Agosta 90 - Tag Search

Mr. Ten Percent

Asif Ali Zardari, the famously (allegedly) corrupt President of Pakistan, took $4.3 million worth of bribes for helping the French sell three submarines to his country in the mid-1990s, according to a report in the Pakistani press.

The three Agosta 90 submarines were worth roughly $1.24 billion (€825 million), according to the Nation, which cites the Pakistani French daily newspaper Liberation (Français).

It's a little hard to make out the details of how this bit of news surfaced, but it appears that there is an ongoing legal investigation by a French magistrate into a 2002 terrorist attack that killed 11 employees of the French defense company DCN, who were in Karachi working on the subs.

B'Tselem: Settlements occupy 42 percent of West Bank

Ben-Eliezer makes "secret trip" to Turkey: Israeli TV

CENTCOM talking sense on Hamas and Hizballah

Al-Akhbar: Our weekly brief

Peace Processing

Talking about direct talks: Netanyahu returns to the White House

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivering a statement in Jerusalem on July 1, 2010. (Photo: AFP)
US president Barack Obama will use a White House meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to push for an extended West Bank settlement freeze. If Netanyahu doesn't offer one - and the domestic politics are quite difficult for him - it's hard to see any possibility of direct talks with the Palestinian Authority later this year.

The Afghan Surge

Obama's southern strategy

Gen. David Petraeus testifying on Capitol Hill. (Photo: Reuters)
The president's decision to nominate Gen. David Petraeus as the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan won't mean a major change in strategy. But there are mounting reasons for pessimism about current policy, particularly the relentless focus on southern Afghanistan. The deployment of tens of thousands of additional troops to Kandahar and Helmand serves few NATO objectives.

Freedom Flotilla Killings

Anticlimax: How much did the flotilla raid really change regional politics?

A demonstration in London against the Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla. (Photo: AFP)
It has accelerated Israel's isolation from several of its neighbors and allies; it has sharpened divisions within Turkish domestic politics; it has deepened perceptions that the Obama administration as too close to Israel. And it seems to have had a remarkably minor impact on Palestinian domestic politics.