· June, 2008

Stories Middle East & North Africa from June, 2008

Lebanon: Condoleezza Rice's Surprise Visit

  June 19, 2008

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced, five-hour visit to Lebanon on Monday, June 16. She declared her government’s support for the newly elected Lebanese president, as well as for the Lebanese government, the parliament’s speaker and the democratic system in the country. Rice last visited Lebanon during...

Morocco: Dreaming of a Muslim President?

  June 18, 2008

Despite what the U.S. (and some foreign) media might say, it seems that, rather than call Obama an apostate from Islam, some Muslims would prefer to call Obama a fellow Muslim. Such is the case in Morocco, where American expat North Africa Notes says that “most Moroccans know more about...

Palestine: Obama on Jerusalem as Undivided

  June 16, 2008

Barack Obama's pledge on June 11th to AIPAC that Jerusalem should be Israel's undivided capital has angered Palestinian officials. President Mahmoud Abbas made a statement that Obama's pledge is “totally rejected,” while Saeb Erekat, an Abbas aide, said that Palestinian negotiators would continue to insist upon East Jerusalem as the...

What About Obama's Race? The Turkish (and Other) Perception of Obama

  June 16, 2008

On June 6, 2008, Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal in which he referred to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “Turkey's Putin” and a dictator. The piece, re-posted on the Middle East Forum, refers to the...

India: Obama in Black and White

  June 15, 2008

Indian bloggers are joining the rest of the world to decipher Barack Obama and reflect on what his election to the White House would mean for their country and its civilian nuclear development programme and Indo-US relations. In a post entitled Obama in Black and White, Delhi-based blog Chanakya's World discusses what Obama's nomination could mean to India and its neighbours, the War on Terror and the delicate balance of power in a volatile part of the world.

More censored news on Impeechment of George Bush

  June 14, 2008

Everyone knows he's a crook, a liar and a thief. Not to mention a traitor and an undicted felon, yet somehow George W. Bush skates on leading the US to financial, economic, diplomatic, moral and even military ruin. Last week, a US Congressman submitted articles of impeachment for the most...

Turkey, anti-Americanism and Obama

  June 14, 2008

Michael Rubin’s WSJ op-ed on why the US should support the removal of Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan is bothersome. Having followed Turkey for the last two years somewhat closely (I make a conscious effort to listen to Turks in Boston and to look at Turkish newspapers and websites in my...

Global: Kucinich Calls for Bush Impeachment

  June 13, 2008

On Monday, June 10, Representative (D-OH) and former presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich spoke to the House of Representatives, listing 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush. His speech went on for nearly five hours. The case which Kucinich presented included crimes such as “manufacturing a false case for...

Africa: “Obama We Believe in You!”

  June 10, 2008

Reactions are continuing to pour in from bloggers around the world on Barack Obama's success in clinching the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in the race to the White House. John Liebhardt sums up some of the reactions from Africa.

Global: The World Has a Say!

  June 9, 2008

A number of websites to poll readers from around the world on their choice of who the next president of the US should be have popped up recently. And while non-Americans do not have a vote in the elections, they are still having their say online.