Golnaz Esfandiari is a Senior Correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty‘s (RFE/RL) Central Newsroom. She is the editor of the Persian Letters blog. Golnaz has served previously as Chief Editor of RFE’s Persian-language service: Radio Farda. She also presides over the newsroom’s Asia Desk. Born in Tehran, Golnaz has traveled to Afghanistan several times to cover the country’s first parliamentary […]
The past weeks in Iraq have been marked by an alarming uptick in violence. A recent CNN tally suggested at least 180 people were killed during the month of June – most of them victims of frequent bombings and small arms attacks. Umpteen explosions in Baghdad, and high-profile assaults against Shi’a pilgrims occupied the […]
Maybe the solution to the Euro crisis cannot be found in politics, economic, finances, but in soccer. The Euro 2012, taking place this month of June in Poland and Ukraine, has offered the opium needed to the peoples of Europe. The final four counts Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Germany, meaning that at least one of […]
A long summer of political turmoil has begun that makes harder the search for a new equilibrium with Washington A tale of two capital cities in the grip of political uncertainty unfolded in South Asia last week. Islamabad was the scene of a fast-paced soap opera that throws into further doubt the future of the […]
Human rights activists acclaimed a Dominican Republic (DR) court’s historic conviction and 15-year prison sentencing of two Haitian child traffickers charged with smuggling, trafficking, and exploiting Haitian children’s labor. “It is the first time Haitian traffickers have been jailed in the Dominican Republic for trafficking children,” declared the International Organization for Migration (IOM) through a […]
In the latest edition of Russia in Global Affairs, Sergei Karaganov suggests that Russia needs three capitals: Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Vladivostok. The third city would be the capital of Siberia and would constitute a new economic capital for Russia. Vladivostok is about as far south as you can get in Siberia, and it’s really […]
For all his “democratic shortcomings”, there is one very “Western” thing about Vladimir Putin: he is the most pro-Israeli Russian ruler since Stalin (for all his anti-Semitism, Koba the Dread actually supported founding the Jewish state, and the US and USSR were the first countries to recognise it). Putin’s position is odd for two reasons: […]
Understanding Israel is a video-interview series created by Rob Lattin for the Foreign Policy Blogs. By speaking to the people on the inside and on the ground, each episode seeks to intimately expose viewers to the important and controversial topics affecting Israel today. Evangelical Christians make up one of America’s largest sects of Israel […]
After years of relative quiet, 2011 was one of the bloodiest in the recent history of the Turkey-Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) conflict. Last week, eight Turkish soldiers and 10 PKK militants were killed following a cross-border attack by the PKK on an outpost in the eastern province of Hakkari. The recent clashes came at a time of growing national and […]
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt delivered a lecture to over 300 people at Carleton University last month entitled “Arctic Challenges and the Future Perspectives of Arctic Co-operation. He starts off by discussing how, “more than anything,” Canada and Sweden are linked by geography as they both extend into the Arctic. The two countries also share […]
Even though the big news in Pakistan right now is about the newly elected Prime Minster, deteriorating diplomatic relations with the United States, and match fixing charges on star cricketers, there is a less publicized–but important story–that CNN published last week, “Family’s 20 Kids Highlight Pakistan’s Population Explosion.” The article warns that Pakistan is currently among the […]
Her name is Neda Semnani. She writes for Roll Call‘s Heard on the Hill (HOH), one of the venerable and decades-old institutions in Washington. With 1300 followers on Twitter, she tweets on the latest on Capitol Hill in 140 characters or less. A product of the Iranian revolution by birth (1979) and London School of Economics […]
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