Current affairs

The Waki commission, charged with the task of investigating post-election violence in the aftermath of the Kenyan elections last December, has called for a special tribunal to try various perpetrators.

There are two schools of thought on what the election of a new US president will mean for transatlantic relations. The optimists argue that relations will improve significantly.

Nathan Gardels: Let's talk first about the nature of the crisis.

The anticipated catcalls from Beijing and Moscow - as well as the usual suspects in the British and Continental and Indian leftwing media - had hardly echoed when the truth dawned on them.

My sister died a year ago after a 13-year bout with various cancers. She had been cut to pieces by surgeons - mastectomy, hysterectomy, the lot -- but somehow she always managed to return to her productive normal role as wife and mother.

The surge in Iraq is not the reason for the decrease in violence. Instead the reason is "highly classified techniques". This is what Bob Woodward claimed in an interview with Bill Maher.

It is obvious that the fall-out of the U.S. financial crisis, not only in the U.S., but throughout the world will be enormous and unfathomable for months to come as the debris is sorted out.

There were moments in what was intended as a highly touted debate on U.S. foreign policy by the two presidential candidates where one despaired of any cogency at all.

Fareed Zakaria is author of The Post-American World and editor-in-chief of Newsweek International. He spoke with NPQ editor Nathan Gardels in June.

Above there is an interview with Fareed Zakaria by the New Perspectives Quarterly about his book "The Post-American World". Below there is a summary of the book as for a background for the interview.

Washington - The fiasco of the Olympic torch relay has focused attention on the condition of human rights in China. What is the source of human rights abuses in that country today?

Joseph Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001. I spoke with him on Tuesday (Editor's note September 16, 2008) about the Wall Street meltdown.

Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for vice president of the United States, finally submitted to a television interview after intense coaching from top-level White House advisers. Never in U.S. history has a candidate for high office had to absorb so much in so short a time.

A few Georgian battalions - trained to fight terrorists, not to manoeuvre against a powerful Russian army! - undertook a militarily deficient offensive against Tskhinvali in South Ossetia on August 8.

It's looking more than just grim. A vast river system in Australia, the Murray-Darling Basin, seems terminally affected by drought and decades of environmental abuse. Cosmetic measures have been suggested by the Australian authorities dealing with water conservation and extraction.

BORDEAUX -- Our glamorous, doe-eyed Minister of Justice, Rachida Dati, is the talk of France again - this time over her surprise pregnancy. Always controversial, she has now added spice to the gossip by politely declining to reveal who the father is.