January 17 and 18, China and the US held the third round of the Strategic Economic Dialogue in Beijing. The SED is a cabinet-level series of summits began by President Hu Jin Tao and President George W. Bush in August, 2006 to address and smooth over Sino-American disputes such as those surrounding product safety and […]
In a small but symbolic step forward today, the Iraqi parliament approved a change to the Iraqi national flag, removing the stars the represented Saddam Hussein's Ba’ath Party. This is a temporary change and a new flag design will be brokered in a years’ time. I think at this point, the Iraq people need much, […]
Mosul, in the Kurdistan province in northern Iraq, has suffered a bomb blast that came almost immediately after police arrived to act on a tip that the building contained explosives. According to Brigadier General Abdul Karim Al-Jubouri, it occurred at 1630 local time, and witnesses said it was the loudest blast they had ever heard […]
A security wall on the border between Gaza and Egypt was destroyed today, freeing the people of the trapped and desperate Strip to…shop. Though this seems prosaic, it is vitally important to the people of Gaza, suffering under Israeli blockades (themselves a response to constant rocket attacks). The border has turned into a bizarre bazaar, […]
Sasha Chanoff, cofounder and executive director of the humanitarian organization Mapendo International, recently wrote an essential op-ed piece for The Boston Globe debunking the myth of “tribal violence” in Kenya (and elsewhere). Here is the money excerpt: FROM READING recent headlines about Kenya, one would think that the post-election violence is the result of tribal […]
Sorry for the silence the last few days. Life (in this case a trip to see friends in the Rocky Mountains) intervened as it so often does. South Africa's electricity shortages have become increasingly acute, and now her neighbors are scrambling, with mixed results, to fill the void left by Eskom's decision to pull the […]
BBC does these pieces sometimes where they will interview and tell the story of someone who is living the headlines. In a piece dated January 19 they tell the story of Noor who is an Iraqi refugee living in Syria. It's quite searing, and gives a human perspective to the media headlines. In today's Washington […]
The clashes between the Shi’ite sect Soldiers of Heaven and the local Iraqi security forces have occurred almost exactly a year after the previous clashes that killed over 25o people in Najaf, although this time, the violence is farther south, in Nasiriyah and Basra. They are targeting Shi’ite observers of Ashura, a major Shi’ite holiday […]
A New York Times article today portrays the United Nations as being upset at Algeria for not providing enough security in the run-up to last month's bombing of the body's Algerian offices. A senior United Nations official said Wednesday that the Algerian government had ignored repeated requests to close off the streets outside the organization's […]
On the whole I’ve been pretty supportive of condemnation of Robert Mugabe coming from London and especially from Prime Minister Gordon Brown. It is thus disquieting to discover that perhaps Brown's words represent bluster and palaver. When the rubber meets the road, Zimbabweans looking to England to escape Mugabe's noxious kleptocracy are having a tough […]
Woman bomber kills 11 in Iraq in Baquba, capital of the Diyala province. Incidentally, this is the province where a major operation to clean out insurgents is underway. Unfortunately, this has been the third female bomber in three months in Baquba. With the upsurge in booby-trapped houses killing coalition and local security forces, the insurgents […]
The FPA's Great Decisions 2008 program's television series broadcasted on PBS offers a show featuring US-China Trade, and summarily introduces a number of issues affecting the global economy and Sino-American relations: Agricultural trade. How do China's geographic, agricultural, and environmental characteristics uniquely position the US to enjoy a mutually beneficial trade relationship with China? Manufactured goods. How […]
More Zimbabwe correspondence from my friend. The following are some more of the observations I made during my short holiday in Zimbabwe:- The country still does not have a formal currency. It is still printing and using bearer cheques as legal tender. Besides, the bearer cheques were and continue to be in short supply resulting […]
Be sure to check out this article by Claude Salhani in the Middle East Times. Relevant to Bush's Middle East trip, a large part of which was dedicated to shoring Gulf states’ support for solidarity against Iran, it is titled “What Does Iran Want?” That's a damn good question, and Salhani addresses it in his […]