Foreign Policy Blogs

Regions

Freedom House: Digging Up the Autocrats' Dirt

Freedom House put two new reports out in June of interest: Nations in Transit 2008 Annual Report and Supporting Freedom's Advocates?: An Analysis of the Bush Administration FY2008 Budget Request for Democracy and Human Rights (Follow the link down the page and download the pdf under ‘Past Reports’) These reports are linked in an unfortunate […]

read more

What's there to celebrate?

Fuad Siniora's government declared Wednesday day off to welcome the return of the prisoners from Israel. NOW Lebanon has more on the matter.  At 9 a.m. Wednesday, five Lebanese prisoners , Samir Kantar, a Lebanese Palestinian Liberation Front Member who has been detained for murder in Israel since 1979; and Khodor Zidan, Maher Kurani, Mohammed […]

read more

"We have been truly blinded. Dim the lights a bit so that we can sleep!"

Khaled Saghieh, a columnist for Al-Akhbar wrote one of the best editorials I read lately on the present situation.   Those who have followed the developments in Lebanese politics from the end of the July war till last week must have felt really anxious about seeing the national unity government become a reality on the […]

read more

Militants from Central Asia in Pakistan/Afghanistan

Two interconnected, disturbing trends concerning Islamic militants from Central Asia committing violent and terrorist acts in and around the Afghanistan/Pakistan border are becoming more visible by the day. The first is the report from unidentified two US senior military officials based in the Middle East that Al Qaeda has stepped up its recruitment in Central […]

read more

Russia Was Right To Resist Zimbabwe Sanctions!

Have I been completely missing something or has everyone lost their minds regarding this whole Zimbabwe sanctions situation? Russia and China resisted putting on sanctions on Mugabe and now Britain and the US have been openly questioning Russia's fitness to belong to the G8. Normally level-headed commentators have been feverishly proclaiming their disappointment in Russian […]

read more

The Exile, Now ExileD, Returns

The Exile, Now ExileD, Returns

  The exile is backsort of. Newly reincarnated as the exileD, it is run out of "Putin-proof" Panama. Fuelled by paypal donations from readers, the first edition came out on July 14, Bastille Day.   Exile fans can be reassured, at least for now: despite bitter avowals to quit Russia for good, the issue contained […]

read more

EU-Central Asia Strategy Update: What Trumps What?

On Friday, we discussed Russian President Medvedev's recent three nation visit to Central Asia, a visit that seemingly had one thing on its mind; gas and oil. A couple weeks ago, EU representatives made their second major stopover in a matter of months to Turkmenistan to discuss energy, specifically gas reserves for the Nabucco pipeline […]

read more

Departure Day

After three weeks here in South Africa, this evening I will board a South African Airways plane bound for Washington, DC's Dulles International Airport via Dakar, Senegal. If all goes well I will land at 6:00 am eastern time tomorrow, Tuesday, at which point I’ll hope that I can get to BWI in time to […]

read more

Departure Day

After three weeks here in South Africa, this evening I will board a South African Airways plane bound for Washington, DC's Dulles International Airport via Dakar, Senegal. If all goes well I will land at 6:00 am eastern time tomorrow, Tuesday, at which point I’ll hope that I can get to BWI in time to […]

read more

Diplomatic Ties Between Beirut and Damascus

President Sleiman met his counterpart, Bashar al Assad in Paris at the Union for the Mediterranean. It was agreed to [finally] establish diplomatic ties between the two countries. If that will indeed happen at some point in the future, it's an important step in the right direction. President Sarkozy hailed it as a victory, but […]

read more

The State of Politics in the Politicized State

I'll be the first one to admit that I tend to see most social phenomena through a political lens. Those of us who work on politics are akin to the guy with the hammer who looks at most problems and sees nothing but nails. That said, South Africans tend to be a politicized lot. Everything […]

read more

The State of South African Politics

I'll be the first one to admit that I tend to see most social phenomena through a political lens. Those of us who work on politics are akin to the guy with the hammer who looks at most problems and sees nothing but nails. That said, South Africans tend to be a politicized lot. Everything […]

read more

Outsourcing Espionage and the Mexican Senate

Members of the Senate have declared that the Mexican Center for Research and National Security (CISEN) has been spying on them. According to some Senators, the executive branch, through the CISEN, has been gathering information about them without authorization. The Senators' outrage comes from three sources. First, information about them was collected without permission. Second, […]

read more

Back in Contact

My apologies for the silence here for the last week or so. Traveling in South Africa sometimes means not having the sort of internet access or opportunity to write as I might like. The last few days have taken me from Cape Town to Grahamstown and Rhodes University, one of my old homes. From there […]

read more

Back in Contact

My apologies for the silence here for the last week or so. Traveling in South Africa sometimes means not having the sort of internet access or opportunity to write as I might like. The last few days have taken me from Cape Town to Grahamstown and Rhodes University, one of my old homes. From there […]

read more