Bush vetoes bill outlawing CIA waterboarding Sat Mar 8, 2008 1:53pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President George W. Bush on Saturday vetoed legislation passed by Congress that would have banned the CIA from using waterboarding and other controversial interrogation techniques. Lawmakers included the anti-torture measure in a broader bill authorizing U.S. intelligence activities. “Because the […]
Thai Court Keeps Arms Dealer in Custody By GRANT PECK , 3 hours ago BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) ‚ Thai police received court permission Saturday to retain custody of a reputed Russian arms dealer dubbed the “Merchant of Death” who was arrested in a U.S.-led sting operation that lured him from his home in Moscow. Viktor […]
Is that the existential question? There's been much made of recent comments by Obama advisers that came back to bite them. Economic adviser Goolsbee talked to the Canadian Consulate in Chicago regarding NAFTA, Samatha Power told a UK journalist that Hillary was a “monster.” Both learned the hard way that campaign advisers are fair game […]
A six-country poll conducted in November, 2007 by The Financial Times, France 24 and Harris Interactive explored various aspects of the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign. The poll found that publics in the U.S., Great Britain, Spain, France, Germany and Italy favored Hillary Clinton as the next U.S. president. Senator Clinton ranked first among the 10 candidates offered to respondents […]
Today, March 8th is International Women's Day, a day that was established to commemorate the struggle women and girls across the globe have endured in order to obtain their ‘full’ human rights. Sadly while I sit here and enjoy my ‘full’ rights, millions of women and young girls worldwide are still being denied. Millions of […]
Nuclear proliferation was the subject of some important meetings across the globe this week. In New York City: The UN Security Council met to slap Iran with new sanctions for its nuclear program. Reuters reported: “The U.N. Security Council on Monday imposed a third round of sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, even though some members […]
Journalists like to make fun of the Hollywood Foreign Press (I've done it, I admit), that handful of perk-hungry foreign reporters who decide the Golden Globe winners. They put on a good show but do they really affect the real voting? The Oscar voting? Well the political foreign press is showing they indeed have clout. […]
Benjamin Barber, the author of the international bestseller Jihad vs. McWorld, was the latest guest speaker at the USC Center for Public Diplomacy's "Conversations in Public Diplomacy" series on Thursday March 6th. Barber, who teaches at the University of Maryland in addition to doing high-profile political consulting work for many governments, titled his talk "Obama […]
Children are our most valuable natural resource, yet we do not prize them and treasure them as we should, but treat them as disposable items. Children across the globe daily are abuse physically, mentally, and sexually; forced to work in harsh and unbearable conditions; faced to bare witness to violence and war; suffer from preventable […]
Authorities in the Republic of Congo have lifted a temporary ban imposed four months ago following the arrest on 25 October 2007 in neighboring Chad of members of a French NGO who were charged with abducting 103 children. Nutrition experts say governments are not investing enough to prevent and treat malnutrition in women and children […]
The website www.onphilanthropy.com has already published the first two segments in a five part series on philanthropy outside the US. The first went up last month, and discusses the importance of foreign-based philanthropy in a world where a great number of poor countries are experiencing high levels of economic growth. Today's installment discusses philanthropy in […]
The US media has given some much need attention to the US Presidential candidates’ foreign policy platforms this week. On Sunday, the Washington Post hosted an online question and answer session with Senator Barack Obama. Some of the topics covered include democracy promotion, policy toward cuba, the Isreali Palestinian conflict, and US-Islamic world relations. On Monday, Public […]
The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel sent a letter to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and other ministers that accused the government of war crimes in its latest incursion into Gaza. The letter reminded the ministers that a key principle in “humanitarian international law is the principle of distinguishing between fighters and […]
It's been a year since the Foreign Policy Association and I started this blog. There have been 140 posts before today covering a range of topics from developments in legislation, to international relations, to renewable energy, to all sorts of business initiatives, and much more. It's been an education for me and, I hope, for […]
This week there is a lot of action going on at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. The UN Security Council is meeting about imposing new sanctions on Iran. The Commission on the Status of Women is in its second week of meetings. To add to the action, now comes reports of controversy […]