Like its African neighbors, Eritrea attained colonial statehood under a European power, in this case Italy. Yet, during decolonization, its people were singularly excluded from the right to self-determination, for external reasons: superpower rivalry over the country's strategic position on the Red Sea; a mistaken notion of irreconcilable sectarian differences within Eritrea's population, invoked in order to brand it a society unfit for statehood; and Ethiopia's imperial claim, based on my...

Tigrnea Poetry Collection book

The most secretive, repressive state in Africa is hemorrhaging its citizens. In some months as many Eritreans as Syrians arrive on European shores, yet the country is not convulsed by civil war. Young men and women risk all to escape. Many do not survive - their bones littering the Sahara; their bodies floating in the Mediterranean. Still they flee, to avoid permanent military service and a future without hope. As the United Nations reported: 'Thousands of conscripts are subjected to force...

This complete edition of the Holy Synod Version of the Russian Bible was designed for optimal navigation on Kobo and other electronic devices. It has both book and chapter navigation links. In just a few clicks, you can be reading any verse in the Bible.The Table of Contents lists all books of the Old and New Testaments, and Deuterocanonical literature. Just select the book you want to read and to go directly to it. Once you opened the book, you can select the chapter you want in j...

Oman is one of the world’s most secretive countries,ruled with absolute authority by the Sultan. All information is strictly controlled by the State: British Prime Minister Edward Heath once said that the story of the 1970 Palace Coup and the events that followed would ‘not be told in our lifetime’.Following ten years’ residency in the country a senior member of Sultan Qaboos's Family suggested that John Beasant write a political history of Oman that would to some extent rehabilita...

Eighty years have passed since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the Turkish Republic out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire and set it on the path of modernisation. He was determined that his country should be accepted as a member of the family of civilised nations.Today Turkey is a rapidly developing country, an emergent market and a medium-sized regional power with the second strongest army in NATO. It is an open country which attracts millions of tourists, thousands of foreign busi...

For nearly 60 years--from its uprising against British rule in the 1950s to the bloody civil war between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in the 1960s the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in the 1970s and the United Nation's ongoing 30-year effort to reunite the island--the tiny Mediterranean nation of Cyprus has taken a disproportionate share of the international spotlight. And while it has been often in the news accurate and impartial information on the conflict has been nearly impossible to obtain....

Amongst British diplomats, there's a poignant joke that 'Iran is the only country in the world which still regards the United Kingdom as a superpower'. For many Iranians, it's not a joke at all. The past two centuries are littered with examples of Britain reshaping Iran to suit its own ends, from dominating its oil, tobacco and banking industries to removing its democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, in a 1953 US–UK coup.All this, and the bloody experience of th...

In 2018, Ethiopia and the world were in the throes of "Abiymania", a fervor of popular support for the divided country's young, charismatic new prime minister. Arriving as if from nowhere, Abiy Ahmed, a Pentecostal Christian, promised democratic salvation and national unity. For his role brokering a historic peace with neighboring Eritrea, he received the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. Hailed at home as a prophet and abroad as a liberal reformer, Abiy was all things to all men. But his democratic...

Fred Halliday writes: 'The Arab Middle East is the one with the longest history of contact with the west; yet it is probably the one least understood. Part of the misunderstanding is due to the romantic mythology that has long appeared to shroud the deserts of the peninsula. Where old myths have broken down, new ones have absorbed them or taken their place. Now the Sheikh of Arabia has stepped down from his camel. Instead, through the delusive lens of the "energy crisis" he is seen to be r...

『──秀吉が最も怖れた人物は言うまでもなく家康だ。その貫禄は天下万人の認めるところ、天下万人以上に秀吉自身が認めていたが、その次に黒田如水を怖れていた。──』　2014年大河ドラマの主人公「黒田官兵衛」　その官兵衛を、昭和の文豪「坂口安吾」が描きあげた傑作、「二流の人」。　官兵衛の主人、豊臣秀吉。　天下の恋敵、徳川家康。　明日の老練家、石田三成。　黒田如水（官兵衛）と、その時代を生きた男たちを描く時代小説。『──如水は律義であるけれども、天衣無縫の律義でなかった。律義という天然の砦がなければ支えることの不可能な身に余る野望の化け者だ。──』　戦国時代の終焉から、江戸時代の幕開けまで、如水の戦いに生きた、天下を傍目に見ていた時間を感じられる作品。　史実と言われる官兵衛と、安吾が描く如水、あなたはどちらを信じますか。坂口安吾：1931年に発表した、「風博士」で注目を集める。戦後、評論「堕落論」を発表し、時代の寵児となる。無頼派（...