After Monday's worst day of trading in eight years, Mexico's market rallied today (9/30) 933 points to 24888, or up nearly 4%, on fresh hopes of a restarted US government bailout to ease the strain in global credit markets. Owing to extreme uncertainty in the markets, watch for an overly optimistic or pessimistic market reaction […]
As a testament of their commitment to the liberal arts tradition in their new satellite campus, NYU has named Alfred H. Bloom, former president of Swarthmore, the head of its new Abu Dhabi campus. This is interesting because I am pretty sure the Swarthmore version of a liberal arts tradition looks totally different than the […]
Ehud Olmert, current lame-duck Prime Minister of Israel, conceded yesterday in an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth that Israel will have to give up land in order to achieve peace with Palestine, specifically land in the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, and the West Bank. Summary quote: “In the end of the day, we will have to withdraw […]
Whatever happens with the ongoing negotiation impasse in Zimbabwe, there are social realities that no agreement will be able to reconcile. Even if the process of forging a unity government proves successful, that will mark a beginning of a long slog, not a triumphal endpoint. Hunger is rampant throughout the country with the food crisis […]
Brief comments about three separate but interconnected stories: I am not the only one who wonders if Jacob Zuma might not have overplayed his hand and created a situation the unintended consequences of which might be to prevent him from taking over as South Africa's president in 2009. Patrick Laurence speculates similarly in a piece […]
Yesterday, I offhandedly stated my disappointment about the lack of a discussion of China's growing influence during Friday's presidential debate. It was amazing to me that the United States could have a "Foreign Policy' presidential debate and only mention the word China once. The leaders, government, businesses, and citizens of Central Asia know how important […]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The chief of the Pakistani Army appointed a new head of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence, the nation's top spy organization, Tuesday in a move that consolidated his control over crucial espionage activities. The new spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, has experience as a commander in United Nations peacekeeping and counter-insurgency […]
Suicide attacks have killed nearly 1,200 people in Pakistan since July 2007, most of them civilians, according to military statistics Monday that underscored the ferocity of the threat facing the U.S. ally in the war on extremist groups. Meanwhile, heavy fighting between Pakistani troops and insurgents in the lawless tribal regions of the country's northwest […]
Today the U.S. House of Representatives rejected the proposed subprime bailout plan by 228 to 205 votes, sending global stock markets plunging. The Dow Jones Industrial Average experienced a loss of over 750 points, the largest single-day decline in the market's history (though not in percentage terms). Outside the US, global markets experienced similar declines. […]
30% of people surveyed from 23 different countries in a BBC poll believe that the war on terror has strengthened al Qaeda. Skepticism is never unhealthy with respect to the accuracy of polling data, but this seems like a pretty compelling argument for the role of public diplomacy in foreign affairs, in addition to, uh, […]
William Hybl, Chairman of the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, answers FAQs about Getting the People Part Right: A Report on the Human Resources Dimension of U.S. Public Diplomacy. (This last link downloads the PDF). The report calls for, essentially, a reconfiguration of the way that the Foreign Service thinks about public diplomacy, with the […]
For the past few years there is always something happening in Lebanon. And rarely is something good.The country did not have a President, the government was weak and did not really work, the Parliament was closed. Then the clashes started inside the country. Then we have seen Doha and now we are in the post-Doha […]
CHOICES have consequences and the choices that Pakistan is going to make today will have either positive or catastrophic consequences for the coming generations. Let us hope and pray that despite incredible pressure from those who are determined to destroy Pakistan for working with the West to root out terrorism, and paradoxically, from the West […]
Good morning. I just want to provide some real quick reaction and analysis to Friday's presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain. Here is the transcript (which I also put on the bottom of this post) and video, and here is video of the five minutes or so they spent on Afghanistan/Pakistan. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/CczYk8-qlZs” […]
Hours before the parliament convened to vote on the electoral law on Monday, an explosion occurred in al-Bahsas in Tripoli. Reports suggest the explosion targeted a military bus carrying at least 20 soldiers, leaving at least six dead and 17 injured. The Voice of Lebanon radio station reported that a Renault 18 sedan, which was […]