You may have noticed that one of the post categories for this blog is “U.S. Aid” and posts under that category are devoted to news and commentary about U.S. efforts to provide financial and humanitarian assistance to other countries. I see this as one of the pillars of the traditional …
The Washington Post editorial page shares my concern of President Obama’s seeming lack of commitment in his Afghanistan strategy, as portrayed in Bob Woodward’s ‘Obama’s Wars’ series:
What’s most disturbing in Mr. Woodward’s book is the evidence it offers that Mr. Obama’s own commitment to his plan is …
Why do countries act like big babies?
I bring this up in reaction to the U.S.’s walkout during Ahmadinejad’s UN speech last week. Now I know, he was suggesting that the U.S. government’s explanation of 9/11 might be inaccurate, and many Americans may view this as “hateful and offensive,” …
The White House is pushing back against a D.C. rumor that President Barack Obama sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu offering a slew of favors in exchange for a two month extension of the West Bank settlement freeze.
The rumor originated from …
Unless you are from mars, there is a high chance that you probably heard about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight set of goals-ranging from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education-agreed to by the United Nations to address the needs of the …
Last week the United Nations held a summit on the Millennium Development Goals. This is a set of venerable aims laid out in 2000 and intended to be accomplished by 2015. They include things like improving gender equality and ending extreme poverty. While some people …
The American Free Press Newspaper is reporting that President Robert Mugabe said on Thursday that foreign investors should embrace Zimbabwe’s equity laws which require them to sell 51 percent stakes to locals or “stay out.”
Putting Mugabe’s rhetoric’s aside, I think the idea of viewing locals as business partners makes sense! …
As noted here in my last post, Avner Cohen has drawn an important contrast between Israel’s strategic position with respect to Iran today and its position when it first confronted the danger of an Iraqi bomb, thirty years ago. In 1979-80, Cohen correctly observed, Israel stood essentially alone: …
Nigerian politics are at a crossroads. Or perhaps a better metaphor is that they stand teetering on a precipice. With Goodluck Jonathan set to run for re-election (and for his first election on his own since taking over after Umaru Yar-Adua’s death) the precarious wink-and-nod arrangement whereby presidential power alternates …
Apparently, in the bank’s efforts to promote economic growth and regional integration within the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Development Bank has approved a U.S.$ 95.6 million loan for the Nacala Corridor Phase II Road project (NCRP) in Zambia.
However, I am not sure about the assertion …
“We’re in the midst of an international currency war,” declared Brazil’s Finance Minister, Guido Mantega, this past Monday.
Minister Mantega was referring to Brazil’s ongoing struggle to maintain a competitive exchange rate for its exports as other developing nations aim for the same. Although most analysts have recognized the “currency …
The Foreign Policy Association has published my latest “Viewpoints” article, “On Obama and Africa,” in which I give my take on the Dinesh D’Souza-Newt Gingrich idiocy in which they asserted that Obama is informed by a “Kenyan anti-colonialist world view.”
[Cross-posted at
One of the main issues on the redevelopment agenda for Syria is transportation infrastructure. Much of the country has no choice but to use outdated roads, bridges, and other forms of transportation. Many of the main transportation resources here are literally crumbling. Thats why the new Kefer Soussah square project …
Iran’s first nuclear power plant in Bushehr will not be up and running until next year, according to reports from the Iranian atomic energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi. Iran began loading Russian-made fuel rods into the plant in August with the expectation that the plant would be connected to the …
From the African Development Bank:
Tunis – The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund (ADF), the concessional window of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group approved on Monday, 27 September 2010 in Tunis, a UA 63.369-million* (U.S.$ 95.6 million) loan to fund the Nacala …
