Hamas and Israeli officials, via Egyptian and German mediation, agreed to swap on Friday a video of abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit for 20 Palestinian female prisoners currently held in Israeli jails. A German mediator with access to the video attested that the footage includes segments with Shalit moving, thereby reassuring Israeli officials that Shalit […]
Myanmar – There seems to be a lot in the news lately concerning the “hermit kingdom” of the south. On Monday, the Burmese PM met with U.S. Senator Jim Webb, chairman of the Senate subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific. Webb, in a continuation of the new pragmatic Obama foreign policy for SE Asia, […]
At the FPA’s Human Rights Blog Kimberly Curtis has a great post on how recent comments by Gambian President Yahaya Jammeh threaten human rights not only in in his country but regionally.
My travel continues with a trek to LA tomorrow to play the role of talking head for a documentary that you may see on PBS someday soon. In the meantime, you might want to check out this article in The Economist arguing that Jacob Zuma is confounding some of his most concerned critics by not […]
A three day ‘International Conference on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy‘ began in New Delhi today. Addressing the conference IAEA Chief, Mohamed ElBaradei called upon the global community to hear India’s voice on nuclear disarmament. He expressed optimism about achieving complete nuclear disarmament and said that “we have to start laying the groundwork for a […]
In the midst of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s clandestine trip to Moscow earlier this month, initial rumors surfaced falsely indicated that the Israeli leader met with Arab leaders. These rumors raised some eyebrows of potential coordination between Israel and Arab countries without ties to the Jewish state, particularly Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf […]
It has been obvious for a while now that the war in Afghanistan is not going well. After years of presence there, the Americans and NATO forces still face danger and attacks on daily basis. Some experts even suggest that the Taliban are becoming stronger, more brazen and are engaging allied forces more aggressively. So, […]
Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said in an interview today with Vesti, a Russian news outlet, that the U.S. could deploy a mobile missile shield in the Arctic. He voiced his trepidations over the Obama administration’s decision to not erect an missile defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland, noting that now, American […]
Philippines – As many as 140 people are believed dead and, approximately 300,000 more are displaced in the Greater Manila region in the wake of Typhoon Ketsana. The area is home to 12 million people, and an amazing 80% of the capital has been flooded. Various international aid agencies and the U.S. Navy are helping […]
Will the IAEA some day have to shift its attention to northern South America? In a move bound to attract US attention, Venezuelan officials have declared that they are conducting further exploration for uranium deposits. This, combined with President Hugo Chávez’s close ties with Iran and Russia, leads to concerns about transfer of the material […]
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/URFn9IdecLY” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Last week ended on a huge Iran shocker: discovery of a new enrichment plant near the city of Qom. This week is also starting with a bang: Iran has tested two long-range missiles which defense analysts say are capable of hitting Israel or US bases in the Gulf region. […]
On the rarest of occasions does one event trigger the complete shutting-down of an entire country. Every once in awhile, members of a country observe a moment of silence, where a majority of the state’s citizens inject a one-minute pause into their daily routine. Such events also occur in Israel, particularly on Israeli Memorial Day […]
It appears that journalist Bob Woodward has the scoop again on the Obama administration’s next moves in Afghanistan. Well, I guess that’s not really accurate, as Woodward really has just broken the story of the Obama administration’s ‘plans’ for how they are going to decide their next moves in the war in Afghanistan. All of […]
The never-ending year lurches on in Mexico. Verano becomes otoño, drug violence headlines become H1N1 headlines. Good news is Mexico has a track record of ably handling the pandemic. Bad news is upwards of 5 million in Mexico are expected to contract the infamous strand of influenza this winter. Perhaps 2,000 could die as a […]
The US, boxed in by a trigger happy Israel, is frustrated about Russia’s refusal to support Iran sanctions. But let’s put Obama’s European missile defence gambit in perspective. “If Russia is to give up Iran, the United States and the West have to offer something much bigger to Moscow than the scrapping of the missile […]