Oman Observer - Analysis

YULIA Tymoshenko, known worldwide for her golden hair braid and stylish image, had maintained an uncharacteristic silence throughout Monday amid expectations that she may challenge the result of Sunday’s vote and whip up political tensions. The pro-Russia Yanukovych won the bitterly-contested polls by a narrow...

SRI LANKA’S former army chief General Sarath Fonseka is in army custody, facing a court-martial on charges he conspired against President Mahinda Rajapakse before unsuccessfully vying for his job in a January 26 poll. Here are some questions and answers about what’s next:

WHEN opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai became prime minister on February 11, 2009, the once-vibrant nation had plunged into a seemingly endless freefall. Political violence had engulfed the country after failed elections in 2008. More than half the population needed food aid.

OBAMA raised the issue in his State of the Union speech before a joint session of Congress, with the top court’s nine justices sitting just in front of him. Justice Samuel Alito, breaking the court's own tradition of stoicism, could be seen shaking his head and mumbling “not true.”

No politics please

By Gordon Bell in Johannesburg
TOW decades after a walk to freedom that captivated South Africa and the world, Nelson Mandela remains revered the world over but is rarely seen in public. The anti-apartheid icon’s minders jealously guard his privacy in a plush Johannesburg suburb, limiting the increasingly frail 91-year-old’s public engagements.

Military reforms cut

By Boris Raseta in Zagreb
FINANCIAL constraints will force Nato-member Croatia to cut spending on the military and to delay necessary reforms, an analyst said yesterday. Under Croatia’s 2010 budget, passed in November, the defence ministry will get 4.75 billion kuna ($890 million) in 2010, 1 billion kuna less than last year.

Resolving dispute

By Mica Rosenberg in Mexico City
THE US Congress could be moving closer to allowing Mexican trucks to haul cargo through the United States, helping to end a trade dispute hurting some exporters, the US Trade Representative said on Monday. In March 2009, US lawmakers cancelled funding for a test programme begun by the Bush administration that allowed Mexican....