Just a quick word on the strategy laid out by Obama before getting to other firsthand observations of the speech. As I have written, I basically support the entire counterinsurgency ‘surge’ strategy, but find the inputting of an exit date, July 2011 presumably, to be potentially counterproductive (how can we not expect the Taliban to […]
The European Union, with Sweden holding the rotating presidency until the end of the year, will consider a draft resolution put forth by Sweden that would express support for the division of Jerusalem and refers to “Palestine” officially for the first time. Israeli leaders condemned the proposed resolution as heavily biased towards the Palestinian narrative. The […]
Bangladesh seems to have improved some of its aggregate income and governance metrices. Per capita income seems to have improved over fiscal year 2007-2008. Nevertheless, hit by the global recession aggregate GDP growth decreased by 0.3%. As The Daily Star reported recently, a “World Bank (WB) report says poverty may increase by 0.3 percentage point […]
Vietnam – Well it finally happened. Vietnam devalued its currency, again, this time by 5% and increased its interest rates by 1% (moving it to 8%). This is the 3rd devaluation of the Vietnamese Dong since June of 2008. This blog reported that Vietnam was having some currency liquidity issues for awhile, but they were […]
Fareed Zakaria and CNN come together to give us an informative documentary on the terrorists attacks on Mumbai last year. Sean Patrick Murphy writes about it at the Global Film Review. “The film does an excellent job of drawing in the viewer, following the rampage as it unfolded over many hours, often providing cell phone […]
“Twas the night before Obama’s Afghanistan Strategy speech and all through the internet, not a pundit was resting, all arguing that they knew what was right. The allies were briefed in hopes that more troops would soon be there. Then down came Obama to West Point with sweet words of strategy.” I offer an immediate […]
Diogenes Laertius wrote, “The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.” This simple formula hides behind it much of what is wrong with the socio-political economy of Bangladesh. Humanism has been on the wane in Bangladeshi curricula since the rightist BNP took power in 2001 and the effect has yet to […]
In February, President Hugo Chávez won a referendum allowing him (and any other public official) to be re-elected indefinitely. A total of 54% of the electorate supported this option, but did this represent a recent peak in the Venezuelan President’s popularity? Over recent months Chávez provoked a diplomatic row with Colombia and sent troops to […]
In a follow-up to last week’s Washington Post On Faith interviews on J Street, the column’s authors took to the other side of the debate, speaking with Weekly Standard editor Michael Goldfarb who is an outspoken critic of the group. Watch the interview here and read the discussion here. Separately, Americans for Peace Now is sponsoring […]
It is easy to assert that the political negotiations in Zimbabwe have reached crunch time. But it might be more accurate to say that the negotiations that have been fraught from the outset are facing their last best chance of peaceful resolution. This assumes that both parties want peaceful resolution, or resolution at all, despite […]
Is the new trend of African nations selling or leasing agricultural land to foreign companies or countries a new form of colonialism (“agri-imperialism”) or a savvy form of investment and partnership? These are the questions raised in recent articles in the New York Times Magazine and Washington Post. The deeply unsatisfying answer from my vantage […]
Foreign Policy released a list of the world’s top 100 Global Thinkers, with only a minimal number of Israel-related public figures appearing. Many of the lists thinkers clearly represent revolutionary views in foreign affairs and economists; other list members, however, are simply not among them. Notably, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, a former IMF official […]
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