These are good days for Lebanon. The country is relatively stable, stocks are up, and the tourists are back. The government is semi-functional, business is booming, and construction is everywhere. The people of Lebanon are showing the world what they are capable of when their country is not at war. But many Lebanese are fearful […]
At Business Insider Lawrence Delevingne has a lengthy expose on the realities of at least one major company’s attempt to do business in Senegal. From Delevingne’s intro paragraphs: For entrepreneurs, Africa represents the last great open market. The upsides can be tremendous. Tens of billions of dollars from around the world, especially China, have gone […]
As readers know because I write about this on a far too regular basis, the Palestinians are embarking on a state building initiative that would erect institutions in the territories for a future state. This effort has been dubbed as unilateral actions and the Palestinians taking control of their destiny (cue music from Star Wars). […]
The FPA’s Great Decisions television series, which provided the initial impetus for all of the FPA blogs, has kicked off its 2010 season. They are all worth seeing, of course, but regular readers of this blog will be most interested in Episode 2: “Justified Force,” which looks at Kenya and East Africa in the wake […]
These are the questions that many Iranians are asking after watching the recent appearances of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, where in the backdrops prepared for official ceremonies, the colors of Iran’s flag appear to have been changed from red, white and green to red, white and blue. In his New York Times‘ blog, Robert Mackay […]
A war has been brewing in Israel and battles have been fought- in the food fight that is. Recently, Lebanese chefs have tried to reclaim hummus by breaking the world record for creating the largest vat of the chickpea-mush. Israeli chefs countered and used an unused satellite dish to claim the title as their own. […]
On Sunday 15 people were murdered in Cuidad Juarez. Thirteen were teenagers. In the wake of the “high school massacre” the culprit in waiting is the president. Shortly after the tragedy families of the murdered erected a banner outside of the house of the slayings: “Until we find who is responsible, you Mr. President are […]
In a television statement on Tuesday, Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said that Iran has “no problem” sending out its stocks of low-enriched uranium abroad for processing in exchange for nuclear fuel rods. While this is a step forward in the nuclear stalemate going on between Iran and the West, there is also plenty of reasons […]
My original plan for today’s post was to be on how the US may be over-relying on drone attacks against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but then I read this Michael Phillips’ piece. But first the drones. The drone attacks have indeed proved effective in eliminating several high level Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders. These […]
When Tolstoy remarked that “every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”, he might have been describing the recent anti-government protests in Russia. On Sunday, I wrote about two ‘riots’: a civil disobedience action against the demolition of homes, and a political rally in defence of the right to organise, organised by the liberal […]
The Jewish and pro-Israel agendas do not always correlate, but the lobbying organizations often promote similar measures and advocate identical approaches from the U.S. government. JTA surveyed the major lobbying organizations on their agendas for 2010, with the major common theme being advocacy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The U.S. is currently […]
The United Nations is upping the pressure on Ivory Coast to hold a long-promised election. The country’s current political crisis began with an attempted coup against President Laurent Gbagbo in September 2002, which left the country with a nasty split between the rebel-held north and a government-controlled south. The election has already been delayed six […]
With this weekend’s spat over U.S. arm sales, yet another dispute has come to roil the U.S.-China relationship. The “world’s most important bilateral relationship,” already frayed by tense disagreements over Internet freedom, cyber-security, Iran, trade, and currency policies, has now been further burdened with the Obama administration’s sale to Taiwan of USD 6.4 billion in […]
Amnesty International appoints its first Indian Secretary General: Salil Shetty will take over as the new Secretary General of Amnesty International in June 2010. Shetty has served as the Director of the UN’s Millenium Campaign for the past six years. According to Peter Pack, the chair of Amnesty International’s Executive Committee, “As we approach our […]
Much of this deal is about Brazil’s own domestic market, but it is also proof of the biofuel bonanza as both Cosan and Shell prepare for a global market in ethanol.