The year in review – top 10 of 2010

1. HAITI The year started with a devastating earthquake in Haiti and ended with a cholera outbreak in a country that remains the poorest and the most neglected in the Western Hemisphere. This is a sad commentary on the UN and its sub-agencies, on the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, on the US and [...]

Despite protests, Bangladesh inks pacts with U.S. energy giant for offshore hydrocarbon exploration

The government of Bangladesh, an energy starved country, inked a contract on Thursday with a U.S. energy giant for offshore oil and gas exploration. Ignoring protests, state-owned PetroBangla signed a production-sharing contract (PSC) with Conoco Phillips, an U.S. corporation for exploration of oil and gas in two deep-sea gas blocks. Blog this! Bookmark on Delicious [...]

Durand Line is the root of the AfPak conflict

The killing of Osama bin Laden in a Pakistan compound was a major success for the US. It may make the commitment for the troop withdrawal easier, but will have no significant effect on the Afghan problem. I had written this piece during the very hours when the operation in Abbottabad was still going on. [...]

The gradual implosion of democratic institutions in Suriname and the making of a mafia state

Introduction The harvest of one day surfing through the content of online Surinamese news sites, paints a ghastly picture of corruption, lies, fleecing, misguidedness and misrepresentation of facts. These reports indicate that democracy is seriously compromised. By gluing bit and bite size pieces of news and information together, creates a bigger but most disturbing picture [...]

Rich leaders, poor people

When the North African-Middle East social uprisings started at the beginning of the year, I conducted a very brief research to find out who are the richest leaders in the world – not all, just some – and to compare them invariably under authoritarian regimes with wealthy politicians in the West – and not just [...]

Muhammad Yunus knew seeking to enter politics in Bangladesh would receive ‘bruising response’

Professor Muhammad Yunus, pioneer of microfinance seems to have been aware of the risks and consequences of a political ambition he made after the military takeover in 2007 in Bangladesh, an Indian newspaper wrote on Friday. Blog this! Bookmark on Delicious Recommend on Facebook Tip on Hyves Share on Linkedin Share on technorati Tweet about [...]

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