Has Zambia's 'King Cobra' delivered on his 90-day promise?
Michael Sata gave himself a 90-day honeymoon period to turn Zambia around. The deadline expires on Friday
Known as King Cobra, he pledged to strike fast and turn the country around in 90 days.
Michael Sata, who swept to power as a champion of the working class inZambia's elections in September, set himself the deadline to tackle corruption and put more money in people's pockets.
It was music to the ears of the largely young, uneducated and unemployed electorate. But Sata's 90-day honeymoon expires on Friday. After the slogans and dancing that hailed his presidential victory, critics are asking: has he delivered?
Syria brings in death penalty for opposition
State TV announces punishment on day that 100 die in clashes with regime troops
In a new development in Syria's uprising, the Assad regime has introduced a law recommending the death penalty for anyone found arming "terrorists". State-run television announced the edict as human rights agencies said more than 100 people, mostly defecting soldiers, were killed on Monday in the bloodiest day so far in nine months of protest.
President Bashar al-Assad, facing international condemnation for his brutal crackdown on opposition to his rule, has accused demonstrators of being foreign-backed "armed terrorists", and not the peaceful protesters that the West and human rights organisations say they are.
Thousands of women protest over Cairo beatings
December 21, 2011 - 10:16AM
Thousands of woman marched through downtown Cairo on Tuesday evening to call for the end of military rule in an extraordinary expression of anger over images of soldiers beating, stripping and kicking a female demonstrator on the pavement of Tahrir Square.
"Drag me, strip me, my brothers' blood will cover me!" they chanted. "Where is the field marshal?" they demanded, referring to Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the head of the military council holding onto power here. "The girls of Egypt are here."
Maybe that war with China isn't so far off
By Peter Lee
The year 2011 has been a tough one for Sino-United States ties. And 2012 does not look like it's going to be a good year either, with a presidential election year in the United States. For both the Democratic and Republican parties, bashing the Chinese economic, military and freedom-averse menace will probably be a campaign-trail staple.
Lunch-pail issues - protectionism and the undervalued yuan - will focus disapproving US eyes.
Lunch-pail issues - protectionism and the undervalued yuan - will focus disapproving US eyes.
Tensions will also be exacerbated by the Barack Obama administration's "return to Asia" - a return to proactive containment of China - and the temptation to apply dangerous anddestabilizing new doctrine, preventive diplomacy, to China.
ICC prosecutor fights to keep Rwandan rebel leader behind bars
THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS
Mbarushimana has spent nearly a year in detention at The Hague on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed by his rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2009.
Two of three judges of the court's pre-trial chamber on Friday ordered those charges to be dropped due to insufficient evidence -- a decision that chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo appealed on Monday.
Two of three judges of the court's pre-trial chamber on Friday ordered those charges to be dropped due to insufficient evidence -- a decision that chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo appealed on Monday.
"The prosecution hereby appeals the decision on the confirmation of charges and the resulting order to release Callixte Mbarushimana," he said in a document filed before the court's appeals chamber.
OP-ED
Kim Jong Il: Road to ruin
The North Korean strongman led his nation through stagnation into misery.
December 21, 2011
The career of Kim Jong Il, North Korea's "Dear Leader,"" was marked by a series of historical firsts — most of them dubious at best. He was, to begin, the first ruler of a Marxist-Leninist state to inherit absolute power through hereditary succession from his father, "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung, founder of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK.
He was also the first ruler of an urbanized, literate society to preside over a mass famine in peacetime: The Great North Korean Famine of the 1990s, which erupted shortly after his father's death, is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of his subjects, and perhaps more. (Outsiders cannot know the precise toll; that figure remains a state secret.)
He was also the first ruler of an urbanized, literate society to preside over a mass famine in peacetime: The Great North Korean Famine of the 1990s, which erupted shortly after his father's death, is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of his subjects, and perhaps more. (Outsiders cannot know the precise toll; that figure remains a state secret.)
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