Before I head off to New Haven for Convergencias 2012, hosted by the Yale Mexican Students Association, I will reflect on 5 themes that define the inner-workings of America’s relationship with our Southern neighbor: 1. Trade between these two neighbors is symbiotic. In 2010, mutual trade reached $362 billion. As I discussed in my Great […]
While most news about Central Asia discusses pipelines and transiting materiel to Afghanistan, southern Kyrgyzstan still sways uneasily in a quiet cross-breeze of mistrust and recriminations, after riots in June 2010 that killed over 400 people. After 18 months, two special commission reports, and a new president, few residents in this mountainous region believe the […]
Last week, my mom, a doctor working at a local polyclinic, was summoned along with all her colleagues to an unusual kind of staff meeting. The head nurse, a member of the ruling United Russia party, had gathered everyone to remind them of the importance to vote the “correct” way in the upcoming March 4 […]
[Map of Somalia — EthanZuckermann.com] Leaders from across the globe are gathering today with various leaders in Somalian civic society at the London Conference on Somalia. The goal of the conference is to develop a new international approach to Somalia that nonetheless keeps Somalians in the center of the dialogue and thus of viable […]
Next week, Scandinavia House, a Nordic cultural center located in New York City, will host “Greenland Week,” with three artistic and cultural programs dedicated to shedding light on the remote island. On Wednesday, February 29 and Friday, March 2, a coming-of-age movie called Inuk about a troublesome boy sent from the capital, Nuuk, to live […]
The closer we get to the presidential election, the more anti-American discourse appears in Russian media. The anti-American rhetoric is not a novelty in a country that lived through decades of the Cold War parity with the United States; it takes a long time for old phobias and fears to be reconsidered. Meanwhile, whatever is […]
The simmering ethnic tensions between those who prefer a non-Oshiwambo speaking person to become the next president of Namibia after president Pohamba’s term expires in 2013, and those who view such a call as tribalism and against the country’s slogan of “One Namibia-one nation,” has reached another boiling point. The latest tension stems from the […]
Following much anticipation, Yemenis this Tuesday headed towards the polling stations in the tens of thousands, with lines extending endlessly in the streets of the capital, Sana’a. And if so far the mood is festive, with men and women congratulating one another on what they hope will herald the coming of a new democratic era, […]
Interesting news from Iraq… the Christian Science Monitor is reporting that violence has dropped precipitously as al-Qaeda affiliates quit the field to battle President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The effects of egress have been most pronounced in Nineveh Province – the Iraqi governate borders Syria and once served as served as home to as many as […]
In recent months the EU security policy jargon has been filled up with catchy buzzwords, such as ‘permanent operational headquarters’ or ‘pooling and sharing.’ Some experts even coined the latter into an ironic phrase: “you pool, we share,” which to some extent reflects both the discrepancies between the standpoints of the EU states and the challenges for the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). Be it as it may, these two aspects will be crucial for the future of effective common European defense and external operational engagement. However, there is one more buzzword which still has not been fully rediscovered, although it will be of even greater importance: a new strategy.
Even as the European and U.S. economies slid over the past few years, Israel’s financial footing remained fairly stable. In fact, last year protests erupted to lower housing prices in the Gush Dan area, even though prices reflected demand for Tel Aviv residencies. Today’s paper includes two more items that reflect positive growth in the […]
As Russia’s March 4th Presidential Election nears, Vladimir Putin is pulling out all the stops. Stinging from his party’s embarrassing showing in last November’s parliamentary elections and beleaguered by growing numbers of increasingly broadly-based protesters (some of whom are holding Moscow trapped in a motorised loop of dissent), he is grasping at every straw he […]
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