Authored by Ahmed Chari via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Qatar has been known for years as a small peninsula nation that punches far above its weight. Its immense oil wealth and enormous influence, through its English- and Arabic-language Al Jazeera channels, have given it diplomatic clout across the Arab world. Its soft power has been felt in negotiations in Darfur, Tripoli, Sanaa and elsewhere. Everywhere it has been either admired or envied.
By Chris at www.CapitalistExploits.at
Most of you know the story of Africa's great jewel.
Zimbabwe, presided over by the charming, charismatic, democratically elected leader Robert Mugabe.
So great is the country that under his leadership it has reached dizzying heights. The highest inflation in Africa, the highest unemployment in Africa, and, of course, the highest rates of poverty, which on the dark continent is really quite something.
On Sunday Japanese PM Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party suffered what Reuters called a "historic defeat" in the Tokyo assembly election, and "plunged into a crisis" after losing to an upstart outfit in an vote that is seen as a harbinger for Japan's national elections, and signaling trouble ahead for the premier who has suffered from slumping support after a series of political scandals.
Authored by Jayant Bhandari via Acting-Man.com,
Nobody for President
On 17th July 2017, India will elect a new President through a vote of the elected representatives. The two real choices are between Ram Nath Kovind and Meira Kumar. Afraid of looking completely ignorant, I asked a few people who Kovind is. No-one knew of him and people only vaguely remembered Ms. Kumar.
The writing has been on the wall for months, but German lawmakers have now passed a controversial law under which Facebook, Twitter, and other social media companies could face fines of up to €50 million ($57 million) for failing to remove hate speech.