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Pittsburgh 2009: A G-20 Survival Guide

Pittsburgh 2009: A G-20 Survival Guide

An nation-by-nation interactive Pittsburgh G-20 Survival Guide brought to you by Global Post (www.globalpost.com) covering all the issues likely to be covered, who is leading each nation’s delegation, and other pertinent G-20 “insider” information.

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Germany’s New Puritans Need to End Exports Addiction

Germany should overcome its Puritan ethic and wean its economy off a “destructive addiction” to industrial exports – in the interests both of Germany itself and of the rest of the world – writes Reginald Dale of the CSIS Transatlantic Media Network in the September issue of the magazine Industry Today. But while this is […]

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Senate Weighs in on USAID Vacancy

Josh Rogin at The Cable notes that Senators Kerry and Lugar have written to President Obama urging that a USAID administrator be appointed as soon as possible.

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Where is the Government When You Need It Most?

The Telegraph reported two days ago an absolutely absurd story about the movie actress Julia Roberts and the shooting of the new film, “Eat, Pray, Love.” Apparently, Roberts managed to prevent villagers from celebrating the religious rites of Navratri by closing a local temple to the public and placing 350 guards in front and inside. […]

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Qaddafi at the UN General Assembly: When Truth and Crazy Talk Collide

Qaddafi at the UN General Assembly: When Truth and Crazy Talk Collide

  Photo Credit: Stan Honda/AFP Today Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, the leader of Libya, delivered to the United Nations General Assembly what might be called a diatribe and can definitely be deemed a rambling and unexpected speech. Speaking for 100 minutes–a huge overshooting of his alloted 15 minutes–he managed to speak truth to power and mix […]

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Aspen Institute's Cultural Diplomacy Forum

Aspen Institute's Cultural Diplomacy Forum

Apologies for the lack in articles over the last two weeks, as I have been on international travel, most of which was to attend and speak at the Aspen Institute’s Cultural Diplomacy Forum in Avilies, Spain. The theme of the conference was: Culture and Security. The Forum featured a combination of keynote addresses, plenary panels, […]

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More on McChrystal

General Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops is, of course, expected. Military commanders are always going to want more resources to utilize, regardless of whether they know how to use them or not (McChrystal’s insistence on a population-centric strategy in rural Afghanistan seems to make little sense). As reported in today’s New York Times, President […]

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Obama Defines His View of the U.S. Role

The annual gathering of world leaders to mark the start of a new session of the U.N. General Assembly provides the U.S. president with an opportunity to clearly define his vision of the U.S. role in the world. Think of it as a State of the Union address, except it’s to the world rather than […]

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Rwanda's Leap?

Kigali is nearing completion of a link to an underseas fiber optic Internet connection, reports the BBC. This is a big development for Rwanda, and the greater region. President Paul Kagame—a leader of the Tutsi rebels that drove the genocidal Hutu militias (and their government sponsors) out of the country—is making an effort to turn […]

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Europeans Disillusioned with Obama on Climate Change

Europeans are growing increasingly disillusioned with President Barack Obama’s failure to show international environmental leadership, with fears rising that high-level negotiations on climate change in Copenhagen in December may break down as a result. The European media is full of reports that the United States is once again regarded as the main obstacle to a […]

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"The Age of Stupid"

I mentioned this new film on climate change this past Friday.  For more, see this review from my FPA sister blog, Global Film Review.  Sean Murphy is bringing a lot of insight to movies important to a better understanding of international affairs.

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UN helps deliver fugitive Rwandan genocide indictee to criminal court

(UN) A high-level Rwandan rebel indicted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal for his role in the 1994 genocide in the tiny Central African country has been handed over to the court after being arrested in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).Grégoire Ndahimana, a high-level figure in the Forces démocratiques de libération […]

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BIG Day at the UN

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon organized a truly historic event today:  the Summit on Climate Change.  President Obama was among the many speakers.  Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, and one of the critical voices within the Obama Administration for a robust and progressive approach to meeting the challenge of climate […]

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Urban Green Expo

So while presidents, premiers and prime ministers were over at Ban Ki-moon’s Summit on Climate Change today saving the world, some pretty extraordinary innovators were elsewhere on Manhattan Island talking about green building.  I went to the Green Buildings Expo back in June and visited a lot of folks at their booths and talked with […]

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Under Attack

Under Attack

A huge banner with a photo of David Plouffe festooned a media conference I attended in Croatia last week.  The former Obama campaign manager is coming to Zagreb later this year and those running local election campaigns are eager to welcome “the unsung hero” who “helped restore the trust in the United States of America.” […]

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