http://worldpolicy.org/wordpress Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:55:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The diplomatic row between the United States and Israel is being fanned yet again as Israeli officials reject demands by Washington to withdraw plans for further settlements in the disputed East Jerusalem territory. “We must tell the American government that there are things we can do and things we cannot ... http://worldpolicy.org/wordpress/2010/03/17/the-index-%e2%80%94-march-17-2010/ Folks in many parts of the world must be wondering what on earth is going on in Nigeria. From an ailing president to the fragile peace in the Niger Delta, there appears to be a relentless stream of bad news coming out of Africa's most populous country. Last week, at least 100 people ... http://worldpolicy.org/wordpress/2010/03/16/azubuike-ishiekwene-the-fire-in-nigeria%e2%80%99s-coal-city/ Shock waves ripped through the U.S. State Department in the aftermath of a shootout in Mexico that left a U.S. consulate official and her husband dead. The shootings, which happened in Cuidad Juarez, just across Mexico’s border with Texas, were attributed to a surge in drug-related violence along the trafficking ... http://worldpolicy.org/wordpress/2010/03/15/the-index-%e2%80%94-march-15-2010/ It is not yet clear whether Nigeria’s acting president, Goodluck Jonathan, just wants to warm the chair of the presidency until his country’s next elections. But if he decides to sit back and shuffle files, he’ll certainly have adequate cover. He could insist, for example, that as a non-elected head ... http://worldpolicy.org/wordpress/2010/03/03/azubuike-ishiekwene-nigeria%e2%80%99s-acting-president-and-the-tough-road-ahead/ Afghan President Ahmed Karzai amended a law governing the country’s Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), much to the chagrin of the Obama administration, which has been turning up the pressure on the Karzai administration to clean up corruption within the Afghan government. Karzai’s amendment will put the ECC, a formerly independent ... http://worldpolicy.org/wordpress/2010/02/24/the-index-%e2%80%94-february-24-2010/ Why a Kimberley Process for Congolese “conflict minerals” won't achieve what its supporters hope Diamonds have a unique cachet that most commodities simply don't have: they're recognized as items of intrinsic beauty, and sold as symbols of romance. No doubt, this is partly why the existence of conflict diamonds unnerves so ... http://worldpolicy.org/wordpress/2010/02/22/in-depth-buying-war-by-elizabeth-palchik-allen/ In NATO’s ongoing offensive against the Taliban, a coalition of Afghan and NATO forces captured the town of Marjah, in southern Afghanistan, on Tuesday. Marjah, which is thought to be the seat of the Taliban’s shadow government in Helmand province, is also located in a region of the country known ... http://worldpolicy.org/wordpress/2010/02/17/the-index-%e2%80%94-february-17-2010/ The ominous consequences of the Greek debt crisis continued to reverberate throughout the Eurozone Monday, as a meeting of EU finance ministers focused entirely on Greece’s mounting fiscal debt. While Greece continues to insist on its ability to stabilize its own economy and slash its budget deficit—which bloated this ... http://worldpolicy.org/wordpress/2010/02/15/the-index-%e2%80%94-february-15-2010/ If inconsistencies are the hallmark of truth—an odd truism suggested by U.S. prosecutor David M. Rody during the recently-concluded trial of Aafia Siddiqui—then there was plenty of “truth” to go around on both sides of the proceeding, which concluded February 3 with guilty verdicts on all seven counts of attempted ... http://worldpolicy.org/wordpress/2010/02/12/ibrahim-sajid-malick-title-tk-v2/ Political tensions in Sri Lanka escalated this Wednesday as protesters took to the streets in the capital city of Colombo in response to President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s decision on Tuesday to dissolve parliament and the arrest of his defeated presidential opponent, Gen. Sarath Fonseka. A correspondent for al Jazeera who was ... http://worldpolicy.org/wordpress/2010/02/10/the-index-%e2%80%94-february-10-2010/