Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, will be in California this week. Traveling on a U.S. visa to attend a conference of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), she appears to have made it through the same State Department review that denied visas to eleven seemingly less contentious scholars hoping to join the […]
Davar Ardalan, Senior Producer NPR News Davar is responsible for producing the live daily news broadcast for NPR’s Tell Me More (TMM) with Michel Martin. From the opinions of global newsmakers to listeners, to the wisdom of renowned thinkers, activists and spiritual leaders, NPR’s TMM brings fresh voices and perspectives to public radio. Prior to […]
New York, NY – The year was 1979. The U.S. had severed diplomatic ties with Iran, a country engulfed in socio-political turmoil that replaced 2,500 years of Persian monarchy with a theocratic, Islamic state . An entirely new Middle East emerged, and the turmoil led to the largest exodus of Iranians to the West — […]
Twenty-five years ago Paul Simon released his album Graceland, an album that not only became a worldwide hit, but massively expanded the audience of his collaborators, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and simultaneously provided exposure to South African music to millions around the globe. A new documentary (which I have as of yet been unable to […]
The Cable reports that President Barack Obama and Senator John Kerry (D-MA) are behind a renewed effort to have the Senate ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Kerry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, has been trying to set up hearings since last year, but Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the top-ranking Republican […]
Last night, 4, 200 boxes of beautiful flowers took flight on a plane from Bogotá, Colombia to Miami, Florida. They arrived early this morning to US shores and represent the first product to enter the US under the Colombia-United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The agreement went into effect today. The flowers are […]
“What really moved me,” admitted Jean-Paul Benoit, president of Haitians and Friends (HF) during our interview, “We realized there was no Haitian presence at the university, so we suggested the club.” After obtaining Student Government’s approval on March 1, 2012, Benoit and six other students officially launched the first Haitian organization at University of North […]
What can you do in fifteen seconds? It takes a Keurig machine 30 seconds to brew a cup of coffee. This is the combined time two people have to make it to a bomb shelter in Sderot, a southern city in Israel. Imagine fifteen seconds being the difference between life and death. On May […]
I recently asked a journalist friend of mine with over 25 years of experience reporting across Southeast Asia, “Do you think it’s possible we’ll see a coup in Thailand soon?” His sardonic reply was, “A coup in Thailand? Well it’s not like that’s ever happened before.” In its current state, Thai politics is at best […]
Washington grumbles about the Indian relationship with Iran, but the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan leaves New Delhi little choice The striking juxtaposition this week in New Delhi is a nice illustration of how Tehran has become a complicating factor in U.S.-India relations. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was in town to exhort Prime Minister […]
The Royal Canadian Navy’s plans to acquire six to eight ice-capable Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS) are facing yet another obstacle. On Tuesday in the Canadian House of Commons, the 2012-13 Reports on Plans and Priorities were tabled. The reports sum up the expected revenue, expenditures, and projects of each government agency and department in Canada. National Defence’s […]
Hell in a Very Small Place. That was the name of a book by Bernard Fall about the siege of Dien Bien Phu. The 1954 battle was a turning point in Indochina, where the French made a last ditch effort to maintain control in Vietnam. It also is the point where the United States began […]
Many pundits argue that the Summit of the Americas held in Cartagena, Colombia produced little worth celebrating. But for Afro-Colombians in the town of San Basilio de Palenque, the celebration hasn’t stopped, and rightfully so. During the summit, Palenque officially received a collective land title to more than 3,000 hectares of rural land, land they […]
Crowds with banners amassed on red square, surrounded by thousands of military personnel and truck loads of heavy artillery. This was not a record anti-Putin protest but the annual Victory Day parade held every May 9th in honor of the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany. In a country that lost over 30 million during […]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s broadly successful eight-day visit across Asia directly cemented India’s dominance as the regional power hub in South Asia, while also giving Bangladesh its due as an important regional ally. Bangladesh was Clinton’s gateway into India, a figurative and literal go-between in the political jockeying that has pit India against China. […]