Martin Tolchin capped a 40-year career at The New York Times, where he reported on Congress and politics, by becoming founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of The Hill newspaper. He's now launching a new newspaper in Washington, "The Capitol Leader." His wife Susan is professor of public policy at George Mason University, and a well-known lecturer and media commentator. They have just come out with their ninth book, "A World Ignited: How Apostles of Ethnic, Religious and Racial Hatred To...

Response to questions from Arabies Trends (Dubai) By Pranay Gupte Arabies Trends: When you landed in Dubai, did you ever imagine it would be over in all of 13 days? What was going through your mind? Pranay Gupte: I had long been intrigued by Dubai and its development under the leadership of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. As a journalist who's covered and monitored the Middle East for more than three decades, I would be hard pressed to name another leader who's demonstrated th...

Singapore: The Charade Of Meritocracy October 2006 By Michael D. Barr The legitimacy of the Singaporean government is predicated on the idea of a meritocratic technocracy. A tiny number of career civil servants play a leading role in setting policy within their ministries and other government-linked bureaucracies, leading both an elite corps of senior bureaucrats, and a much larger group of ordinary civil servants. Virtually all of the elite members of this hierarchy are "scholars,"...

I've been reading the manuscript of Anwer Sher's forthcoming "The Jagged Crescent of Islam" -- and I've found it so fascinating that I thought I should alert readers. The book contains heretofore unpublished details of meetings between then Crown Prince Abdullah and Osama bin Laden, and other accounts that shed light on how Gulf and other Arab societies are being riven by competing strains of Islam, the issue of good governance and transparency, and questions pertaining to the future of...

I returned to New York yesterday afternoon (Thursday, October 12, 2006) from Dubai, where I spent 13 days that could be best described as rather bizarre. I'd gone there to be executive editor/business of Khaleej Times, one of the best-known English-language newspapers in the Middle East. Founded 28 years ago in Dubai (one of the seven of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates), the paper's editorial quality had deteriorated dramatically on account of poor leadership and scandalous treatment of ...

R. W. Apple, Jr.: An Appreciation By Pranay Gupte He was always Johnny, Johnny Apple. The byline read "R. W. Apple, Jr." -- for Raymond Walter Apple, Jr. -- but no one called him that. He was always Johnny Apple -- larger than life, a giant of the game of international journalism, the last of that generation of correspondents who were equally at ease in Dubai and Dakar, in the salons of Washington and the chancelleries of Europe, in the jungles of Africa and the sands of the Middle ...

Dubai Govt Takes 30% Stake In Galadari Bros - Sources By Simeon Kerr and Sarmad Khan OF DOW JONES NEWSWIRES · DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones)--The Dubai government has taken a 30% stake in one of Dubai's oldest family-owned conglomerates, Galadari Brothers Co., according to a document seen by Zawya Dow Jones. A memo dated Oct. 5 says that a decree from a judicial court appointed by Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has restructured the shareholding of Galadari Group...

I write this informally as a longstanding member of the Council on Foreign Relations. The Council's "selected members only" event this week featuring President Ahmadinejad has clearly generated a controversy that, at the very least, will last for a while. I wasn't invited to the event, although I would have loved to have been there in view of my familiarity and writings about Iran since the Shah's time and into the present. Here are some thoughts about the "event": 1. I think CFR president...

Having just returned to New York after more than two weeks in Australia and the Gulf, I felt I should relay to two things. One, the obvious: the widespread and growing antagonism toward the American adventure in the Middle East. But it's my second observation that disturbs me most: The widespread and growing dislike of all things American on account of Washington's global approach. Even in Australia, long considered a reliable ally, the coalition government of Prime Minister John Howard, a...

I was so struck by this article in The New Yorker by Seymour M. Hersh -- a great investigative reporter -- that I decided to post it on my blog: WATCHING LEBANON by SEYMOUR M. HERSH Washington’s interests in Israel’s war. Issue of 2006-08-21 Posted 2006-08-14 In the days after Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel, on July 12th, to kidnap two soldiers, triggering an Israeli air attack on Lebanon and a full-scale war, the Bush Administration seemed strangely passive. “It’s a mom...

After Lebanon, there's Iran (Christian Science Monitor) By Vali Nasr MONTEREY, CALIF. When the war in Lebanon ends, the US will have to piece together a whole new strategy for dealing with Iran - especially its nuclear program. The Israeli- Hizbullah war has boldly ratcheted up Iran's regional stature at the same time it has depleted US influence and prestige. From the outset, the Lebanese conflict was about more than just Hizbullah. Jerusalem and Washington were quick to point th...

I suppose that if one were to delve into history, one could conclude that all nations are artificial. Someone put them together -- whether it was the Founding Fathers who formed the United States, or some mythic royals who assembled the Nordic states. But in the ongoing G2K discussion, we are presumably talking about contemporary times -- about nations that are "in play" right now because they fail the essential test of nationhood: the center does not hold. Simply put, that means the natio...

In signing a historic and highly lenient nuclear treaty with India last week, but withholding similar concessions from its rival Pakistan, President Bush signaled that "parity" isn't a concept to be applied universally in contemporary diplomacy. He offered public recognition to the fact that democratic India's value as a political ally and economic partner far exceeded Pakistan's capacity or potential to be a significant player in the Bush administration's global campaign of spreading demo...

So, as expected, India's communists and other parties of leftist persuasion have, shall we say, convinced Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to backtrack on his plans to privatize state behemoths. His fragile coalition government in India's 545-member Lower House of Parliament depends on leftist support, even though leftists aren't formally a part of that coalition. If they withdraw support, the government will most certainly fall. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, after all. India de...

Letter from Maurice Strong to Pranay Gupte, received by e-mail on June 9, 2005 I read your article of April 29th only after we had talked on the telephone. Amongst its several distortions and errors of fact I would point out: 1) That I did not authorize a purchase by Ontario Hydro of the 31,000 acres of forest land in Costa Rica you refer to. Any such purchase was done only some time after I left Ontario Hydro and I had nothing to do with its authorization. 2) The modest 12 unit ...