Welcome to the Southern Africa blog, the latest addition to the Foreign Policy Blogs network.
On June 29, the Foreign Policy Assocation hosted U.S. State Department official, Richard J. Schmierer, for their John B. Hurford lecture in New York. Mr. Schmierer is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State at the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and the top State Department official for Iraq policy. So with no further ado, here’s […]
Newly elected and unburdened by clamoring communists and coalition politics, the Congress government will make bold economic reforms. At least that’s what the markets and analysts figured. All last week, the markets in India climbed up the hill in anticipation. Then on Monday came the budget speech. And the markets came tumbling after. The reactions […]
For all of the attention paid to the emergence of the Congress of the People (COPE) from prominent disenchanted members of the ANC. And for all of my assertions that a party like COPE represents a far likelier long-term challenge to the ANC than the Democratic Alliance (DA) the reality is that in my entire […]
Israel’s Channel Two ran a news segment on Peace Now advocates detailing settlement development in Israel. The most interesting point in the segment comes when a settler and an activist argue over who is the true friend of Israel. The activist claims that by informing Israelis about the settlements, they are serving the country. The […]
In order to thwart Iranian nuclear ambitions, the Israeli secret service may be considering the use of cyber-warfare, according to a recent report. The Mossad could plant malicious software into the computer systems of nuclear facilities that would trigger explosives according to a predetermined criteria. The cyber-attack could include crashing certain systems or even rerouting […]
Two recent instances in Egypt dismissed the peace treaty signed with Israel in order to protect Egyptian national security or censure individuals with moderate views towards the Jewish state. Egyptian courts revoked the citizenship of Egyptians that married Israelis, citing the children as potential security risks. Because the offspring of the couple would carry Israeli […]
Governor Palin’s sudden resignation will undoubtedly have consequences for Alaska, the United State’s Arctic outpost. Her tenure in the Last Frontier was marked by strong support for the oil and gas industry and a disdain for environmental protection in the Arctic. Above all, her resignation will likely have environmental advocates cheering. Palin favored drilling in […]
Shaul Arieli, former commander of the northern brigade in the Gaza Strip, candidly reject the Israeli governments insistence that natural growth in the settlements must continue, he said in an interview with Middle East Progress. He stated that hundreds of unoccupied apartments remain in the settlements and that these housing units should be occupied before […]
The centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party was the big winner in Mexico’s mid-term elections held Sunday, as widely forecast. Results show the party, known as the PRI, gained 37% of the vote, while President Calderón’s conservative National Action Party (PAN) garnered 28%. The left-wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), which enjoyed substantial support in the 2006 presidential […]
After a chaotic 48 hours of travel, I am back from South Africa. I was a bit surprised how limited my internet access was for most of this trip despite the fact that i brought my laptop, so I did not write quite as many diary posts as I had hoped, but over the next few […]
Israelis on both sides of the political spectrum always lament that high Arab birth rates represent an existential threat to Israel that dwarfs any terror strike or Iranian nuclear weapons program. These pessimists (of which I’m one) contend that non-Jewish Arabs procreate at much higher rates than Jews. Due to the semi-democratic nature of Israel, […]
Memo to Obama Administration: Now would be a good time to re-hyphenate your India policy, less India-Pakistan more India-China. Rising Sino-Indian tensions are causing people, including this blogger, to wonder whether Obama has a plan to deal with a pivotal security challenge of the 21st Century: the management of Chinese ambitions and Indian anxieties. It […]
Middle Eastern nations are rapidly revolutionizing their fuel cycles to focus on nuclear power, according to a new INSS report. The author contends that countries in the region prefer to use nuclear facilities in order to curb their long-term domestic energy costs. By using nuclear power, these countries can export fossil fuels, a commodity whose […]
As the protests in Iran seem unlikely to fuel regime change, the prospects of the radical Shi’ite regime obtaining a nuclear weapon returns to the forefront of international debate. Notably, comments made yesterday by Vice President Joe Biden and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen signal the lack of an internal […]