Second of a three-part series. Part I can be found here. Part III can be found here. BAYAMO, Cuba — Tropi Crema isn’t like ice cream parlors found elsewhere in the world. Most days, only a single flavor is available, advertised on a board by the entrance, and there’s often a line to get in. Still, for many residents of this tidy city in eastern Cuba, it’s irresistible. One recent afternoon, two middle-aged women sat at the long, crowded counter. Between them they ordered 12 scoops of chocolate ice cream and two pieces of coconut cake. Here and there, along […]

As I made my way to Iraq in 2003 to cover the unfolding operation to overthrow Saddam Hussein, I spent many hours speaking to pro-democracy and women’s rights activists in Kuwait. Back then, Kuwaiti activists held high hopes for positive change. Kuwaiti women had spent years fighting for the right to vote and run for office. If democracy came to Iraq, they assured me, it would give a push to their own agenda and bring them closer to success. Pro-democracy pioneer Lullwah al-Mullah told me, “Iraq is the country of Arab culture. It is the country of Islamic culture.” A […]

Since taking office in 2002, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe has not wavered from his campaign promise to use a “firm hand” to eliminate the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). By all indications, Colombia’s counterinsurgency effort has been largely effective in weakening the rebel group, considered to be a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union for its involvement in high-profile kidnappings and drug trafficking. But an unintended side effect of Uribe’s tough approach has been the deterioration of Colombia’s bilateral relations with Ecuador and Venezuela. Colombia has accused its neighbors of being sympathetic to the FARC and […]

On Feb. 16, the Pakistani government announced a truce with insurgents in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). In the agreement, the government agreed to promulgate Islamic law in one-third of NWFP. Pakistani officials are arguing that Islamic law is a popular demand, and that the creation of state-led Islamic courts will reduce support for extremism. However, rather than vitiating jihadism, the accord will legitimize radical ideology and demonstrate the efficacy of violence in its realization. NWFP’s citizens have not been agitating for the establishment of Islamic law. True, the province was governed from 2002 to February 2008, by the Muttahida […]

First of a three-part series. Part II can be found here. Part III can be found here. HAVANA, Cuba — Arriving in Cuba this time felt different straight away. The airport, where I arrived on a flight from Cancún crammed with Cubans and their purchases, was hassle-free. No tour operators solicited me; no cabbies assailed me. It was the same in touristy Old Havana. Ten years before, on my last visit, I couldn’t walk a few steps without having cigars or a lobster dinner pressed on me. This time, whether in the leafy, mansion-studded Vedado section, the shopping arcades near […]

The results of Israel’s recent elections, combined with the 22-day offensive against Gaza, have led many to wonder about the future of peace talks with the Palestinian Authority. But the jockeying for power in Israel between the centrist Kadima party and the right-wing Likud overshadows another significant obstacle standing in the way of any future peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians: namely, determining who, between the more secular Fatah leaders in the West Bank and the Islamist Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip, represents the Palestinian people. “No matter the outcome [of negotiations to form an Israeli government], the fact […]

CARACAS, Venezuela — The margin of victory in Sunday’s Venezuelan referendum on lifting term limits — 55 to 45 percent — succinctly reflects both President Hugo Chávez’s continued strength and the opposition’s rise. The government has been spinning the comfortable victory, which allows Chávez to run again in 2012, into a resounding show of support for the president’s socialist project and a rejection of the opposition, which it paints as a carry-over from the corrupt liberal democracy of old. The opposition, for its part, argues that it has essentially broken even with Chávez, earning credibility and putting it within striking […]

World Citizen: Syria Peace Efforts on the Horizon

Last week’s parliamentary elections in Israel saw the country take a collective step to the right, but it is incorrect to conclude, as conventional wisdom seems to be doing, that the vote marks the end of peace efforts. Instead, the elections could take those efforts in a different — and possibly even fruitful — direction: Israel’s next government could end up playing down the Palestinian track in favor of a major push to reach a peace agreement with Syria. Negotiations to form a new government are just getting started, and there is no certainty about how they will conclude. The […]

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Thirty years after Pol Pot and his henchmen were driven from power, surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge have finally begun appearing in court after being charged with crimes against humanity. Kaing Guek Eav — more commonly known as Duch — on Tuesday became the first of the ultra-Maoists to stand before the bench of five U.N.-sanctioned judges for his role in the alleged torture and extermination of more than 16,000 people. Initially, the victims were held at the S21 detention center that Duch ran before being sent to the killing fields on the outskirts of […]

NEW DELHI — In the wake of last November’s Mumbai terror strikes, which revealed weaknesses in India’s homeland defense capacity, India’s inability to fight a full-fledged war is now being increasingly exposed. Years of political neglect, corruption, red tape and indecisiveness have left the Indian Army (and to some degree the Navy and the Air Force) without the wherewithal to fight a protracted war against neighbor Pakistan, let alone more powerful China. Problems with India’s defense modernization program — valued at more than $50 billion over the next five years and to include new fighter jets, nuclear submarines and war […]

The tale could begin, “During the short reign of the Ritalin King cameth the downturn. . . .” During his six-month EU presidency, Nicolas Sarkozy laced into any number of challenges with a typically hyperactive gusto and self-importance. The spirit of the Sun King may have been whispering in Sarko’s ear, as he put his own stamp on Louis XIV’s famous motto: “L’Europe, c’est moi.” When time came to pass the EU crown to Prague, the Frenchman threatened to boycott the handover, after unsuccessfully pushing for self-serving alternatives to exisiting EU mechanisms. The Coulisses de Bruxelles blog quoted an aide […]

PRISTINA, MITROVICA and GRACANICA, Kosovo — A year after Kosovo declared independence, there has been no mass exodus of the Serb minority — or worse — as some critics feared. In fact, tension in the Serb enclaves has lessened and there is hope of further normalization, even in the restive North. “It is peaceful here,” says Nebojsa Popovic, one of the few Serbs left on the Kosovo police force. Popovic commands a station in Gracanica, the centre of a Serb enclave 5km from Pristina, where Serb and Albanian traders and taxi drivers chat openly in the street. A soldier still […]

Israelis went to the polls to clarify a confusing political situation. What emerged was an even more unclear picture, with all parties performing less well than they expected and several declaring victory even if no one won. After the two leading contenders for the top spot declared themselves the winners, it is now up to the president to decide who will officially receive the order to go forth and form a government. Even that part of the process, which is usually not contentious, is now controversial. At the latest count, Kadima, the party of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, looked set […]

The Neo-Eurasianist movement has been a curious feature of the Russian intellectual landscape throughout the post-Soviet years. It is dominated by a single figure, the monk-bearded Aleksandr Dugin, who argues that Russia is not a European country but an Asian one, and advocates a grand alliance with the Turkic and Arab worlds, India, Japan, Iran and even Israel, to counter American influence, which it regards as an existential threat to Russia. Dugin’s theories are larded with a significant amount of the occult, are complex and often contradict each other. But their anti-American emphasis and open call for return to empire […]

SOFIA, Bulgaria — The gas is back on in Sofia, but Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev is still feeling the political chill. Increasingly out of favour in Brussels and frozen out by fair weather friends in Moscow, Stanishev’s government also faced the wrath — and hurled bricks — of street protestors in recent weeks. It was an inauspicious start to a year featuring elections that could be crucial in reinvigorating the country’s reform process and restoring relations with its European partners. Bulgaria’s big freeze came to an end on Jan. 20, when gas flows from Russia via Ukraine — cut […]

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Colombia’s see-saw struggle over whether to allow a third, four-year term for President Álvaro Uribe shows little sign of being settled soon. Uribe was initially elected in 2002 and reelected in 2006 after a constitutional one-term limit was overturned. In 2008, four million Colombians signed a petition in favor of a second constitutional reform that would allow Uribe to stand once again in the 2010 polls. Now, despite a farcical error in the petition’s wording, it may well receive congressional support. The Colombian president has avoided stating his own position on the matter clearly. Yet he is […]

Iraq’s provincial elections took place without major incident, leading observers to let out a sigh of relief. Some hailed the elections for what they were — in Larry Kaplow’s words, “orderly, safe, and enthusiastic” — others for what they weren’t — a vindication of the Iraq war and the subsequent surge. Most assessments thus far have been premature. After all, it is one thing to vote, it is quite another to accept the results. The real test for Iraq’s fledgling democracy will be not Saturday’s voting, but rather how the competing parties come to interpret Saturday’s meaning. While these were […]

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