Repressive regimes the world over are fond of offering press and academic junkets to pliable Western journalists and professors. The mere presence of intellectuals from the free world allows tyrants to burnish their otherwise stained reputations and overcome their sense of isolation -- all the more so if the luminaries...

The death of North Korea's psychopathic dictator, Kim Jong-Il, once again refocused international attention on the hermit kingdom. In Europe, the news was not exactly greeted with high hopes for democratic development in the (inaptly named) Democratic People's Republic of Korea. This cautiousness is understandable. As Francoise Nicolas, director for...

News of Christopher Hitchens' death -- he would have detested "passing" -- reached me early Friday morning. After a few hours of despair, I felt impelled to record my sense of loss in writing. At first, I was overwhelmed by the usual clichés: "the republic of letters lost one of...

"I'm famished!"

All of us, at one point or another, have used these words to signal our discomfort with day-to-day hunger. Chances are, though, that we are far from extreme hunger or starvation when we reach for this phrase. In fact, we are likely minutes away from a satisfying...

Last winter, just as the first flowers of the Arab Spring were blooming, I was busy co-editing a compilation of essays by Mideast dissidents. It was an inspiring experience. Written in the period between 2005 and 2010, the essays seemed remarkably prescient in light of the events unfolding in places...

By Sohrab Ahmari and Nasser Weddady

The Tunisian people broke the fear barrier -- will the West follow suit?

By now, the story of Mohammad Bouazizi has become the stuff of legend in Tunisia and on the Arab street. Despite his university education, the 24-year-old Tunisian had for months been...

Bahrain's sleek new tourism site boasts that the island nation is "one of the most modern countries in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council]." Tell that to Ali Abdulemam, the blogger and cyber-activist recently detained by Bahraini intelligence on the bogus charge of "spreading false information."

The father...

The thousands of classified documents released by wikileaks have revealed, inter alia, that the Iranian regime has enjoyed far more extensive links with al-Qaeda and the Taliban than hitherto publicly acknowledged by American officials. The revelation will force some in the foreign policy establishment to reprise the role of Casablanca's...

Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright is still ridiculed in some quarters for calling the United States the "indispensable nation." But to Kosovar Muslims rescued by U.S.-led NATO forces from a campaign of ethnic cleansing and now well on their way to nationhood, Albright's statement rings very much true.

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