In the midst of growing unrest in the Middle East, Iraq is yet again ablaze, fueled by sectarian strife. Sunni protests, pushing against a Shia leadership, have led international spectators to already call a civil war in the country. Iraq, a country embroiled in sectarian warfare, must now rise above it.
Ten years ago, on May 1, 2003, then-US President George W. Bush boarded...
Tensions are rising in Iraq, as new waves of violence rock the country following hotly-contested elections and months of protests by its Sunni minority.
It has been a bloody few weeks for Iraq. Following months of escalating protests in Sunni-dominated areas of the country, a series of highly coordinated bombings have rocked Iraq. The unrest has worsened with additional turmoil...
Founded seven years ago in Ireland, and now spread throughout the world, the Transition Movement aims for the creation of an alternative system based on resilience and happiness as a response to current environmental and economic instability.
To switch from a world based on oil resources and disposable objects to a new society built on the philosophy of degrowth, awareness,...
In its 66 years of existence, Pakistan has been far from democracy and nowhere near a beacon of Islam.
In a recent Fair Observer article, Pakistan: Democracy in a Confessional State, Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed states: “There is no denying that the erstwhile modernist...
Bilal Ahmed argues that the discourse surrounding democracy in Pakistan is flawed, and that its liberal republican articulations will come to provoke additional mobilization in future years.
It was the end of January. Tahir ul-Qadri's Long March had just ended in Islamabad. There were inspirational images of tens of thousands cheering on his fiery speeches, but we were all...
No state can tolerate a challenge to its monopoly of power from within; in other words, a state within a state is a contradiction in terms of state sovereignty
Hopefully by the time this article is published, Pakistan would, despite the reign of terror let loose by the Taliban on the very idea of democracy, and especially on some parties, have completed the election...
There is no denying that the erstwhile modernist Pakistani leadership tried to make Pakistan both democratic and Islamic. However, no constitutional formula could find the proper balance.
The Pakistani general election is most likely to be held as planned. After nearly 66 years, a milestone would be reached: an elected government will succeed another elected government...
China’s cooperation in dealing with North Korea will likely be temporary and prudential.
If North Korea is the hysterical child that Western news media — aided by the north’s own apocalyptic rhetoric — portrays it to be, then China is often cast as the doting grandparent, indulgent to a fault. In 2013, however, this indulgence appears to have come to an...
By Reshma Patil
The new provocations from Pyongyang heighten the risk of a military showdown with the US, South Korea and Japan. China, the only power with sway over the regime, is exercising limited options for peace on the peninsula.
An untested 30-year-old dictator declares a...
Justin Dargin, a geopolitics expert from the University of Oxford, speaks to Fair Observer's Nishtha Chugh about the implications of North Korea’s nuclear program and why its latest test is essentially a show of strength by its young leader.
Nishtha Chugh: What is your evaluation of...
North Korea’s recent rhetoric is neither new nor surprising. While nuclear weapons in the hands of a volatile and irrational leader are cause for concern, it is unlikely that Pyongyang is on a suicide mission.
The ongoing tensions between North Korea, South Korea and the United States have once again highlighted the vulnerability of the Korean Peninsula, a...
George Ayittey, president of the Free Africa Foundation compares the Arab Spring with Africa's village revolutions in the 1990s and explains what is needed to make democracy sustainable.
After the Arab Spring erupted in North Africa in the spring of 2011, there was widespread speculation that it would spread to sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, the unrest in the...
Synergizing resources and technology from private and public stakeholders, can produce more effective and cost efficient counter-maritime piracy measures.
With both sequestration and tensions ramping up in Asia, experts project that countering maritime piracy will take a back seat to the Asia rebalancing and other more existential US foreign policy issues. Unfortunately, this...
Sarah Zakzouk’s review of Reel Words, an evening of Iraqi and British poetry in London commemorating the ten-year anniversary of the Iraq war.
Reel Words, an evening of poetry in translation, was but a small element of the Reel Festivals lineup. This year’s festival, Reel Iraq, was comprised of a series of cultural events marking the ten-year anniversary of the...
By Mohamed Al-Daradji
Mohammed Al-Daradji, an Iraqi filmmaker, delivers a personal account of Iraq's art and culture scene.
From an early age and unbeknown to my parents, I used to sneak to the cinema every week to watch the latest film from India — there was only ever one career choice for me.
These experiences inspired my decisions...
Sonia Gandhi’s completion of fifteen years as president of the Congress party has been met with much fanfare in the party. Archana Dalmia’s eulogy, “Sonia Gandhi: Working the Miracle” is a case in point.
Apologists of the diarchy in governance with Sonia as the...
It is time we examined the society we have created before we invoke the rather trite argument of dynastic rule to stridently criticise the Gandhis and the Congress. No doubt, dynasty is antithetical to democratic politics. Yet, it is also true that dynastic succession is the norm outside the Indian political realm as well. Its sheer pervasiveness explains why people dismiss outright the...
Having spent twenty-five years serving the Congress Party, Archana Dalmia makes sense of Sonia Gandhi and her role in Indian politics.
Sonia Gandhi is not a career politician in the conventional sense of the word. She was virtually thrown into the ring, and yet has shown more political astuteness than most of her contemporaries.
Her Caucasian origins have often been...
Fair Observer’s Editor-in-Chief, Atul Singh, argues that India can only progress if it buries the ghosts of Nehru and Indira.
Democracy is more than elections. It requires institutions. It requires rule of law. It has been 63 years since India declared itself a republic. Yet the country is in many ways a de facto monarchy. At the national level, one family has largely...
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