The Londoner

Usually once a series is won there is not much to get excited about but this is a little different. Pakistan , who have already racked up what their captain  Misbah-ul-Haq   called "a really big achievement" by beating South Africa for the first time in a bilateral series, stand to add to it. Victory at Centurion will make them only the second team to whitewash South Africa in an ODI series of three matches. Although South Africa will be concerned with avoiding that fate, they also have the smaller picture to consider. While the Twenty20 side has found its rhythm, the ODI outfit cannot seem to do the same. Batting inconsistencies continue to work against them and even though one game cannot help them fix it, it may be an opportunity to solve some problems. Without Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis , some of South Africa's next generation will be on display and with public speculation mounting about whether there is space for the two stalwarts in the set-up, this wil...

The opener  Graeme Smith  will be replaced by Henry Davids for South Africa 's third and final one-day international against Pakistan in Pretoria on Saturday. Smith has been allowed time off following the death of his grandmother, Cricket South Africa said on Friday. South Africa are also without J acques Kallis and Dale Steyn, who are sitting out the game as a precaution because of the three-match 50-over series against India starting next Thursday, which will be followed by two Test matches. Steyn has a mild side strain and Kallis a badly sprained little finger. Pakistan have already won the series after success in the first two ODIs in Cape Town last Sunday and Port Elizabeth on Wednesday, which they won by one run. Read the full story here.  HOME 

By Sikander Hayat Finally, Pakistan has beaten South Africa in a cricket match at Cape Town. This win has come after a series that Pakistan lost 4 -1 in United Arab Emirates . For me, the biggest discovery of the match was to see Billawal bowling fast & with purpose. He used his mind and reacted to batsmen actions very well. I believe that Pakistani selectors should persist with him for a while and give him a good go. Sohail Tanweer bowled well as well and proved that he should be in the team. Muhammad Hafeez after a long time showed that he can bat. Before his current bad patch, Hafeez was Pakistan’s premier allrounder and was a backbone for Pakistan batting. It is good to see him back. Umar Akmal though did score runs but he is not an intelligent batsman and cannot read the situations very well. He is a good prospect for T20s but playing him in a one dayer or a test would be a big gamble. Pakistani team had very good support as diaspora Pakistan came to see the matc...

By Sikander Hayat Algeria is battling a vicious attack on its oil & gas infrastructure from terrorists whose aims remain unknown. Many foreigners have been taken hostage which includes many western citizens . Given the history of Algeria’s militantpast and two decade insurgency (which started when Islamic Front won the elections but was forced away from taking over the government) , it is not uncommon for the country to face terrorist attacks . But it is the first time that an oil & gas installation has been attacked and such a large number of foreign hostages have been taken hostage. There could be three possible reasons for this and any other attacks that are country happening in Islamic Maghreb . 1.        The installation in question is near the borderbetween Algeria & Libya which gives rise to the possibility that attackers, though thought to be mostly Algerian nationals, came from Libya . Gaffafi’s government was ...

The rich heritage of Tunisia, maybe the only place where the Arab Spring stands a chance JACOPO RIPANDA, “HANNIBAL CROSSING THE ALPS”/GIANNI DAGLI ORTI/THE ART ARCHIVE AT ART RESOURCE, NY Modern-day Tunisians, more Westernized than most Arabs, see themselves as descendants of the great Carthaginian general who invaded Italy. T he Arab Spring began in Sidi Bouzid, a small Tunisian town, at the end of 2010. In a desperate protest against the corrupt and oppressive government that had made it impossible for him to earn a living, food-cart vendor Mohamed Bouazizi stood before City Hall, doused himself with gasoline, and lit a match. His suicide seeded a revolutionary storm that swept the countryside and eventually arrived at the capital, Tunis, where it toppled dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. Just weeks later, Hosni Mubarak was thrown from his palace in Egypt. Muammar el-Qaddafi was lynched later that year in Libya. Syria’s Bashar al-Assad may be the ...

A casual observer of the Arab world will most likely have concluded that the experiment in adapting political Islam to democracy has already failed. Almost two years ago, as the Arab revolutions began in Tunisia, it seemed a foregone conclusion that political pluralism on a western model would take the place of the ageing autocrats who had been kept in power for decades by their security services. But two years is a long time in revolutionary politics. Egyptians will begin voting tomorrow on their new constitution, against a background of bloody protests against the Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, who is accused of trampling over the liberal and secular opposition to create an Islamic state. While demands for a boycott of the vote appear to be weakening, the constitutional process will be tainted in the eyes of many Egyptians and observers abroad. The new constitution was drawn up by a Constituent Assembly controlled by Islamists after liberals and representatives o...

As Kenya’s presidential election looms, the Senate nomination hearing this week for Robert Godec to be U.S. ambassador to Kenya is an important step toward furthering the vital role the United States can play in helping to avert another election-related meltdown. Kenya remains an important partner for the United States. Washington and Nairobi have long shared mutual goals – although not always in the same order – to achieve regional peace, stability, democracy, and prosperity. With Kenya the anchor state of eastern Africa, it is important for the United States to actively engage its historical partner. Kenya’s 2007 hotly contested elections were marked by controversy and violence, resulting in more than 1,100 deaths countrywide and causing more than 600,000 people to flee their homes. In part, the violence was due to flaws in the integrity of the electoral process, which undermined confidence in the results. But much of it also due to deep rifts within Kenyan soc...

On November 14, President Obama vigorously defended U.N. ambassador Susan Rice during a press conference in the White House's Rose Garden, perhaps signaling that he was unworried by the possibility of a drawn-out battle with Republicans looking to block Rice's possible nomination as secretary of state. Rice, who has been criticized for her promoting a now-disproven explanation for the deadly attack on an American diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, apparently has the full support of the president that could nominate her for the highest diplomatic position in the land. Things are not quite as amicable at U.N. headquarters. As the conflict in the Eastern DRC escalated , and as two U.N. reports provided extensive evidence of official Rwandan and Ugandan support for the M23 rebel group, Rice's delegation blocked any mention of the conflict's most important state actors in a Security Council statement. And in June, the U.S. attempted to delay...

By Conn Hallinan , November 26, 2012 Africa is probably the single most complex region of the world and arguably its most troubled. While the world concerns itself with the Syrian civil war and the dangers it poses for the Middle East, little notice is taken of the war in the Congo, a tragedy that has taken five million lives and next to which the crisis in Syria pales. Africa represents  15 percent of the world’s population, yet only 2.7 percent of its GDP, which is largely concentrated in only five of 49 sub-Saharan countries. Just two countries—South Africa and Nigeria—account for over 33 percent of the continent’s economic output. Life expectancy is 50 years, and considerably less in those countries ravaged by AIDS. Hunger and malnutrition are worse than they were a decade ago. At the same time, Africa is wealthy in oil, gas, iron, aluminum and rare metals. By 2015, countries in the Gulf of Guinea will provide the U.S. with 25...