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“A fascinating account of the significant changes underway in Saudi Arabia based on years of excellent reporting on the ground.” —Bruce Riedel, director of the Brookings Institution Intelligence Project, author of Kings and Presidents: Saudi Arabia and the United States Since FDR Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most secretive countries. Now, Susanne Koelbl, award-winning journalist for the German news magazine Der Spiegel, unveils many secrets of this mysterious kingdom. For years she traveled the Middle East, and recently lived in Riyadh during the most dramatic changes since the country’s founding. She has cultivated relationships on every level of Saudi society and is equally...
#1 New Release in Saudi Arabia History - Witness the Mysterious World of Saudi Arabia Take a deep dive behind the veils and walls of one of the world's most secretive countries. Learn how religious extremism and oppression of women over the past forty years support a single goal-preserving the power of the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia plays a key world role yet few have first-hand knowledge of who lives, suffers, and wields power there. Now, Susanne Koelbl, award-winning military and foreign correspondent for the German news magazine Der Spiegel, unveils many secrets of this mysterious kingdom. As a journalist, for years Koelbl has traveled throughout the Middle East, and specifically Saudi A...
International criminal adjudication, together with the prosecution and appropriate punishment of offenders at a national level, remains the most effective means of enforcing International Humanitarian Law. This book considers the various issues emanating from present-day breaches of norms of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the question of how impunity for such breaches can be tackled. Honouring the work of Timothy McCormack, Professor of International Law at the University of Melbourne and a world renowned expert on IHL and International Criminal Law, contributors of the book explore the interplay between the rules governing accountability for violations of IHL and other areas of la...
Groundbreaking exploration of the philosophy underpinning Western humanitarian intervention The notion of a humanitarian “lesser evil” has become instrumental in justifying the West’s military adventures. It informs obscene calculations determining how much collateral damage is permissible in conflict. It determines the minimum requirements of survival imposed upon an occupied territory. As Eyal Weizman shows in this brilliant exploration of forensic architecture, this can be seen in particular in the regime imposed upon Gaza by the state of Israel. Examining the damage following the 2010 bombardment, he pieces together the systematic process of destruction, revealing the political atrocity within the debris. The way he gathers together the evidence forces us to rethink our understanding of justice and human rights in the modern world.
Pakistan stands on the front line of the war against terror. Yet this long-time ally of the West, whose links with the US have caused enormous friction within the country, is in deepening crisis. As President Pervez Musharraf struggles to cling to power through states of emergency, press curbs and imprisonment of his opponents, a range of forces threaten to destroy him and tip the country into a full-blown civil war. Drawing on extensive first-hand research and personal knowledge, Tariq Ali investigates both the causes and the consequences of Pakistan's rapid spiral into political chaos. Shedding new light on controversial questions (did the US greenlight the execution of President Zufikar Ali Bhutto in 1979? Is NATO negotiating to grant the Taliban a role in Afghanistan? Are those now jockeying for power any less corrupt than Musharraf's current cronies?) he examines the various disparate elements and each of the key individuals whose conflicts are tearing Pakistan apart
"In this rare insider's view into contemporary North Korea, a high-ranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as a former poet laureate to Kim Jong-il and his breathtaking escape to freedom. "The General will now enter the room." Everyone turns to stone. Not moving my head, I direct my eyes to a point halfway up the archway where Kim Jong-il's face will soon appear... As North Korea's State Poet Laureate, Jang Jin-sung led a charmed life. With food provisions (even as the country suffered through its great famine), a travel pass, access to strictly censored information, and audiences with Kim Jong-il himself, his life in Pyongyang seemed safe and secure. But this privileged existence was about to be shattered. When a strictly forbidden magazine he lent to a friend goes missing, Jang Jin-sung must flee for his life. Never before has a member of the elite described the inner workings of this totalitarian state and its propaganda machine. An astonishing expose; told through the heart-stopping story of Jang Jin-sung's escape to South Korea, Dear Leader is a rare and unprecedented insight into the world's most secretive and repressive regime"--
While the 'New Taliban' looms large in the global media, little is known about how it functions as an organisation. How united is it? Are its structures relatively strong, or surprisingly brittle? Are personal relations and networking based on traditional ties of kin and ethnicity the sum total of its organisational capabilities, or are efforts underway to build more institutionalised chains of command? How united is the New Taliban, and how does it maintain whatever degree of unity it has, given the attrition it has suffered in the field? And to what extent is its leadership able to impose switches in strategy among the rank-andfile, given Afghanistan's difficult geography and poor communic...
Applying fresh tools from economics to explain puzzling behaviors of religious radicals: Muslim, Christian, and Jewish; violent and benign. How do radical religious sects run such deadly terrorist organizations? Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Taliban all began as religious groups dedicated to piety and charity. Yet once they turned to violence, they became horribly potent, executing campaigns of terrorism deadlier than those of their secular rivals. In Radical, Religious, and Violent, Eli Berman approaches the question using the economics of organizations. He first dispels some myths: radical religious terrorists are not generally motivated by the promise of rewards in the afterl...
With unique access to Chinese leaders at all levels of the party and government, best-selling author David M. Lampton tells the story of China’s political elites from their own perspectives. Based on over five hundred interviews, Following the Leader offers a rare glimpse into how the attitudes and ideas of those at the top have evolved over the past four decades. Here China’s rulers explain their strategies and ideas for moving the nation forward, share their reflections on matters of leadership and policy, and discuss the challenges that keep them awake at night. As the Chinese Communist Party installs its new president, Xi Jinping, for a presumably ten-year term, questions abound. How will the country move forward as its explosive rate of economic growth begins to slow? How does it plan to deal with domestic and international calls for political reform and to cope with an aging population, not to mention an increasingly fragmented bureaucracy and society? In this insightful book we learn how China’s leaders see the nation’s political future, as well as about its global strategic influence.
From 9/11 to the launch of the iPod, from the creation of "Gmail: to the 2004 tsunami, from the Enron Bankruptcy to the killing of Osama bin Laden, 10 Years That Shook the World is the story of an extraordinary decade. For each year, Loretta Napoleoni presents events not as a chronology bus as dispatches from the world's collective memory. Topics like politics, economics, celebrities, and the environment intersect and converge to reveal the accelerating pace of globalization and the changes that have affected us all.