February 12, 2005

Abu Aardvark reports on spending a night with three different Arabic TV channels, Al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, and the US-funded al-Hurra (who, of course, had a journalist shot in Basra last week). It’s worth reading, even if some of the methodology leaves something to be desired (“p.s. the jazeera and arabia presenters are WAY hotter than any…

The public prints have it that the Indian minister of oil and natural gas is off to Moscow to discuss buying into a chunk of Yukos’s assets. This comes at the same time as the intrigues surrounding exactly how the Yuganskneftegaz/Rosneft deal (and the subsequent Rosneft/Gazprom deal) was financed, and specifically what the involvement of…

Le Monde reports rioting in Togo after the semi-coup that installed the old dictator’s son. They go on to speculate that the Nigerian-led Economic Community of West African States might apply sanctions: interestingly, a source in the area told me last night that he expected ECOWAS intervention as the Nigerians had pointedly not been invited…

Back in November, I blogged on a curious incident during the French intervention in the Ivory Coast. Recapping, when the French army there moved into Abidjan after the Ivorian air-raid on one of their outposts, they established an HQ and registration point for evacuees in the best hotel in town. There they discovered that someone…

Starting with the admin, please note that the comments service is unavailable. I have been promised that it will soon return. G2: There’s some follow-up on the Ivory Coast/Israel arms story we covered over at Ha’aretz. More semi-results have appeared from the Iraqi elections, we shall be having a look to see if the prediction…