by Deborah Fallows The village of Xizhou is nestled in a verdant strip of land in China’s southwestern Yunnan Province. To the east lies Erhai Lake, where cormorants play. To the west, hills rise to the Tibetan Plateau, where herders graze their yaks. During World War II, Xizhou offered a first radio contact point for […]
By Shrabani Basu In the summer of 1887 as Queen Victoria approached the Golden Jubilee of her reign, she was overcome with feelings of loneliness. She had never stopped mourning for her beloved husband, Prince Albert, who had died in 1861, and had chosen to wear widow’s black all her life. As she looked ahead […]
Greetings from Edinburgh! I am so glad that you stopped by our group blog, Women and Foreign Policy. Our motto is “lively commentary on international affairs from women around the world.” We have a special interest in the role of women in political life and, for the lack of a better phrase, women’s issues. Some […]
by Hugh Hunter For almost 10 years I was the British consul for Florida, based in Orlando. During this time, that office was the busiest British consulate in the world in terms of the numbers of British citizens in prison: many hundreds arrested every year and almost 200 long-term inmates at any one time. Once, […]
By Cordelia Rizzo In 2007, Mexico City’s legislature affirmed a woman’s right to choose to terminate her pregnancy during the first trimester. Today, this remains the only pro-choice law in the whole country. In response, conservative congresses in other parts of Mexico have toughened their own anti-abortion laws. But ordinary Mexicans are just beginning to […]
*Russian spy Anna Chapman gets her own action figure in the United States. Gets serenaded by Russian President Vladimir Putin? *Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck says that you should vote for him in the Republican primary because, unlike his opponent, he does “not wear high heels.” Maybe we should start a “Ken Buck Should Campaign […]
By Cordelia Rizzo Tired of the erosion of the social fabric caused by the proliferation of organized crime heists and other social misfortunes in Mexico? Televisa, one of the country’s largest TV consortiums, thinks it has an American Idol-style answer for you! It is indeed quite a contest. Last June, it introduced Iniciativa México, a […]
Jessica D’Itri Little Tales of Misogyny by Patricia Highsmith consists of 17 very short stories, each featuring a distasteful female protagonist. The writing is very spare, so the tales come across almost as fables. Each one tells a tragic, weird story where somebody ends up dead or worse. The female characters are completely unredeemable, so […]
Perhaps this increasingly ridiculous spy saga was just a brilliant marketing ploy to promote the upcoming spy thriller Salt, starring Angelina Jolie?
By Cordelia Rizzo We knew that something was wrong with Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, former leader of the Legionaires of Christ, and his order, long before he was openly accused of child abuse in the ’90s. Last month, two years after Maciel’s death, Vatican has finally officially condemned Maciel’s behavior and is effectively imposing martial […]
By Jehan Sadat As the widow of Anwar Sadat, I cannot count myself an objective analyst of his policies; but I am not the only one who believes that the world is poorer for his absence, nor am I the first to note that statesmen of Sadat’s caliber are in short supply. Perhaps then, it […]
By Robin Gerber On the afternoon of December 11, 1978, a woman in her sixties with well-coiffed, snow white hair climbed the steps of the Federal Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, her husband at her side. Looming over the couple, the eighteen story building’s rectangular tower sat encased by smaller buildings all clad in pale […]
On May 30 Colombia will hold elections to decide who will govern the country the next four years. Last February, after the Constitutional Court of Colombia banned President Álvaro Uribe from seeking a second reelection, it appeared that the race would be defined by voters choosing among two candidates who sought to present themselves as […]
I hope that you have been enjoying our On Our Bookshelves musings. In the spirit of springtime cleaning and sharing, I am giving away two of the books I’ve reviewed. It’s a Julia extravaganza. For the foodies, there’s Julia Child’s My Life in France. And for those seeking a passage to India, there’s Julia Gregson’s […]