If the Financial Times has it right, the centre-left is on course to win Britain’s general election. According to the erstwhile pink tabloid, it all comes down to math. Statistics show that a Labour-SNP government has a 32.5% of victory, whereas the governing Tories lag painfully behind, at 0.39%. If true, it’d be a spectacular drubbing. (More…)
Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, father of the ongoing Houthi revolt, demanded greater autonomy and influence for his family as spiritual leaders among Yemen’s Zaydi Shia community. President Ali Abdullah Saleh refused to accept these demands, not wanting to lose power to a rival family. (More…)
Modern Pakistan is filled with myths about “the Afghan character,” particular to its urban middle class. As a result, students of Pakistani politics frequently encounter bizarrely colonial appraisals of “culturally Afghan” groups in Pakistan. (More…)
Climate change is dominating the global news cycle as never before. With every catastrophic storm and highly unusual spate of weather, the possibility that we have irreparably destabilized the Earth’s delicate ecological balance looms larger. Even in the United States, where, despite — or perhaps because of — a comparatively high standard of living and learning, denial of this dire situation has been rampant, the tide is tuning. (More…)
The first round of Britain’s election debates passed with little trouble. In spite of a heckler’s best efforts, three women represented the left on the national stage. As the UK media has grudgingly acknowledged, Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon won the debate. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. (More…)
Igor Kolomoisky was having a bad week. The Ukrainian parliament had passed a new law that would have cost him control over a major oil company. So Mr. Kolomoisky, one of the richest men in Ukraine, decided to fight back. Just not through the courts. He and a group of handpicked, armed men stormed two office complexes in Kiev on March 19th and 22nd. (More…)
The Saudi-led invasion of Yemen has opened new discussions on the Houthis, an alliance of tribal militants that are based in Sa’ada. Mainstream analysts have begun to insist that the group is nothing more than an Iranian proxy, which demands closer scrutiny. (More…)
It’s been nearly five years since Ed Miliband was elected as Labour leader. From the start, the right-wing press heaped scorn upon him. Of all the attacks foisted upon him the ‘fratricidal’ agent charge, who stepped over his own brother to grab the big seat, backed by trade unions, was perhaps the most revealing. (More…)
As I was preparing to spend a year abroad in Germany, I agonized over one of the tips my exchange student organization had sent me. It encouraged us to photograph aspects of the United States that wouldn’t be familiar from watching American movies and television. But what came to mind for me were the homeless people I saw on every trip to Washington D.C. (More…)
In November 2013, thousands of street cleaners in Mecca went on strike. The move was triggered by South Asian workers, primarily, complaining that intense police harassment was accompanying an immigration crackdown. (More…)
