U.N. Finds Fraud, Mismanagement in Peacekeeping Task Force Says 'Multiple Instances' of Corruption Have a Cost of $610 Million By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 18, 2007 UNITED NATIONS -- A U.N. task force has uncovered a pervasive pattern of corruption and mismanagement involving hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for fuel, food, construction and other materials and services used by U.N. peacekeeping operations, which are in the midst of the...

I would urge taking a look at a smart, savvy business daily that's just been launched in Dubai. It's called Emirates Business 24/7, and its Web site is: http://www.business24-7.ae. The paper's editor-in-chief is Riyad Mickdady, one of the best informed people in the Middle East, and the editor is Frank Kane, formerly business editor of The Observer in Britain. The paper is actually a reincarnation of what used to be the Emirates Post. But 24/7 is beautifully designed, and tightly edited. It s...

President's about-face on Iran By WAYNE WHITE (Note: The following article was published in the Pocono Record, Pennsylvania, and can also be accessed at http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071206/NEWS04/712060323. It’s reprinted here with permission.) The reversal of the Intelligence Community's judgment that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program reduces the likelihood of U.S. military action against Iran and makes new sanctions against Iran less likely. It al...

The question of why the Saudis agreed to let Nawaz Sharif -- no special friend of the United States -- leave his exile in Riyadh and return home to Pakistan to confront President Pervez Musharraf, has not quite been adequately dealt with. Was there some "understanding" between Washington and Riyadh that Sharif's return would somehow boost America's already dismal standing in the Gulf region? Or was Sharif fomenting intolerable mischief within Saudi Arabia through his connections with the more...

Full text: Bill Keller's Hugo Young lecture Not dead yet: the newspaper in the days of digital anarchy This is the full text of this year's memorial lecture which was delivered at Chatham House in London by Bill Keller, executive editor, New York Times (Courtesy of Guardian Unlimited, Thursday, November 29, 2007) It's an honour to be invited to speak at an event commemorating Hugo Young, whom I never met but much admired. Alan [Rusbridger, the Guardian editor] mentioned that I spe...

The following is my posting today on G2K, a Web list maintained by Prof. Gary G. Sick of Columbia University: My first taste of Iranian pistachios was in December 1971, when an Air India flight I'd taken from New York to Bombay (now Mumbai) made an unexpectedly lengthy stop in Kuwait. Unbeknownst to passengers, the war between India and Pakistan had started, one that eventually led to the liberation of the erstwhile East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh. Passengers were herded into ...

The Spy Who Wants Israel to Talk By David Ignatius Sunday, November 11, 2007; B07 The Washington Post JERUSALEM -- Efraim Halevy, the former head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, titled his memoirs "Man in the Shadows." But now that he's out in the sunlight, the 72-year-old retired spy chief has some surprisingly contrarian things to say about Iran and Syria. The gist of his message is that rather than constantly ratcheting up the rhetoric of confrontation, the United States ...

The following is a response from Etihad Airways to my complaint about my BlackBerry being stolen aboard the carrier's Abu Dhabi-to-New York flight on business class: Dear Mr. Gupte, First of all, please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your email. I wanted to make sure that we had fully exhausted all avenues in an attempt to recover your missing Blackberry before replying. We have investigated fully with the crew, the lounge in Abu Dhabi and our staff in New York b...

I strong recommend Falu's new album, titled simply "Falu," which is available on iTunes and in record stores. She's of Indian origin, and has one of the most extraordinary voices I've ever heard. Her melodies are simply haunting, and my special favorite is "In the Rain."

Oil Price Rise Causes Global Shift in Wealth Iran, Russia and Venezuela Feel the Benefits By Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, November 10, 2007; A01 High oil prices are fueling one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history. Oil consumers are paying $4 billion to $5 billion more for crude oil every day than they did just five years ago, pumping more than $2 trillion into the coffers of oil companies and oil-producing nations this year alone. The consequences a...

May I recommend very strongly a great new media blog just launched by a good friend and former New York Times colleague, Charles Kaiser: www.radaronline.com/fullcourtpress.

(The following article appeared in The New York Sun on October 26, 2007, and is reprinted with the kind permission of the newspaper's editor.) By Pranay Gupte Special to The New York Sun ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates – Of the 22 countries that constitute the Arab League, only three have formal diplomatic ties with Israel. The United Arab Emirates is not among them. But it would be fair to suggest that the U.A.E. – far more than Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania, which maintain legati...

The following essay was written for a new book, "The Sands of Thought: Essays on The World of Ideas," by John Strassburger, president of Ursinus College. The published was published on the occasion of the Second Biennial Festival of Thinkers in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, October 21-24, 2007. The Future Is Now By Pranay Gupte (Pranay Gupte is a veteran foreign correspondent, author and documentary maker who has worked for the New York Times, Newsweek International, and Forbes, among other i...

An Appreciation: James W. Michaels (published in The New York Sun, October 4, 2007) By Pranay Gupte Jim Michaels, who died late Tuesday night, liked to say that India was, for him, the cradle of civilization, and that India was also, for him, the cradle of his journalism. As a very young reporter for what was then United Press, he traveled to the Indian Subcontinent in the 1940s, shortly after World War II ended. He witnessed Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent movement of satyagraha for ind...

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger's "welcome" of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on September 24 at the university was about as insulting and demeaning as one could imagine (or not imagine). You simply don't insult yourguests in your own home, as it were. I am scarcely a fan of President Ahmadinejad, but I know Iran very well indeed -- and I seriously doubt that even the most virulent foreign visitor invited to any Iranian home or major public institution would ever be "welcom...