The FPA's Great Decisions 2008 program's television series broadcasted on PBS offers a show featuring US-China Trade, and summarily introduces a number of issues affecting the global economy and Sino-American relations: Agricultural trade. How do China's geographic, agricultural, and environmental characteristics uniquely position the US to enjoy a mutually beneficial trade relationship with China? Manufactured goods. How […]
More Zimbabwe correspondence from my friend. The following are some more of the observations I made during my short holiday in Zimbabwe:- The country still does not have a formal currency. It is still printing and using bearer cheques as legal tender. Besides, the bearer cheques were and continue to be in short supply resulting […]
Be sure to check out this article by Claude Salhani in the Middle East Times. Relevant to Bush's Middle East trip, a large part of which was dedicated to shoring Gulf states’ support for solidarity against Iran, it is titled “What Does Iran Want?” That's a damn good question, and Salhani addresses it in his […]
In the current Yemen Times, Hassan al-Haifi has a short editorial on the need for change in the Arab World. I link to it for a couple of reasons. One, basically, is that it is always interesting to read critical articles in the mainstream Arab press. We tend to think that no one is allowed […]
Unfortunately, Judge Amir Jawdat Naeib was assassinated in Baghdad on his way to work today. According to the linked BBC article, assassinations have gone down since the ‘surge’, but this is another example of how far Iraq is from true stability. Despite this, the Coalition has announced that over 60 militants have been killed in […]
A friend who works in South Africa but who is a Zimbabwe native visited his family over the Christmas holidays. Before he left I asked if he would send me a report upon his return so readers here can get a sense of things from the perspective of someone who loves his country but laments […]
Thirty years ago this week the South African political philosopher Richard Turner was assassinated in his Durban home. South African History Online (SAHO) has put together a special feature on the anniversary of Turner's shooting. His daughter, the journalist Jann Turner, has included her own personal reflections of her father's life and death and what […]
The President is concluding the Israel/Palestinian portion of his Middle East trip, before moving on the Gulf to deal with Iran. Bush feels confident that there will be a Palestinian state and a peace treaty before he leaves office in slightly more than a year, saying “'there's going to be a signed peace treaty by […]
It appears that some observers are finally beginning to counteract the shallow, facile narrative that overtook the analysis of the events in Kenya over the last couple of weeks. Caroline Elkins’ piece in The Washington Post this past weekend provided a model of how a historical analysis of the current events in Kenya ought to […]
The posting has been light of light because of travel and a conference and the general need every so often to take a break. I will pick the pace back up soon. The Foreign Policy Association published my latest think piece last week, “South Africa's Magnificent Catastrophe,” in which I make some tentative (and merely suggestive) comparisons between […]
The Institute of War and Peace Reporting has a new series called Iraqi Women's Voices. The first one, also printed in the Middle East Times, is called “Life After the Islamic State,” about a woman whose Baghdad neighborhood, once secular and free of the Sunni-Shi’ite divide, fell under the sway of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. My […]
An editorial in today's Middle East Times nails it: And if indeed the president's concern is the Arab-Israeli dispute, then why the stops in four Gulf countries? Why the visits to Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia? It is interesting to note that those four countries share the same concerns over Iran's rising influence […]
Popular from Press
