Meet the African Union Chair Madame Zuma
July 16, 2012 2 min. read

Call it the century of African women! First, there was the Nobel winner Ma Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the current president of Liberia. Then, there was the grassroots women’s rights activist Joyce Hilda Banda, who was sworn in April 2012 as the president of impoverished Malawi after the death of wa Mutharika . And now, the […]

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Memo to TIME magazine: The Problem is not Manmohan
July 15, 2012 8 min. read

Whatever Singh’s own faults as a government leader, India’s economic malaise is due to more basic problems. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is on the receiving end of a barrage of slings and arrows these days.  The most recent salvo comes from Time magazine, whose Asian edition this week has a cover story labeling him “The […]

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Could Ehud Olmert Return to Politics?
July 13, 2012 6 min. read

The following was taken from Jspace.com.  The article was written by Jspace Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Rob Lattin, who also blogs about Israeli and Middle Eastern foreign policy for Foreign Policy Blogs.  On Tuesday, for the first time in a while, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was able to take a deep sigh of relief. Olmert was cleared of […]

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Where has the Europe ‘des grands hommes’ gone?
July 13, 2012 6 min. read

  Almost 70 years of peace on the European continent between European great powers and the role of the European Union is still on the table. But isn’t it the most obvious argument in defense of the European experiment? In this current economic and financial climax covered with layers of elections and referendum, the European […]

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The Iranian Women in American Journalism Project (IWAJ): Sudy Samandari
July 13, 2012 6 min. read

Sudy Samandari is co- founder and editor-in-chief of Zan Magazine, a national magazine, the very first of its kind, dedicated to modern Iranian-American woman. Born in Iran and based in Houston, Texas, Sudy comes from a family with a strong tradition in journalism. Her late father was the publisher of Golchin in Houston for 20 years. […]

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Middle East Realignment: Great Decision’s Takeaways
July 13, 2012 3 min. read

I recently had the pleasure of leading a Great Decision’s group meeting that covered Augustus Norton’s chapter on the Middle East Realignment, AKA “Arab Spring: Where are We Now”? Our group had an excellent discussion and, as could be expected, jumped around to numerous subtopics within this wide ranging theme. We tried to go through […]

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Canada Orders Seven Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships from Irving Shipbuilding
July 12, 2012 3 min. read

Canada’s Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS) have been in the pipeline for five years. Now, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has signed a CAN $9.3. million contract with the Nova Scotia-based Irving Shipbuilding to begin work on the vessels. It’s an important first step as for a while, even the number of AOPS Canada would acquire […]

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Extraordinary Photos of Arctic Underwater Life
July 12, 2012 1 min. read

Many people know the Arctic as the home of fuzzy white polar bears, smiling beluga whales, and mythical-looking narwhals. Yet through his underwater photography, Russian marine biologist Alexander Semenov is trying to publicize the more unknown creatures of the White Sea, located off the coast of northwestern Russia near the Kola Peninsula. Massive scyphozoan jellies, […]

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Who’s Sorry Now?
July 11, 2012 7 min. read

The agreement reopening NATO supply routes lays bare Pakistan’s strategic isolation.  But is anyone in Islamabad paying attention? Some are spinning last week’s deal ending Pakistan’s seven-month closure of key NATO supply routes into Afghanistan as a triumph of Islamabad’s resolve.  The reverse is much closer to the mark, however.  Pakistan overplayed its hand in […]

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Iraqi Oil Production Outpaces Iran’s
July 11, 2012 3 min. read

Although American statesmen and Republican politicians of the Bush era hate to admit it, one of the foundational aims of the war in Iraq – the creation of a liberal democracy – guaranteed an increase in Iranian influence both within Iraq and across the region. The politics of Shi’a majority were immediately advantaged by electoral […]

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Post-Transitional Political Fault Lines
July 11, 2012 7 min. read

Internally—where it matters the most—the overall status of a government is judged by how the average citizen perceives it. From that perspective, and due to a number of factors, in Somalia not much has changed in the past three decades since the military government went astray. Still, the average Somali sees his/her government as the […]

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The Evolution of Obama’s Iran Policy
July 11, 2012 4 min. read

During his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama advocated diplomacy over coercion to resolve the Iranian nuclear threat, pledging to open the lines of communication and work to reinstate trust between Washington and Tehran. Barely having time to file for a change of address to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, newly sworn-in President Obama’s Iran policy was challenged […]

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