With all of the positive news coming out of Sao Paulo’s stock exchange and the ministries of Brasilia recently, this weekend’s crackdown on organized crime in the Complexo de Alemão and Vila do Cruzeiro favelas reminded the world of the crime-ridden Rio de Janeiro of today, whose parallels can easily be found throughout many of […]
The current bits of news, volatile, mercurial coming out of the latest Wikileaks cache is surprisingly easy to bear. Nothing untoward has happened. All the players have played their parts. International politics between the U.S and Pakistan continues in recognizably similar ways as it did yesterday, and the day before. Of course, strategic politics has […]
Sunday’s Wikileaks release containing some 250,000 diplomatic cables included headline-creating news regarding Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. One of the cables, marked as “confidential” (not a terribly high level of secrecy) was “classified” and perhaps written by Donald Lu, who at the time was the US Chargé d’Affaires in Baku. The cable summarizes in great detail […]
Amid a spate of corruption scandals in India, glimmers of political change may have shone forth last week from what until a few years ago was the most unlikeliest of places.
From today’s New York Times on the most recent Wikileaks document dump–this bit on the corruption endemic in Afghanistan politics: Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. […]
Given all this budget slashing, all that bail-outing, leaders of the European Union have promised Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina that funds pledged to Bangladesh for the European Union Climate Change Adaptation Fund would be delivered. Bangladesh is something of a case study for devising policy and infrastructure to combat the consequences of global cliamte change; […]
The mind implodingly bad news on Afghanistan has taken another downward tailspin. So much so that even pop-culture savvy New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has gotten in on the blame game. And here’s why: Because there is now a somewhat more clear deadline on NATO withdrawal in Afghanistan (electoral politics requires that President Obama […]
Larry Smith, a professor of geography at UCLA, recently came out with a book entitled “The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future.” On a Guggenheim Fellowship, Professor Smith traveled to the world’s northernmost reaches, visiting places ranging from a monastery in Russia to aboriginal villages in Northern Canada. He used technical computer […]
In a few short weeks Dilma Rousseff’s government-to-be has already begun to exhibit the damaging infighting and fractioning that many Brazil-watchers had predicted, raising questions about Ms. Rousseff’s strengths as a leader. Meirelles’ Sassy Exit Last week the head of Brazil’s central bank for the past eight years, Henrique Meirelles, criticized the Rousseff government’s aims […]
After decades of mistrust, the relationship between NATO and Russia is finally improving. A genuine partnership must develop in the long term, however at the summit in Lisbon on November 19 and 20, NATO intended to adopt a new strategy and also improve its relations with Russia. This is not the first time since the […]
Whilst Khaleda Zia has been trying to gin up support for her country-wide protest movement to ring out against the sitting Awami League government, ostensibly for leading the country toward ruin, she has been chucked out of her house. In her stead, the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina has used any availing opportunity to shame her near-life […]
This month has been chock full of news on Afghanistan and NATO’s enterprise there. There’s been talk of war and peace, and long-run effort to develop sustainable stability within and between tribes and political factions in and outside Kabul. It’s all interesting, rich stuff. Nevertheless, no piece of all that news can hold a candle […]
“The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.” Bertrand Russell A careful examination of contemporary Pakistan presents a bleak picture and objective analysts have been sounding alarms about Pakistan’s overall economic, social and political health for a while, but now, it seems that the […]
A minority to reckon with Port-au-Prince, Haiti— Meet the would be future President of Haiti– Mirlande Manigat–one of only two women presidential candidates among 17 others engaged in a relentless pursuit of the crumbled Haitian palace. The most recent survey by Haiti’s independent Economic Forum, released late last week, revealed that Manigat of the Assembly of Progressive […]
Cuban President Raúl Castro has called the sixth-ever Communist Party congress—the first in thirteen years—to be held this coming April 2011 (when it will coincide with the anniversary of the battle of the Bay of Pigs, a complementary source of Cuban patriotism). So what can we expect from this congress? And what should we not […]