[Beijing's Bird's Nest, under construction in preparation for the 08 Olympic Games]
. . . while we undergo some (re)construction.
Please stay tuned!
These days, the two connected concerns of this blog — foreign opinion of the U.S. and how U.S. Presidential candidates would deal with it — are in the background while America struggles at home.
The economy overshadows Iraq as America's chief concern. The dead-heat race for the Democratic …
Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz faced the Iraqi High Tribunal Tuesday on war crimes charges for the execution of 42 business men who protested rising food prices in the wake of U.N. sanctions on the former regime. Aziz, widely recognized by his coke-bottle glasses …
Since the new year, there has been a serious rise in attacks against non-slavic immigrants in Russia, mainly in the city of Moscow. Human rights groups accuse nationalist extremists, with neo-Nazi sympathies, of murdering between 41-53 immigrants, most of which are from Central Asia or the Caucacus. …
This week UNICEF has launched "Unite for Child Survival: Advocacy Week" , a full week dedicated to raising awareness to all of the issues facing children around the globe. Part of the campaign is focused on encouraging citizens to use their voice to influence lawmakers and …
Harvard professor Joseph Nye and former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage
briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week on their Smart Power initiative.
Joe Nye has been writing about smart power and its earlier version soft power since The “smart power” …
Sunday marked the two year anniversary since the International Criminal Court issued its first arrest warrants against Sudanese officials suspected of war crimes in Darfur. To mark the occasion, Facebook (yes, Facebook) launched “Wanted for War Crimes Watch List” application to its users. The point of the
Zimbabwe is not the only African country in which journalists are under siege. Any place where the politics are constriced by authoritarianism or merely by the encroachments of paranoid leadership the members of the media run the risk of being jailed. Just the latest example comes from Uganda, …
Michael Isikoff, who is really one of the best reporters out there, has a brief article on what is happening in Yemen now. The meat of it is Robert Mueller's recent visit, about which Isikoff says “did not go well, according to two sources who were briefed on …
Mauritania is a poor country that produces only 30% of its own food. Meanwhile the global cost of food is skyrocketing. Naturally the result is food scarcity and the impoverished, as they always do, suffer disproportionately. And Mauritania is not alone. Much of Africa is feeling the squeeze …
At The Mail & Guardian last week longtime observer of South African politics Mark Gevisser, author of Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred, compares Thabo Mbeki to Barack Obama and wishes that the former would learn from the latter. My only caveat: Beware analogies drawn too closely, as context matters.
At The Mail & Guardian Adriann Basson uses the racist response ( “Daai boy is so goed, hulle kan hom nou maar wit verklaar” ["That black boy is so good, they can certify him white now]“) of a fellow Afrikaner to a Bryan Habana try to explore race, and racism, …
A number of civil society groups concerned with Zimbabwe's welfare and operating under the banner of the Institute for a Democratic Alternative in Zimbabwe have slammed the Southern African Development Community and Thabo Mbeki for their lack of resolve on the Zimbabwe question. In a damning quotation Wellington Chibebe of …
By the way, I have no more idea what yesterday's Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announcement that ZANU-PF lost parliament, as most assumed, mean any more than anyone else does. Robert Mugabe has experienced setbacks before (think of the hair-breadth 2000 Parliamentary election or the 1999 defeat of Mugabe's …
