Regions

The International Monetary Fund is worried about Afghanistan‘s economy .  The under-reported, though devastating charges of fraud and malfeasance that surround the September 2010 run on Kabul Bank threaten to bring down the nascent Afghan banking sector.  However, the fiasco has also had wide-ranging political effects in Afghanistan and within U.S. and NATO diplomatic circles—even if […]

In his budget proposal for 2012, President Obama has proposed $3.1 billion in aid to Pakistan. The aid is spread across various parts and will be provided partly under the five year Kerry-Lugar-Berman initiative and Oversees Contingency Operations (OCO). This proposal comes even as the two countries stand-off over the Raymond Davis affair and the […]

In January 2011, Uzbekistan’s president Islam Karimov made a controversial visit to Brussels and met with both E.U. and NATO officials creating somewhat of an uproar among human rights activists. His European visit drew attention and sharp criticism towards renewed Western engagement with a state that violates human rights and personal freedoms, remains corrupt, brutally […]

EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, has her detractors. For clarities sake, let it be said that this blogger is not one of them. For sure, the EU’s foreign policy, which Ashton is head of, is far from optimal. It lacks both coherence and clout, in particular when it comes to the “hard” security and […]

On the Joy Behar show, Helen Thomas defended her blatantly anti-Semitic remarks telling Jews to leave Israel and go back to Germany and Poland where six million of their ancestors were systematically murdered based solely on their religious beliefs. Thomas makes the ignorant remarks that Jews were no longer persecuted after World War II and […]

STRATFOR recently released a report challenging the oft-invoked statistic that 90% of firearms seized in Mexico come from the U.S. To be clear, the statistic is derived from a 2008 GAO report compiled on data reported to the ATF. Of the roughly 30,000 weapons seized in Mexico, information was reported to the ATF on only […]

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu proposed a sweeping economic package late last week to appease criticisms that his government assists the rich more than the struggling middle class, although the reforms really represent his effort to retain power after the next round of elections that will be held in 2013 at the latest. The recent […]

Former Ambassador to Turkey, Marc Grossman, is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s pick to replace the late Richard Holbrooke. Grossman, the new special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan brings with him decades of foreign policy expertise and a real hand feel for the politics of Islam and Islamist moderation–a real salutary capability that will surely […]

The Obama administration has long sought to change the Muslim world’s opinions on American foreign policy in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  From President Obama’s much hailed speech and somewhat prescient speech on democracy in the Middle East that he offered at the University of Cairo, to his under-appreciated attempts to correctly pronunciation the name of Muslim […]

According to US Census data, Miami is home to the largest Cuban community outside of the island nation; the New York metropolitan area is in second place, with a population of over 141,000 Cubans. So New York City’s embrace of Cuban culture is no surprise, but the city’s ability to put on the upcoming “¡Sí […]

Jayant Sinha and Ashutosh Varshney have in an interesting article, contented that “both in its rot and heady dynamism, India is beginning to resemble America’s Gilded Age (1865-1900).” The article in Financial Times, titled “It is time for India to reign in its robber barrons”, Sinha and Varshney question the possibility of India’s transition from […]

Hosni Mubarak is gone and the streets of Cairo look like a million Mardi Gras. But as Egyptians celebrate their revolution, a different kind of transition has taken place in Lebanon.  In less than thirty days, the pro-Western March 14 coalition shifted from majority to opposition, leaving Washington scrambling for a strategy. The trouble is […]