INTERNATIONAL

February 26, 2011, marks the eighth anniversary of the imprisonment of Dr. Rafil Dhafir. Dhafir continues to pay the price for feeding the children of Iraq during the US- and UK-sponsored UN sanctions against that country. According to the United Nations’ own statistics, every month throughout the 1990′s, 6,000 children under the age of five in Iraq were dying from …

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 8, 2011 (IPS) – When Muammar el-Gaddafi went on an arms-buying spree in the 1970s and 80s – stockpiling a staggering array of sophisticated weapons systems both from the East and West – the United States warned that Libya was in danger of becoming one of the world's most "overarmed" countries. If military forces from the United …

  Up to 26 people are reported to have been killed after one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck Japan, triggering a 10-metre-high tsunami along parts of the country's northeastern coastline. The massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck Japan on Friday, sweeping away cars, boats, homes and people as widespread fires burned out of control. Japan's NHK television reported many injuries and showed …

While the people of Arab states are overthrowing dictators, Pakistan is sinking deeper into intolerant Islamic extremism. Emboldened by the meek response of the people to the assassinations of Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti, Islamist vigilantes will now become more brutal At least with a dictatorship, you know where you are — and if you know where you are, you …

  As the Arab world witnesses uprising after uprising, seeing dictators fall and others exposed one after another, the Palestinian case looks like the ultimate goal. The fate of Palestine has long suffered from its neighbors’ incapability (more or less intentional) of forming a strong block against Israel, whether through feeding the divisions inside the Palestinian political scene, or more …

“The king is dead, long live the king,” is a call which, in its Arabic form, is sure to be heard before too long in Saudi Arabia. In the latest chapter of the saga of the House of Saud, the ailing and aged King Abdullah returned to the kingdom on Feb. 23 after a three-month absence, which included two back …