Rumors that Fidel Castro is dead are again electrifying gossip circuits on the streets of Havana, at the favored hangouts of Cuban exiles along Miami’s Calle Ocho, and in some corners of the blogosphere. The Cuban President, who handed power “temporarily” to his brother Raúl more than a year ago, has not appeared in a new video or photograph in almost three months. But Fidel maintains a presence in print, regularly publishing lengthy disquisitions about wide ranging subjects. His most recent, an analysis of presidential politics in the United States, brought back memories of the last time I saw the [...]
On Aug. 27, U.S. military forces in Afghanistan killed 12 Taliban fighters located in Pakistan’s tribal zone after the insurgents attacked U.S. and Afghan troops in eastern Afghanistan. The following day, U.S. State Department spokesperson Tom Casey stated that the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States had an agreed mechanism for resolving these kinds of cross-border exchanges. Pakistani authorities immediately denied that they had ever granted Afghan or coalition forces permission to attack fighters on their territory. This recent incident underscores the longstanding controversy regarding military operations in the Afghan-Pakistani border region. Last week, while reviewing more than [...]
NEW DELHI — American football star Michael Vick is not the only mega-celebrity whose ill treatment of animals has recently earned him hard time. Over the weekend, Salman Khan, a leading man in India’s Bollywood film industry, began serving a stiff five-year jail sentence for a poaching incident that took place nearly a decade ago. Khan, convicted of killing a rare Chinkara Gazelle on a desert wildlife preserve in 1998, was done no favors by an Indian legal system known to enforce strict laws in defense of endangered species. But contrary to the Atlanta Falcons quarterback’s admission of guilt, which [...]
