President Bush began a five-country European tour on Monday, his last trip to Europe as President. The pre-take-off remarks he made to the Washington press corps on what he hopes to acheive there can be read here and watched here. Bush kicked off the trip with an annual European Council summit in Slovenia. While the subject of the […]
(United Evening News, Taipei, Taiwan) Continuing the theme of the global reaction to Obama's clinching the Democratic nomination for President, this time courtesy of Media Bistro. The US-focused media industry website collected front page covers from news dailies around the world. Click here for the full spread. PS: the front page covers were originally […]
When Senator Obama clinched the Democratic nomination last week, the BBC, by far the oldest and most global news network in the world, broadcast reactions to his feat from four areas of the world: China, Russia, India and Britain. In the segment about Chinese views on the election, the BBC's Beijing correspondent conceeds that most Chinese doesn't know […]
The Center for U.S. Global Engagement, a Washington-based group that seeks to strengthen America's commitment to global engagement, has launched a new web-based talk show about global issues called “The Global Wire.” So far the show has hosted Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and former Secretary of State Madeleine […]
Next week my nephew Nathaniel graduates from High School. He was born the year I graduated from High School. But more momentous than the fact that I’m getting really old! is that he was the first member of my immediate family who wasn't born in Guyana, our “Caribbean” homeland at the tip of South America. […]
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://jp.youtube.com/v/JDiI0OMlpiE” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Kim Ghattas, the BBC's US correspondent, recently reported on global views of the presidential candidates, though before Obama's recent leap across the primary finish line. But the reporting is still relevant. Ghattas underscores that anticipation for a change in administration on the part of the global public has already caused attitudes toward the […]
Senator Obama's clinching the Democratic nomination for President made headlines not only in the US, but around the world. It's fair to say that in most parts of the world the reaction is overwhelmingly positive. But the world is a complicated place, so for the next couple of blog posts we’ll try to capture different reactions to […]
We have speculated before — along with many others — about Obama's impact on foreign attitudes toward the United States. But with the Democratic nomination now safely in his hands, this is no longer an academic question. As many foreigners as Americans seem to have celebrated the milestone that Obama's victory represents, encouraged by worldwide […]
Andy Semmel of the Paternship for a Secure America gives some suggestions on how the U.S. Government could ramp up its global efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. His suggestions are entirely focused on improvements that could be made at the State Department. This is not surprising, considering Semmel served for more […]
Senator John McCain's major speech on May 15th , in which he outlined what he "would hope to have achieved at the end of my first term as President" in 2013, made international headlines. Most of the international news reports focused on McCain's vision of Iraq in 2013. For example, two weeks ago the Guardian […]
In the interest of improving America's image, someone should have banned coverage of Saturday's meeting of the Democrats’ Rules and Bylaws Committee in Washington. There were insults, snide remarks, grandstanding and pettifoggery during the six-hour meeting — and that was just the participants. The hundreds of partisan onlookers behaved much worse, yelling taunts and threats […]
The Washington Post reports: “More than 100 countries reached agreement Wednesday to ban cluster bombs, controversial weapons that human rights groups deplore but that the United States, which did not join the ban, calls an integral, legitimate part of its arsenal. …Advocates of the ban said they hope the agreement, which was supported by rich […]
The conservative-leaning London newsdaily the Daily Telegraph commissioned a poll on Europeans’ preferences for the next US president. The poll of 6,200 people in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia, finds that, across all countries polled, Senator Obama received 52 percent of the popular vote, while Senator McCain received 15 percent. Senator Clinton was not included in the […]
Frida Berrigan, a Senior Program Associate at the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative, authored a scathing endictment of the military buildup that occurred during George W. Bush's presidency. In the section called "The Pentagon as Diplomat," Berrigan argues: ” the White House's foreign policy agenda has increasingly been directed through the military. With a military budget […]
In the "gotcha" spirit of our current politics, CNN is rudely replaying the archival footage of Scott McClellan dismissing Richard Clarke's tell-all book, written after Clarke left the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11. "Why didn't he tell the President these things when he was in the White House, rather than waiting until he […]