the most media attention.

POLITICS-US: No Easy Answers to Pakistan Crisis

Amid growing polarisation between President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan's civilian opposition forces, U.S. hopes of salvaging a power-sharing accord that would marry the military dictator to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto are fading fast.

TRADE: EU Set to Milk East Africa With Subsidised Goods?

‘‘Dairy farmers in Kenya are doing well now,’’ says Peter Wanyeki, as he flashes a big smile. ‘‘Before, when we went home to the village, you could never take enough money with you. Everybody was poor. But now the situation is different. The dairy farmers are rich because they are getting a very good price for their milk.’’

MIDEAST: Annapolis Could Fail Before it Begins

In the run-up to the upcoming U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace conference, Cairo has continued to express guarded optimism that talks will achieve their stated aim of restarting final status negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

US-IRAQ: What Does the ‘Good News’ Really Mean?

More than seven weeks ago, U.S. media attention on Iraq peaked as Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ray Crocker delivered their much anticipated evaluation of the George W. Bush administration's "surge strategy" before Congress.

POLITICS-DRC: A President and a General Face Off

Instability continues to loom large in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with President Joseph Kabila having demanded that renegade General Laurent Nkunda disarm and reintegrate his approximately 5,000 troops into the national army.

PAKISTAN: Join the Army, Stage a Coup, Retire as President

Commonwealth ministers warned Pakistani dictator General Pervez Musharraf Monday that Pakistan would face part suspension from the Commonwealth if he did not lift emergency, and all that went with it.

MIDEAST: All Not Quite Aboard for Annapolis

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has again paid a visit to the Middle East, held meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, spoken about the seriousness of the two sides in their efforts to revive the peace process, but has again left the region without issuing invitations to a planned U.S.-led peace summit in Annapolis, Maryland.

AGRICULTURE: Costly Prosperity

Many of the people who are now complaining that biofuels are driving up agricultural prices fought in the past against the "deterioration of the terms of exchange," or the devaluation of commodities with respect to manufactured goods, as a key factor in underdevelopment.