NEW DELHI ― The recent India-Africa summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at which India’s government pledged $5 billion in aid to African countries, drew attention to a largely overlooked phenomenon ― India’s emergence as a source, rather than a recipient, of foreign aid.For decades after independence ― when Britain left the subcontinent one of the poorest and most ravaged regions on earth, with an ef

The story of Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd, the American hikers who in July 2009 crossed the border ― inadvertently, all evidence suggests ― from Iraqi Kurdistan into Iran and were imprisoned for espionage, is back in the headlines. Shourd, who was released in September on humanitarian grounds and after paying $500,000 in bail, has been promoting a “rolling hunger strike” to remind us

LONDON ― Abdullah Anas, a jovial, bearded onetime Algerian imam, was a close colleague of Osama bin Laden in the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan.He considered bin Laden a friend, but broke with him over the slaughter of innocents on 9/11. Today, Anas thinks al-Qaida’s grip on the minds of radical Muslim youth is finally ending.“I think the philosophy of al-Qaida is failing now,” Anas says

WASHINGTON ― There was some head-scratching in Washington at the recent presentation of the Medal of Freedom to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The previous foreign recipients included Pope John Paul II, who championed the freedom of Eastern Europe; Nelson Mandela, who triumphed over apartheid in South Africa; and Helmut Kohl, who reunited Germany. Did Merkel, for all her good qualities, really f

WASHINGTON ― The argument within the Obama administration for a big troop withdrawal from Afghanistan over the next year goes roughly like this: We’ve killed Osama bin Laden. That means we’ve achieved the core goal for which we sent forces in 2001. We have a ticket out, and we should take it. The counterargument from administration hawks is that a quick departure is a guarantee of failure. It risk