The Relativity of Time
November 14, 2011 4 min. read

Roger Cohen, a reliable critic of Israel’s policies, particularly under the Netanyahu administration, argues against attacking Iran in a New York Times op-ed today. This issue has regained momentum in light of the recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which concluded that in six months Iran will have enriched uranium to the level […]

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Denmark’s Strategy for the Arctic
November 14, 2011 14 min. read

Peter Taksoe-Jensen, the Danish Ambassador to the U.S., gave a talk at Dartmouth on Tuesday entitled, “Arctic Challenges and Opportunities: A Danish Perspective.” I wasn’t able to find a transcript of his speech online, but Dartmouth’s school newspaper has a few quotes from his talk, which he gave to approximately 50 people. He warned against […]

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APEC and the TPP – The Best Way to Deal with China’s Harmful Trade Policies.
November 13, 2011 9 min. read

Last month Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed, in an article for the Foreign Policy Magazine, ‘America’s Pacific Century’! This week, President Obama will be laying the foundation through a series of multilateral meetings involving Pacific Rim countries. He will start with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Hawaii (Nov 12th-13th), and continue at […]

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A Visit to the Athabasca Oil Sands
November 12, 2011 2 min. read

I spent the past couple of days in Alberta, Canada. After a brief stop in Edmonton, a group of journalists and I headed to Shell Albian Sands outside Fort McMurray, in northern Alberta. We flew over the boreal forest, where the late fall temperatures had already caused lakes and rivers to freeze under a white […]

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Haiti: PM Conille’s Damage Control to Absorb Major Political Crisis
November 11, 2011 4 min. read

Facing his first major judicial-political crisis sparked on Thursday Oct. 27 following the unconstitutional arrest and overnight detention of Deputy Arnel Belizaire, Prime Minister Garry Conille created a three-member commission to help uncover the incident’s hierarchical authors and diffuse escalating tensions. The “Belizaire Affair,” as it is now known, directed the national dialogue for more […]

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Why Germany Must Ultimately Write the Check
November 11, 2011 6 min. read

The eurozone saga (it isn’t a crisis as the Greek word implies a short time-frame) could end happily today – and that has been the case since the whole sorry affair began. All that is necessary is for the European Central Bank to announce that is it willing to back all the debt issued in […]

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Top Mexican Cabinet Member Dies in Helicopter Crash
November 11, 2011 2 min. read

For the second time in President Calderon’s administration, a secretary of interior (Secretario de Gobernación) has died in what government officials have prematurely dubbed as an aerial accident. Francisco Blake Mora, the de-facto second in command in Mexico’s executive branch, was en route to a conference in the central state of Morelos when his helicopter […]

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Fresh challenges in the region
November 11, 2011 9 min. read

Ali Abdullah’s continuous refusal to step down is costing Yemen and its neighbors. The tenacious leader’s action is exporting the disaster, living conditions, threat to safety, health and livelihood of refugee from East Africa. According to the United Nations and the International Organization for Migration sources from the region, thousands of Africans continue to seek […]

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Blacklists Exchange: A Weaker Side of ‘Reset’?
November 10, 2011 4 min. read

  U.S. – Russia political interactions often resemble a swinging pendulum that goes from hardly negotiated consensus to deepening disagreement and swooping across to ‘tit for tat‘ tactics. The Recent Russian response to U.S. ‘Magnitsky list’ is a good example of that. The story began with the accidental death of Sergey Magnitsky, a 37-year old […]

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ANC 1-0 Malema
November 10, 2011 3 min. read

So the big news out of South Africa today is that Julius Malema, firebrand president of the ANC Youth League and general lightning rod for controversy has been suspended (or forced to “vacate his position”) for five years from the ANC. And for good measure the party also ousted the Youth League’s “arrogant” spokesman, Floyd […]

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Sport and the Global South
November 10, 2011 1 min. read

Posting has been light on my part because I have been in an almost constant state of travel of late. My apologies. And that travel continues tomorrow when I begin a trip that will ultimately take me to the Sport and the Global South conference to be held next Tuesday and Wednesday (November 15th and […]

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TPP pact controversial in US and Japan
November 9, 2011 5 min. read

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has indicated that Japan will participate in U.S.-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks at the APEC summit next weekend in Hawaii. This has triggered emotional responses in both the U.S. and Japan, especially from farmers in Japan, and lawmakers in the U.S. Japan hasn’t been self-sufficient in food since 1920. Japan […]

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