by Nathan William Meyer Twenty-four trillion dollars. It is a number that beggars the imagination, almost 40% of the global economy, and it is buried in one of the world’s poorest and most violent countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo. Failed state, rape capital of the world, humanitarian catastrophe – the Congo personifies all […]
Today Nelson Mandela has turned 94. Mandela is staying out of the public eye, but that has not kept people from Qunu, Mandela’s home village in the Eastern Cape, to President Obama in Washington, to children around South Africa, and the world from issuing their praises of the great, but increasingly frail, leader of the […]
by Hristiana Grozdanova & Anna Maria Barcikowska When both sides of the Atlantic face fiscal and macroeconomic challenges at home and around the globe, it seems like the only way to overcome to shortcomings is to stay united. Looking back at the history of the European Union, one could see that in the somber times it […]
It’s been a busy few days since my return from South Africa, and I still have much about which I want to write. At the risk of self indulgence, I’ve made a couple of media appearances in recent days. The Colombian news magazine Semana wrote a story on the state of contemporary Africa in which […]
This past week the Council on Hemispheric Affairs published an article on the Obama Administration’s actions to depressurize the relationship between Argentina and the “vulture funds” that made profit off Argentina’s default from their 2001 economic collapse. With so many formerly healthy economies in Europe now facing the same end game as Argentina did nearly […]
United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) peacekeepers have been busy assisting the Congolese brigades over the past week in the fight against rebels known as M23 based in Bunagana. This comes at a crucial time, as the provincial capital of Goma, a military stronghold, may be overrun. This […]
Given Mexico’s ongoing campaign against the narco-gangs and Colombia’s omnipresent civil war, it is not surprising that defense budgets are ballooning across Latin America. According to a report by Rachel Glickhouse of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas and data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI; see links below), Latin American countries spent […]
A new regional economic platform, the Caribbean Growth Forum (CGF), spearheaded by the World Bank (WB), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), mobilized more than 150 participants in Kingston’s University of the West Indies around a common concern: the region’s perennial economic failings. The two-day conference, held on June 28-30, 2012, attracted […]
[Human Sciences Building, University of Pretoria] I am now in Pretoria where I will be participating in the biennial conference of the Historical Association of South Africa (HASA) on 6-7 July. Tomorrow (Friday, 6 July) I will be presenting a paper at 11:30 titled “Combating Hardships: Bus Boycotts in South Africa, 1953-1954, and international implications.” […]
Word is that ICE agents (now tagged HSI, or Homeland Security Investigation agents) have been instructed not to draw attention to themselves or any efforts they may mount to interdict drugs trafficked in the the US from Mexico–or to advertise just how audacious cartel drug runners have become, trafficking openly on US soil. Downplay conflict with the Mexican cartels.
Indeed, ICE insiders say the current ‘standing order’ to US drug interdiction agents along the SW border is to ‘turn and run’ whenever confronted by drug-toting cartel members–‘Do not engage.’
ICE or HSI agents have even been advised not to wear identifying gear–hats or jackets marked ICE or HSI–while on surveillance.
Conversely, the orders issued to the Zetas, or whichever gang traffickers happen to be involved, is “lose a load and lose your life.’
Interview conducted by FPB’s Reza Akhlaghi Ian Bremmer, one of America’s leading geopolitical theorists and the President of Eurasia Group, sat down with Reza Akhlaghi, senior writer at FPA, to discuss the crisis of global leadership and his new book Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World “…..a loose collection of […]
And so the African National Congress (ANC) survived its National Policy Conference in Midrand. They may have spent upwards of 40 million rands, and toward the end a few punches were thrown by angry delegates. But what are a few fisticuffs among friends? But this is the thing to remember, always: Talk of a one-party […]
By Alexander Corbeil The International Sphere and the Domestic Situation in America We are now witnessing a bloody and drawn own out plan of regime change by civil war in Syria. To put it plainly it’s government overthrow on the cheap for the United States, both in political and financial terms. It is true that […]
Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted (255 to 67) to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for his refusal to hand over thousands of documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee more than a year ago. The documents, believes Darrell Issa (R-Calif), who heads the Committee, are pivotal to understanding the […]
The end of the Arab Spring has likely come about in two different ways. The official election of President Morsi in Egypt can be seen as the end of protests against the military government and the beginning of the first democratically elected leader in Egypt’s history, or it can become the beginning of a one […]