Regions

Foreign Policy Association has seemed to transform into Afghanistan Association as our website has recently produced a myriad of fascinating pieces on the Central Asian state. Here are three really worth checking out! On FPA’s website’s main page, the Viewpoint series features an article by Mehdi Noorbaksh titled ‘Irreparable Mistake to Leave Afghanistan‘. Noorbaksh makes […]

There are several significant elections coming up across the African continent. Some of the races to watch: Nigeria’s January elections promise to be intensely fought. Which means that the specter of upheaval, interparty violence, and voter coercion looms. The process will start in October when the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) holds primaries for the […]

  Brazil’s most popular politician in history is set to leave the presidency this year, ending nearly eight years at the helm of a government responsible for lifting over 20 million people out of poverty, maintaining Brazil’s economy booming during a global recession (with 2010 growth forecasted at 7.3%), and establishing Brazil as a regional […]

Anyone reading this blog knows that Israelis are becoming ever-more jaded by the peace process and more conservative by the day. Anyone reading also knows that I often take a very critical view of religious intervention in public policy, even in a religious state. Well, new interesting survey results are out, and it appears that […]

Approximately ten months after Iran released the five British sailors that were held for straying into Iranian water. Iran released Sarah shourd yesterday after a year long detention in an undisclosed location in Tehran. There were unconfirmed reports about the events leading to Ms. Shroud’s release, whether it was a humanitarian gesture ordered by president […]

After a six-month boycott over last year November’s election results, nine politicians of the Rally for Democracy Party (RDP)  and Republican Party (RP) were sworn in as members of the National Assembly yesterday. I must admit…that’s where I want the RDP (as the official opposition party) to be, representing the aspirations of its constituencies, and […]

Former foreign secretary of India, Shyam Saran has an excellent piece in Business Standard where he argues that staying back in Afghanistan and strengthening its presence there is the right strategy for India. He examines the ‘exit strategy’ from Afghanistan for the U.S. put forth by Henry Kissinger at a recent conference in Geneva. According […]

Bahrain’s football team wondered why the Togolese team they had just beaten 3-0 last Tuesday played so poorly. Togo, after all, had been one of Africa’s representatives in the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Well, it turns out that the reason Togo’s team did not seem very good was that they weren’t. Bahrain had played […]

With the exception of American policies toward Africa I tend to keep my Americanist punditry separate from my African commentary on this blog. Nonetheless, since it seems apt, can I just remind those conservatives who have latched onto President Obama’s supposed “Kenyan Anti-Colonialism” that the Kenyan Anti-Colonialists were right? That they were the good guys? […]

South African writer Andre Brink (A Dry White Season, inter alia) is unhappy with the potential encroachments on the media with which the ANC appears to be tinkering and seems dismayed by the general direction of things in South Africa. Naturally he invokes Nelson Mandela, because everyone who wants to establish (or remind us of, […]

In just a few short months, American troops will be replacing the embedded British soldiers in most of Helmand province. These British troops have spent the past several years attempting to bring stability to one of Afghanistan’s most violent and unstable regions. For instance, one-third of the 335 British soldiers killed in the country since […]

A few hours ago Secretary of State Clinton travelled to Egypt in order to help coax the Israelis and Palestinians to renew, continue talks that have been stalled for a few months. The Secretary of State will hold bilatelar meetings with the two sides involved and the Jordanians. A precondition of the resumption of talks […]