News On February 17, 2014, Bangladeshi state-owned Petrobangla signed two production sharing contracts (PSC) with the Indian state-owned ONGC Videsh Ltd and Oil India Ltd for hydrocarbon exploration in two offshore blocks in the Bay of Bengal. Under the contracts, the Indian companies would also have rights to explore an already discovered offshore gas field near Kutubdia beyond their allocated blocks. The contractors will be allowed to operate and sell…

News: On Friday 28th February, 2014 the Daily Nation published a cover story on scramble for land in Africa by rich countries. It was mentioned that in just five years, rich countries have acquired about 80 million hectares of land in Africa and other developing countries. Critics have dubbed this ''the big land grab'', or ''the new type of neo-colonialism''. The paper further revealed that foreigners have always owned land…

News A few days ago, we woke to news of the arrest of Moazzam Begg. This spread like wild fire amongst Muslims and soon it was on the front page of the BBC and other news outlets. He is a well known Muslim personality, not only in the UK but globally, and such was the international interest that later in the day, a South African radio station called me up…

Headlines: • Russia Warns Saudi Arabia against Giving Rebels Missiles • Iraqi Leaders Give Conflicting Answers on Reported Iran Arms Deal • US Planning Full Afghan Pullout, Obama tells Karzai • Pakistan to Launch Military Campaign against Taliban Details: Russia Warns Saudi Arabia against Giving Rebels Missiles Tuesday, Russia warned Saudi Arabia against supplying Syrian rebels with shoulder-launched missile launchers, saying such a move would endanger security across the Middle…