Earlier this year, a significant fact went largely unnoticed in the media: Crude oil imports from sub-Saharan Africa (excluding the Arab North African producers of Algeria and Libya) to the United States surpassed those from the Middle East. According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the United States imported 1.736 million barrels per day (b/d) from Sub-Saharan Africa in February 2007 — the bulk from Nigeria and Angola but also from Chad, Congo (Brazzaville), Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. This amount was slightly greater than imports from the Middle East — Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, and a small […]

Just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Pakistani authorities arrested two atomic scientists suspected of having aided the terror network al-Qaida in efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. One year earlier, they had founded a humanitarian aid agency for Afghanistan: the “Reconstruction of the Muslim Umma.” But for the two Taliban sympathizers, the aim of constructing a new Muslim community was not only a matter of economic and political solidarity with the faithful around the world. In their opinion, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, which they had helped to develop, were also the “property […]

Evgenii Kiselyov, the host of the weekly news analysis program “Vlast” (Power) that airs on RTVI, an international Russian-language cable station, scarcely bothered to conceal his disdain for President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Tehran for the Caspian Summit. On his Oct. 19 show, Kiselev bluntly described the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as “odious,” and the regime he heads as “theocratic.” Addressing his guest, the prominent Russian journalist Fyodor Lukyanov, Kiselyov demanded to know why it was necessary for Putin to visit Iran at all. Lukyanov, however, failed to take the bait, coolly noting that of the major world powers […]

NEW YORK — Within minutes of the decision by Turkey’s parliament Oct. 17 to approve a potential Turkish military action against members of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, hordes of Iraqi Kurds poured into the streets in protest. The vote drew sharp criticism from Massoud Barzani, President of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), who said the Kurds of Northern Iraq were prepared to fight should Turkish soldiers set foot onto their soil. In an interview with Northern Iraq’s Bahdinan Radio, Barzani added “Saddam Hussein could not even finish the Kurds, so how does Turkey expect to finish […]

On Oct. 18, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a one-day jaunt to Moscow for “a last-minute, urgent meeting” with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader had just returned from Tehran, where he had defended Iran’s right to develop peaceful nuclear energy while reaffirming Moscow’s commitment to nuclear nonproliferation. Three topics apparently dominated the three-hour private meeting. First, according to Miri Eisin, the prime minister’s spokesperson, Olmert urged Putin to support stronger diplomatic and economic sanctions against Iran at the U.N. Security Council. Olmert argued that the international community needs more effective measures to check Tehran’s nuclear aspirations, which […]

U.S.-Iran relations have been growing more tense as the standoff over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program continues, prompting speculation about the significance of the “oil factor” in Iran’s domestic politics and in its relationship with the outside world. Is Iran importing gasoline because it is running out of oil? Do the fuel riots in Iran earlier this year mean that sanctions against Iran are working? Would Iran use the oil weapon? Can the oil weapon be used against Iran? These questions are crucial, but attempts to answer them have often been misleading and characterized by hyperbole. But putting the oil […]

WASHINGTON — The Army’s $200-billion Future Combat Systems — the centerpiece of the service’s “network-centric” modernization — has been buffeted by cash shortages, insurmountable engineering obstacles and criticism that lighter, smarter, sensor-laden vehicles are not what the Army needs to fight tomorrow’s wars. The program aims to equip 15 of the Army’s roughly 70 combat brigades with new robots and hybrid diesel-electric manned vehicles connected by a secure radio network and equipped with high-tech sensors. After a difficult 2006 that saw four of FCS’ robot designs axed due to budget constraints, this year the decade-old program achieved several milestones, wrapping […]

JERUSALEM — With Condoleezza Rice in town and multiple meetings between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in recent weeks, there is little doubt that the season of peace has come again to the Middle East: Peace, as in peace process. Few people, however, seem persuaded that an end to the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is at hand. In fact, the word one hears more often these days is “Intifada” — as in Palestinian uprising; as in a new outbreak of deadly violence between the two sides. That may seem odd, considering that top-level government officials from the United States, […]

“Daddy, I thought you were coming home after Bayram,” read somber headlines in newspapers across Turkey Oct. 10, capturing the sentiments of the daughters of a soldier killed by a PKK ambush in southeastern Turkey. Bayram is the three-day celebration that started Oct. 12 to mark the end of the month of Ramadan. It is custom for fathers, sons, brothers and husbands fulfilling their military duties to return home on Bayram to briefly visit their loved ones, and bring presents and candies to children. The last two weeks have seen the assassination of 30 soldiers in the perilous southeastern border […]

Toward the end of August, French President Nicolas Sarkozy ushered in a new phase in the diplomatic negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program by calling for tougher sanctions against Iran. In the event that the U.N. Security Council should prove incapable of taking action, Sarkozy demanded that the Europeans take action themselves: unilaterally. It is only by applying massive economic pressure, Sarkozy argued, that “a catastrophic alternative” could still be avoided: “either the Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran.” At the same time, Sarkozy pressured the French energy companies Total and Gaz de France to forego any further investments […]

JERUSALEM — Ever since this June’s open warfare between rival Palestinians of Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the accusations, recriminations, smears and hoaxes have been flying wildly in the Palestinian Territories. In addition to the violence that still pits supporters of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, against followers of the more secular Fatah, the parties have launched elaborate publicity campaigns to bolster their own side and discredit the other in the eyes of fellow Palestinians and the rest of the world. One of the hoaxes, designed to make Fatah look more reliable to the West and to Israel, […]

According to statements made Sept. 27 by the Turkish Minister of Energy Hilmi Güler, Ankara and Tehran plan to sign an accord this month on the exploitation of the natural gas reserves of South Pars on the southern Iranian coast. In a preliminary agreement concluded in July, it had already been agreed that Turkey’s state-controlled oil company would invest some $3 billion over seven years in the construction of operating equipment. In addition, Turkish and Iranian enterprises are supposed to develop joint ventures for the transport of the gas by way of a pipeline system that will extend to eastern […]

The intense political and media scrutiny directed towards Blackwater Inc. this week evokes the old Irish saying that “calm waters run deep, but the Devil lurks in the depths.” During congressional hearings, the rock was lifted to reveal one of the most profound developments in the American way of war since perhaps the use of conscription during the Civil War: civilianization of the battlefield. Ironically, the media exposure of the stark statistic that there are today more civilian contractors serving in Iraq than members of the armed forces occurred during the same week when many Americans tuned in to the […]

JERUSALEM — In Britain, the University and College Union has just announced it has to cancel plans to boycott all Israeli academics and promote Palestinian views because the boycott, surprise of surprises, would break anti-discrimination laws. The British government, as well as fellow academics around the world, criticized as immoral, inappropriate and counterproductive the union’s one-sided approach to the complicated Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But who can blame Europeans for hating Israel, really? After all, when you look at the news they read and watch, it is clear that Israel is a country run by vicious and malevolent thugs. News coverage from […]

On July 13, 1989, a frantic getaway is taking place out front of an apartment house at 5 Linke Bahngasse in Vienna. In an article for the Austrian weekly Profil, the journalists Sibylle Hamann und Martin Staudinger reconstruct the scene: A secret agent has been shot and he is dragged by two other men between two parked cars. He is bleeding from multiple wounds. A man on a motorcycle pulls up beside them. All four are members of an Iranian terror commando unit that has left behind a bloodbath in a two-room apartment on the fourth floor of the building […]

Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. BURMA LAUNCHES CRACKDOWN — Officials in Burma (or Myanmar as the ruling military junta insists on calling it) ended their brief period of tolerance for growing street protests last week, introducing measures to quell dissent and sending security forces out into the streets with orders to take “extreme measures” if necessary. The crackdown began early Wednesday morning when state security forces reportedly broke into two Rangoon monasteries and began beating and arresting monks. Authorities also […]