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Latest news from and about the homeland

Tensions between India and Pakistan have escalated sharply following a deadly attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, on 22 April, which left at least 26 people dead. It was one of the deadliest attacks in the region in decades. The Resistance Front (TRF), a little-known armed group believed to be linked to the Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed responsibility for the…

EU migration chief urges members to accept Libya refugees

European Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström has urged member states to resettle Eritrean, Somali, Ethiopian and other refugees fleeing Libya.

See reports by Reuters here and the Jesuit Refugee Services here

"We need to show an element of solidarity. There are ... people who have nowhere to go and with this we will have to help, to resettle them," she said.

Justice is the glue that binds any long term peace

“Peace versus Justice; it is an old question for prosecutors at the International Criminal Court and one they are hearing all over again as they plunge into investigations in Libya and Ivory Coast.

“What price stability, the argument goes, if the new leaders find themselves in the ICC crosshairs? Peace, in other words, trumps justice. It is a short term solution, but it is the wrong one, and not just on moral grounds

Indian nuclear program to continue, joint review with Russia

Alarmed over the recent nuclear catastrophe in Japan, India and Russia have decided to jointly review the safety of nuclear reactors installed in India, but have also agreed not to impose brakes on ongoing projects.

"We will do this exercise together. But nothing stops and it does not replace anything that we have already agreed in the long-term,” National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon says.

Responding to R2P criticisms

Critics argue that we are inconsistent, even hypocritical, in our military interventions. After all, we intervened promptly this time in a country with oil, while we have largely ignored Ivory Coast and Darfur — not to mention Yemen, Syria and Bahrain.

We may as well plead guilty. We are inconsistent. There’s no doubt that we cherry-pick our humanitarian interventions.

Desmond Tutu: Sports boycott crucial to ending apartheid

Many of you will remember how effective the sports boycott of the 1970s and 1980s was in conveying to sport-crazy South Africans that our society had placed itself beyond the pale by continuing to organise its life on the basis of racial discrimination.

US and UK may arm Libyan rebels

A US Air Force C130 transport aircraft at the Ramstein airbase in Germany, part of joint task force Odyssey Dawn, the US component of the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya. Photo US Africa Command

The United States and Britain have raised the prospect of arming Libya's rebels if air strikes fail to force Muammar Gaddafi from power.

Not so long ago …

In September 2009, a delegation of three senior Libyan military officers visited the US military’s Africa Command headquarters as part of an orientation program.

See Africom’s report here.

The Libyan officers held meetings with senior US staff members to discuss Africom's programs and activities, met General William E. ward and his two deputies, and traveled to Ramstein Air Base to meet Major General Ron Ladnier, the US Air Force Africa commander, and his staff.

A turning point for world politics?

From a speech by British Foreign Minister William Hague to the Times CEO Africa Summit on March 22, 2010. See the full text here.

We are only in the early stages of what is happening in North Africa and the Middle East. It is already set to overtake the 2008 financial crisis and 9/11 as the most important development of the early 21st century, and is likely to bring some degree of political change in all countries in the Arab world.

This is a historic shift of massive importance, presenting the international community as a whole with an immense opportunity. We believe that the international response to these events must be commensurately generous, bold and ambitious.

But these momentous events do not stop at the borders of the Arab world.

US supports Gaddafi's ouster

In an interview with CNN, President Obama makes clear that the US supports the removal of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his replacement with a government formed by the rebels.

He pointedly refused to rule out military assistance for the rebels, but said the international air campaign was focused on “ensuring that the people of Libya are not assaulted by their own military.”