Pakistan has a lot of problems. (How’s that for an understated opening?) One of the major problems in the country, however, is the lack of credible state institutions. In fact, the only state institution that is universally recognized and respected is the Pakistani Army. So it comes as a bit of good news that the […]
Yesterday Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela, gave a more tempered speech to the United Nations General Assembly. He said the smell of sulfur (his reference to George W. Bush in 2006) had dissipated, and that instead he sensed new hope with President Barack Obama in office. Further description of the speech by the Associated Press […]
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 […]
General Stanley McChrystal, the Obama Administration’s guy in South Asia, has warned that without more troops the war in Afghanistan “will likely fail”, reports the Washington Post. President Barack Obama, not surprisingly, is worried about becoming embroiled in an escalating situation, where victory only requires an ever-increasing number of ‘just a few more (thousands) troops”. […]
Last week Venezuela’s Minister of the Interior, Tareck El Aissami, publicly denounced a July 20 report released by the US Government’s General Accounting Office (GAO) which labeled his country as “one of the major drug transit countries in the Western Hemisphere”. The struggle over public perception between Washington and Caracas continues. The US government states […]
The Obama Administration released yesterday its list of 50 metrics, under three objectives, to designate progress in the war in Central Asia. While it’s important to have a cohesive set of tactics for the war itself—and this document makes our goals much more lucid than before—what strategy does the war itself fit? Are we once […]
El Universal reported that a decline in revenue from oil sales caused imports into Venezuela to drop by 49% during the first six months of 2009. Despite a recent increase the value of petroleum, Venezuela has experienced a sharp reduction in available funds since the price of a barrel of oil is just over $65, […]
Shawn W Crispin has an interesting article in Asian Times concerning the Vietnamese government’s latest freedom of speech crackdown that has specifically targeted bloggers who had publicly expressed anti-Chinese sentiment. Hanoi fears it cannot control the more than two million Vietnamese based blogs, a common source of uncensored news. While a general fear of the […]
When he first ran for office, Hugo Chávez declared that he wanted to reduce the size of government, and to make it more efficient. However, Venezuela’s National Institute of Statistics released figures showing that there are now 2,372,587 government workers, an increase of 70% during Chávez’s time in office. The percentage of all persons employed […]
In an editorial within today’s Washington Post, Edward Schumacher-Matos presents a nice summary of what might be considered a waning in the power of Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez. As Schumacher-Matos describes, on a number of fronts other South American nations have been acting counter to Chávez’s wishes. Ecuador, though considered an ally, has reached out […]
At the recent ASEAN Regional Forum in Thailand, U.S. Secretary of State Clinton, before the the 25 nations present, officially confirmed a substantial shift in U.S. foreign policy when she stated: ‘On behalf of our country and the Obama administration, I want to send a very clear message that the United States is back, that we […]
The United States maybe in the initial stages of a Southeast Asian foreign policy overhaul; the Obama Administration is not only reconsidering its sanctions against Myanmar, but also reevaluating America’s policy toward the entire Southeast Asian region. Brian McCartan has an informative article on the recent removal of Cambodia and Laos from the United States’ […]
On Sunday, Chinese authorties reported that the Chang’e-1 space probe made a successful and planned crash landing on the Moon. This is the first time any Chinese spacecraft has touched the Moon. China’s Xinhua state-controlled news service explains that the Chang’e probes are part of an extended mission aimed at eventually sending recoverable and manned missions to the Moon. Xinhua reports:
The Obama Administration has scuttled plans for radar and ballistic missile interceptor sites in the Czezch Republic and Poland, respectively. This is a most welcome change in policy and will go ways to repairing America’s relationship with Russia. But what does it mean for the Czech Republic and Poland? It is only twenty years ago […]
