News updates

October 13, 2009 “ICH” — -The electoral victory of center left regimes in at least three Latin American countries, and the search for a new ideological identity to justify their rule, led ideologues and the incumbent presidents to embrace the notion that they represent a new 21st century version of socialism (21cs). Prominent writers, academics and regime spokespeople celebrated a …

President Barack Obama who promised peace but prosecuting wars ??was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize almost nine months into the office and hardly any achievement to speak of. The Oslo based Nobel Committee chairman, Thorbjoern Jagland said that ?only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world?s attention and given its people hope for …

In monumental fashion, recent events in Geneva have roundly earned Fatah and Abbas’s Palestinian Authority the contempt of ordinary Palestinians, reports Khaled Amayreh from Ramallah —————————————— The Palestinian Authority (PA) is facing an extremely embarrassing situation following its decision earlier this week to endorse deferring the ratification of the Goldstone Report at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva. …

TEHRAN (Dispatches) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that there is no “ambiguous” issue remaining between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “Because of good cooperation between Iran and the agency, important issues were resolved and today there is no ambiguous issue left between Iran and the agency,” the president said in a statement carried by …

When Gamal Abdel Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, it may surprise people that it was the Egyptian singer, Leila Murad, a Mizrahi Jew, who was chosen as the Revolution’s official singer. Murad was chosen over the much-loved Egyptian singer and darling of the Arab world, Umm Kalthoum. The fact is that Mizrahi Jews — Arab Jews — have …

Liberal spaces within Europe have brought many more Muslim women out of their old confinements Europe is at risk of being ‘colonised’ by its Muslim populations, argue a number of bestselling new books, acclaimed across the political spectrum. How has such hysteria gone unchallenged? Pankaj Mishra on the ‘Eurabia-mongers’ A number of new books are promoting the idea that Europe …