An interesting if cursory interview of Jaswant Singh of India's main opposition party BJP, who has recently been expelled from the BJP for his sympathetic portrait of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. His distinction between "theocentricity" (life centered on religion) and "theocracy" (rule by religious elites) is well articulated and an important one for the Western mind to grasp.

A fascinating description of one Iranian woman's journey of learning, forgetting and re-learning dance, in Iran and then in Canada, told in her own voice.

Calm in tone, analytic in content and clear in reasoning, with a good supply of quotes, evidence and historical context. This is a reasonably detailed survey over what the Obama administration has achieved and failed to achieve so far, and an analysis on its legislative styles. In my opinion, the writer is a bit overly sympathetic to the Obama administration, though.

This short report points out how the original report of a poll, which was later used by Ballen and Doherty in an often cited Washington Post OpEd, explicitly states that "The current mood indicates that none of the candidates will likely pass the 50 percent threshold needed to automatically win; meaning that a second round runoff between the two highest finishers, as things stand, Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Moussavi, is likely." I checked the original poll report myself and confirmed ... More »

The writer states, without any evidence or argument, that "It has to be assumed that the Iranian presidential election was rigged". There is little in terms of detailed analyses or balanced viewpoints.

A rare dispassionate look at the potential of outside influences on the Iranian presidential election, as well as the possible roles of domestic political ambitions from Iranian politicians, written by an assistant secretary of state under Ronald Reagan. Like the Tiananmen Square protests 20 years ago, domestic politics, in the form of a naked struggle for power among politicians, may be playing a not insignificant role in the post-election protests in Iran right now. And again, ... More »

The piece can be divided into two halves: the first half describes the journalist's own history with Boris Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago" as he was growing up; the second half somewhat summarizes his arguments for a role of the CIA in Zhivago's publication in Russian. Personally, I found the first half far more interesting and credible. The second half consists of a lot of speculations about WHY the CIA would be interested in humiliating the USSR, but little in terms of actual ... More »

I found it difficult to summarise Roy's arguments. It seems the main point of the piece is that "we" (?) must choose between "justice" and "civil war"; the logic the writer used to get to this conclusion was poor, in my view. The piece provided many accurate (as far as I can tell) and uncomfortable facts about terrorism and politics in India, e.g. a great deal of state-sponsored violence by numerous Indian governments in Kashmir or against Muslims had gone unpunished or even ... More »

This article gives a brief historical overview of US presidents who have been considered " some of the worst", and tries to compare and contrast Bush against them. Personally I find it a little superficial but at least the writer stays with facts and evidence and mostly shies away from overt partianship. The piece also includes a list from some historians of the 10 worst presidential decisions, which I found timely and interesting. Those are some of the reasons why I so strongly ... More »

This piece contains quotes from diverse people on what they experienced in the past 8 years. It has more variety in voices than many other pieces on the "Bush legacy", which is nice. The focus of the piece appears to be on what people thought and felt about some of the events in the past 8 years e.g. Katrina, the Iraq war etc., rather than the actual policies and actions of George W. Bush. In the piece, only one opinion is presented on each subject.

This appears to be a mostly factual report of the capture of Kilinochchi from the Tamil Tigers by the Sri Lankan army. The title is slightly misleading: Kolinochchi is not the "capital" of the Tamil Tigers (a guerilla/inaurgency fighting force may not have a capital e.g. the Taliban); it could be more accurate to refer to the "administrative headquarters" of the Tamil Tigers. A bit more context and background of the battle would be useful as well. The response from the Tamil ... More »

The article describes, in an almost lyrical/philosophical rather than purely factual way, a sense of uncertainty hanging over Baghdad. I personally would like to see more evidence e.g. interviews etc. In my opinion, the writer breaks out of the (more) conventional "the surge has worked - violence is down - things are better" storyline, and attempts to portray an atmosphere of suspended animation, where violence (or something as dramatic) is always just beneath the surface.

The articles describes some of the terrorism victims in CST in Mumbai - the train terminus that attracted far less media attention than "posh" tourist locations such as the Taj hotel. The writer mostly tells the other side(s) of the story, calmly and with evidence from interviews. I recommend this piece because it brings out aspects and people of the Mumbai attacks that are rarely seen in the mainstream media coverage.

I disagree somewhat with other reviewers on the journalistic merit of this opinion piece. It is clearly written, and, as an opinion piece, balance of viewpoint is not to be expected. I still consider it not-high-quality journalism: one reason being that a main point of the argument - the supposed "return to normalcy" between the Obama election in November and Chambliss election in December - is apparently taken as self-evident without any supporting evidence. The writer's ... More »

This is a 2-part series in homelessness in Osaka, Japan. The news team interviewed and filmed many homeless people and activists mostly respectively and sympathetically. Then an expert was interviewed to discuss how homelessness might be tied to the global economy. The news team managed to film inside several areas where the Osaka homeless is concentrated - areas rarely exposed in the mainstream international media. Certainly completely unexpected for me to see areas like that in ... More »

The article provides a brief outline of the Chinese government's stimulus package, and discusses some of the issues and problems related to China's situation, such as the alleged need for high growth. The piece does not go into details, and a comparison with India and the US would have made the piece more informative (e.g. see Links below).

The piece outlines, in a fair bit of details, many of the international challenges an Obama administration will have to confront: Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, Russia and China. The writer makes an interesting claim that one of Obama's main tasks may be"to prepare for the day when America may no longer be sole superpower and only the first or maybe the second of many big powers." In my view, some of the comments on Obama seem pre-mature, and the claims about Bush's "surge" ... More »

The writer argues that the village of Dulaim in Iraq has been transformed from being a place where Al Qaeda ran amuck to a safer area under the Iraqi army and Sunni militia. Plenty of quotes from Iraqis and US officers make the piece more detailed and informative than most pieces on Iraq in the mainstream media (at least apparently). I recommend the piece partly because there are so few reports on Iraq now. It is impossible to verify independently anything in the story ... More »

A detailed article of a war and a country mostly forgotten by the Western media. The writer recounts first-person stories of Afghans, some of whom have turned to suicide bombing because the US military has killed their families, whereas some are desperately poor and malnourished. The writer also describes a personal incidence where he rode around in a new motor bike and a Afghan policeman simply tried to take the bike from him. The stories are impossible to verify independently, though.

A good amount of quotes and some useful information on the background. In my opinion, the piece would be more informative and complete if it contains some discussions on how the "American" model is different from the "British" model. Also, more context on the various European nations are different would be, I think, useful as well.

The article describes how a scientist, involved in the early stages of the discovery of "Green Fluorescence Protein" gene, has been driven to leave Science and is now driving a shuttle bus for an auto dealer. A little context: the green flurorescence protein won the Nobel prize in Chemistry for three other scientists this year. The writer gives details without injecting speculations about what might have happened or what might have been.

The journalists interviewed US soldiers on the ground in Iraq, many of whom either hated being there or simply no longer saw a point in it. Some verbatim quotes from the soldiers: "it's hot - none of us really want to be there ... it's hard to be away from everybody"; "it's very stressful, limited amount of sleep ... it sucks"; "it's just a waste of time now - too much money, too many lifes lost, too many families destroyed, like mine", "I think we are in a stupid pointless war". ... More »

A detailed and mostly favorable report and analysis of "The Daily Show" and its host, Jon Stewart. Some of the information is well-known (e.g. Stewart's appearance in "Crossfire" in 2004), and some is less so (e.g. the details on how the show is prepared every day). The quotes used in the piece are generally pro-Stewart - most interesting is the one by Stephen Colbert on the process of creating satire. Some quotes by detractors of the show and Stewart would have made the piece more ... More »

A mostly anti-Olmert opinion piece. I found the tone eloquent and philosophical, albeit somewhat unbalanced. The author illustrates his/her points with a lot of interesting historical anecdotes, whose accuracy is hard to verify. The author also makes a nice point about media fickleness: "This is the mob that idolized Moshe Dayan after the Six-day War, and then smashed his statue into pieces after the Yom-Kippur war. The mob that kicked David Ben-Gurion viciously after years of ... More »

This is a review, with lots of direct quotes, reporting a supposed shift in American conservatism as an intellectual movement. A quote or two from the other viewpoints, e.g. those who do not think there is a shift, would have made the piece more informative and balanced. In my opinion, there is too much emphasis on reporting what people said, not on the nature or validity of the ideas themselves.

Lots of direct quotes; calm tone and apparently factual reporting; brings out several more Iraq-oriented viewpoints on the US Presidential election that are virtually non-existent in the MSM at the moment (and unlikely to be forthcoming).

A long-ish piece (part I alone is about 13 minutes) on the "Super 30" program in Bihar, India, which reportedly chooses 30 students out of approx. 3000 to be trained, free of charge, for admission to the highly competitive Indian Institute of Technology. Education as a way out of poverty is something that is rarely mentioned in the mainstream media in the West (I found that, in itself, a fascinating phenomenon); it is alive and well and vital in other countries such as India. The ... More »