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Ali: Britain faces the wind of change
Znet Article, May, 03 2010
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
“THE wind of change,” British prime minister Harold Macmillan informed the South African parliament in 1960, “is blowing through this continent.” The all-white legislature in the land of apartheid gave him the silent treatment. Fifty years later, ...
Ali: The Ghost Of Triumphs And Tragedies Past
Znet Article, April, 29 2010
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
A SPECTER is haunting the forthcoming celebrations in Russia on May 9 of the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazism. News reports suggest this particular ghost has not made its presence felt in the context of Victory Day since the Soviet Union c...
Ali: Moscow revisited by mass murder
Znet Article, April, 12 2010
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
ON a typically freezing day in early February, a bunch of folk from the Chechen town of Achkoi-Martan climbed into a rickety coach and set out on a garlic-picking expedition. Their destination was a wooded area between Chechnya and Ingushetia, and...
Ali: After a minor tiff, business as usual
Znet Article, March, 23 2010
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
Netanyahu is anything but conciliatory in the Israeli-Palestinian context, but his Likud party holds about one-sixth of the seats in the Knesset and his cabinet includes members who are even further to the right, notably the unspeakable Avigdor Li...
Ali: The Untruth Lockers
Znet Article, March, 16 2010
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
It was perhaps inevitable that this month’s Iraqi elections would be cited by those who unequivocally backed the US-led military occupation of Iraq as post hoc vindication of their support for the superpower’s gratuitous invasion seven years ago. ...
Ali: Worth more than a Foot note
Znet Article, March, 13 2010
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
IT was a memorable night, albeit largely for reasons that fall considerably short of pleasantness. On June 9, 1983, I sat my last university exam. It happened to be election day in Britain, and late that evening two Indian friends and I congregate...
Ali: Scope for hope on the subcontinent?
Znet Article, March, 03 2010
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
There is precious little risk of anyone putting too much store by last week’s talks between the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan. Although Nirupama Rao and Salman Bashir parted on a vaguely civil note by agreeing that the channels of comm...
Ali: Getting Away with Murder
Znet Article, February, 27 2010
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
Once details related to the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh began emerging earlier this month, a fairly interesting unofficial reaction followed in Israel. Only a tiny proportion of commentators bothered to express any doubts about Mossad’s in...
Ali: Tragic triumphalism in Sri Lanka
Znet Article, February, 16 2010
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
As Sri Lanka’s long and agonizing civil war entered its endgame phase, there was little indication that the bloody denouement would make way for the healing and reconciliation that the island-nation so desperately needs.
Ali: Lessons from a Past Master
Znet Article, February, 09 2010
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
Most people - to paraphrase the radical British poet Adrian Mitchell - ignore most history because most history ignores most people. It is traditionally the domain of “great” people: conquerors and kings, statesmen and generals, prophets and pione...
Ali: The Words of One Who Kneels
Znet Article, February, 01 2010
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
One of the Blair government’s excuses for its immoderate attachment to the Bush administration was that its diplomatic leverage would thereby be enhanced. The Chilcot testimony of an ex-ambassador suggests the reverse effect was achieved: once W...
Ali: Year one: damned if he doesn’t...
Znet Article, January, 18 2010
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
In a speech on the eve of Martin Luther King Day this week, Barack Obama invoked the memory of the great civil rights leader (and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner) in advising his critics to put things in perspective and show a little more patience.
Ali: Low Blow for the CIA
Znet Article, January, 12 2010
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
Seldom before has Central Intelligence Agency experienced such a lethal dose of blowback. The earliest reports following a suicide bombing at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost on December 30 suggested eight fatalities among agency operatives...
Ali: The implications of partial justice
Znet Article, December, 22 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
On the day after an unprecedentedly broad bench of Pakistan’s Supreme Court pronounced its death sentence against the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), the government in Islamabad felt obliged to dispel rumours of a coup in the making. Th...
Ali: Copenhagen: The Heat is On
Znet Article, December, 15 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
As the Copenhagen circus approaches its climax, there is still no guarantee that by the end of this week there will be in place a comprehensive international agreement that will help to change the face of the planet by the middle of the 21st century.
Ali: Surge-on general’s dangerous diagnosis
Znet Article, December, 08 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
WILL Barack Obama experience a twinge of guilt tomorrow when he steps up to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, less than 10 days after he effectively claimed ownership of the war in Afghanistan?
Ali: The Explosion We Ignore
Znet Article, November, 25 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
The explosive situation in which Pakistan finds itself, chiefly as a consequence of its own initiatives over recent decades, means that attention inevitably tends to be centred on Islamist militancy and political dysfunction. Various other aspects...
Ali: Washington's Welcome Indecision
Znet Article, November, 17 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
The indecision in Washington over Afghanistan has prompted a plethora of criticism from a broad range of angles, but there is at least one redeeming factor that has received insufficient acknowledgement. The vacillation is evidence of a genuine de...
Ali: Then suddenly it was gone
Znet Article, November, 09 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
PERHAPS it was the surprise factor, more than anything else, that accounted for the spontaneous outbreak of euphoria. The vast majority of those who had grown up - or grown old - on either side of the Berlin Wall accepted it as an indelible featur...
Ali: Undeserved post for a dodgy pillar
Znet Article, November, 03 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
Until the beginning of last week, it was widely assumed that the European Union (EU) would be unwise enough, in picking the first permanent president of its council, to offer the job to Tony Blair. Then, on Friday, following a mini-summit in Bruss...
Ali: Nobel not such a big deal
Znet Article, October, 14 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
The Norwegian committee that chose to award this year's Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama may already be regretting its decision. Whatever its motives, embarrassing the recipient by whipping up a tsunami of ridicule was almost certainly not among ...
Ali: 'A choice between right and wrong'
Znet Article, October, 06 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
Monday's edition of the British newspaper The Guardian contained an obituary for Marek Edelman, whose claim to fame was his leading role in the famous Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, when Jews trapped in a part of the occupied Polish capital surp...
Ali: The War President’s Options
Znet Article, September, 29 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
GEORGE W. Bush did not think long and hard before unleashing his nation’s formidable military might on Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
Ali: The march of the skeletons
Znet Article, September, 14 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
Going by the rate at which former operatives from a plethora of military and other agencies have been emerging from the woodwork and spilling the beans in Pakistan, it almost seems as if someone went around spiking their preferred beverages with t...
Ali: The Reluctant Adversary
Znet Article, September, 01 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
“THE objectives favored by liberals have their merits,†Barack Obama notes in The Audacity of Hope. “But they hardly constitute a national security policy. It’s useful to remind ourselves, then, that Osama bin Laden is not Ho Chi Minh, and...
Ali: America's fevered imagination
Znet Article, August, 17 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
ONE could be excused for suspecting that Britain's National Health Service (NHS) is the new Al Qaeda, given the virulence with which is being attacked in the United States - in many cases by people who are unlikely to have been aware of its existe...
Ali: Separated at Birth
Znet Article, August, 12 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
THE probable decapitation of a leading faction of the Pakistani Taliban could be considered an auspicious augury in the run-up to the nation's Independence Day on Friday, although the delay obtaining confirmation of Baitullah Mehsud's demise also ...
Ali: Fruitless Maneuvers in the Great Game
Znet Article, August, 04 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
“IN the interests, then, of peace; in the interests of commerce; in the interests of moral and material improvement, it may be asserted that interference in Afghanistan has now become a duty, and that any moderate outlay or responsibility we inc...
Ali: The woman who knew too much
Znet Article, July, 28 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
THE pattern is by now well-established: perceived foes of the ruthless young thug elevated by Vladimir Putin to the presidency of Chechnya all too frequently end up dead. And the unabashedly vengeful Ramzan Kadyrov's reach extends far beyond his s...
Ali: Skirmishes in the battle for Pakistan
Znet Article, July, 21 2009
Mahir Ali
Ali's ZSpace page
EVEN a tentative sigh of relief would probably be premature, but the trickle of refugees back to their towns and villages in Swat is a hopeful sign. The exodus was rapid; the return, inevitably, is much slower. And it ought not to be misconstrued ...
