Syria appears to be reaching a boiling point. A series of significant events and trends have emerged in the past month. Heavy fighting has erupted in Damascus, the capital, and Aleppo, the largest city — both places of privilege and, until now, stability in Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. High-level officials have begun to defect. These have […]
Tala Dowlatshahi is the Senior Advisor for Reporters sans Frontières (Reporters without Borders). A member of the Overseas Press Club, Tala serves as the Senior Advisor on the USA board of Reporters Sans Frontières and a board member of the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting. A roving eye of international journalism, Tala promotes press freedom and global campaigns for freedom of […]
The recent tightening of the sanctions regime against the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) as a way to deter the country’s nuclear program continues to be among news headlines. Yet, the US sanction regime against Iran is nothing new and is more than three decades old. In addition to the US sanction regime, there have […]
Ask a self-employed Cuban how she came to possess the goods she is selling, and she might tell you that they came from “Roberto.” The euphemism indicates that the goods are stolen, and given the scarcity of many products and the unreliability of state retail stores in Cuba, many new entrepreneurs in Cuba are struggling […]
The following was taken from Jspace.com. The article was written by Jspace Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Rob Lattin, who also blogs about Israeli and Middle Eastern foreign policy for Foreign Policy Blogs. It is official, Israel’s super coalition experiment was a failure. After just 70 days, Shaul Mofaz and the Kadima party voted to remove itself […]
As Russia vetoed a Western-backed UN resolution imposing non-military sanctions on Syria as “unilateral” and directed only against the regime, it once again demonstrated that its position on the Syrian crisis remains unchanged, emphasizing its split with the West. The repetitive pattern of the Kremlin’s refusal to pressure regime change is often explained by […]
Call it the century of African women! First, there was the Nobel winner Ma Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the current president of Liberia. Then, there was the grassroots women’s rights activist Joyce Hilda Banda, who was sworn in April 2012 as the president of impoverished Malawi after the death of wa Mutharika . And now, the […]
Whatever Singh’s own faults as a government leader, India’s economic malaise is due to more basic problems. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is on the receiving end of a barrage of slings and arrows these days. The most recent salvo comes from Time magazine, whose Asian edition this week has a cover story labeling him “The […]
The following was taken from Jspace.com. The article was written by Jspace Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Rob Lattin, who also blogs about Israeli and Middle Eastern foreign policy for Foreign Policy Blogs. On Tuesday, for the first time in a while, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was able to take a deep sigh of relief. Olmert was cleared of […]
Almost 70 years of peace on the European continent between European great powers and the role of the European Union is still on the table. But isn’t it the most obvious argument in defense of the European experiment? In this current economic and financial climax covered with layers of elections and referendum, the European […]
Sudy Samandari is co- founder and editor-in-chief of Zan Magazine, a national magazine, the very first of its kind, dedicated to modern Iranian-American woman. Born in Iran and based in Houston, Texas, Sudy comes from a family with a strong tradition in journalism. Her late father was the publisher of Golchin in Houston for 20 years. […]
I recently had the pleasure of leading a Great Decision’s group meeting that covered Augustus Norton’s chapter on the Middle East Realignment, AKA “Arab Spring: Where are We Now”? Our group had an excellent discussion and, as could be expected, jumped around to numerous subtopics within this wide ranging theme. We tried to go through […]
Canada’s Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS) have been in the pipeline for five years. Now, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has signed a CAN $9.3. million contract with the Nova Scotia-based Irving Shipbuilding to begin work on the vessels. It’s an important first step as for a while, even the number of AOPS Canada would acquire […]
Many people know the Arctic as the home of fuzzy white polar bears, smiling beluga whales, and mythical-looking narwhals. Yet through his underwater photography, Russian marine biologist Alexander Semenov is trying to publicize the more unknown creatures of the White Sea, located off the coast of northwestern Russia near the Kola Peninsula. Massive scyphozoan jellies, […]
The agreement reopening NATO supply routes lays bare Pakistan’s strategic isolation. But is anyone in Islamabad paying attention? Some are spinning last week’s deal ending Pakistan’s seven-month closure of key NATO supply routes into Afghanistan as a triumph of Islamabad’s resolve. The reverse is much closer to the mark, however. Pakistan overplayed its hand in […]