Even as Indian treads the ‘dialogue-with-Pakistan’ path cautiously, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao has reiterated the singular importance of dialogue between the two countries. Speaking on an Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Trialogue, she stressed the need to make boundaries “irrelevant” and find “creative solutions” to problems. Ironically, she failed to spell out these creative solutions even as she […]
Scenario: you have a business partner with whom you do not get along. You don’t like the way he treats his customers, and you’ve told everyone in the office and declined any opportunities that involve working with him. He thinks you’re a hypocrite and are trying to isolate him in the office and usurp his […]
Update: Ouch! Both the New York Times and Washington Post have major stories today portraying a fraying confidence in the Obama administration’s Afghan policy. Read both now! In the American news, the words ‘Afghanistan’ has been followed by ‘deaths’, ‘setbacks’, ‘corruption’, etc. far too often of late. American and NATO deaths have been rising in […]
On June 7, a 15-year-old Mexican high school student was shot dead by US Border Patrol agents. He and his friends were reported to be throwing rocks at the US agents from the Mexican side of the El Paso-Juárez border crossing. In the aftermath of the incident Mexican forces apparently drew their arms against the […]
Lebanon’s abstention in last week’s United Nations Security Council vote on Iranian sanctions should have surprised no one. The vote not only represents internal divisions among the Lebanese political establishment, but also that country’s precarious position in the escalating confrontation between Iran and the West. Steadily over the last thirty years, Hizballah has gained traction […]
Today is a travel day. I am moving from the northern suburb of Sandton (my hosts at my B+B were fantastic — they even gave me a bottle of wine last night and we watched Germany’s blistering of Australia in their living room) to glorious Cape Town, where I will be staying with my good […]
Ghana 1-0 Serbia Now THAT’s what a World Cup game should be like. I got three hours of sleep after the US-England Rustenburg debacle, and I was up and on my way just a little more than five hours after arriving back to my guest house. But after a few issues with the company arranging […]
As most of you who read this blog regularly know, I have been shamelessly bullish on the prospects of South Africa succeeding in hosting a wonderful World Cup that will bring glory to the nation. But I also knew all along that there would be hiccups. The England-US game on Saturday, great as it was […]
Let’s see if I can get caught up after several days without internet: So, what were the odds that my plane from Addis Ababa would be delayed coming to Johannesburg on the morning that the World Cup kicked off? Pretty good as it turned out. The departure lounge was full of a whole lot of […]
I always make the mistake of assuming that internet access will be automatic in South Africa. But of course universal access is not true here any more than it is when I visit my Dad in rural New Hampshire. I am out of contact now, but you can follow my musings on Twitter at @dcatafrica, […]
According to two of Human Rights Watch’s top Latin America experts, the way forward in the largely stalemated US-Cuba relationship is for the Obama administration to drop pursuit of the regime change clauses of Helms-Burton in favor of a one-issue focus on human rights, then team with international partners to push for one simple goal […]
The Economist tends to recount the sordid tale of Bangladeshi politics every so many months. It has done so again. However, the greatest contribution that the piece lies in its nearly lightning quick analysis of the relative strength of the BNP as it is now constituted. So, The Economist: “Demoralised and in disarray, the BNP […]
A handful of Jordanian and Yemeni social workers teamed up this past week to learn supportive techniques for helping people recover from trauma. In Yemen, the trauma(s) that made this training necessary are domestic – Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war of sorts in Saada for the past six years or so. Jordan, […]
And the winner is: “Report: China, Cuba more peaceful than US.” The Associated Press ran the story of the release of the 2010 Global Peace Index this way with a true journalist’s flair: the headline itself would pique the interest of a broad base of browsers—irritated conservatives and eager self-validating liberals alike, the in-betweens and […]
India’s ascent up the great-power ladder is one of the signal developments of the 21st century. But as two new reports make plain, the country is making the climb with its hands restrained.