Topics

The chap who deigned to take on the Bush Administration, refusing to kowtow to their demands that he provide evidence of Saddam Hussein’s imaginary nuclear weapons program, has published his memoir. In “The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times”, Mohamed ElBaradei, three-term Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), details his […]

I’d like to highlight three significant effects of the bin Laden killing.  First, as I noted last week, some people view the operation as precedential.  The first one I caught was from Knesset member, Shaul Mofaz, who took the opportunity to call for similar strikes on Hamas leaders.  Additionally, as David Karl of the FPA […]

After initial excitement, this moment of unity in the capture & killing of Osama bin Ladin registered as a momentary blip in Global Markets as investors worry about the immediate risk of a terrorist backlash and, more generally, the malaise of the US economy. Yet bin Laden’s death has the potential to become a focal point for the country, and for President Barack Obama in particular, if the spirit of unity & partisan cooperation can be translated into broad-based, bipartisan progress on economic issues such as re-employment, infrastructure investments, increased corporate spending of their HUGE profit margins, decreasing the Federal deficit & the National Debt levels that are central to the long-term economic health & prosperity of the nation, and the world.

Unemployment remains stubbornly high.

This morning on NHK TV, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku (the second-in-command in Japan’s civil service) said, “Our energy policy is to stick to nuclear power.” Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors are under review for safety in light of the Fukushima disaster, but apart from three reactors at the Hamaoka facility in central Japan, the […]

Today is a day to honor mother’s across the globe, women who give new life and hope to the world. Women who raise future leaders, raise the motherless child of another like their own, protect and shield children’s lives with no thought to themselves, and women who give their lives sacrificing all to see that […]

Tomorrow is Mother’s day and for many it means getting Mom a card, some flowers or a gift that show her how much we care and appreciate all she has done to make us the people we are today.  For mothers in developing countries it is also a day in which they most often reflect […]

Apologies for skipping out on my last post; I was on vacation in one (two, actually) of those places where there’s no Internet, no cell phones, and no TV, which is really the only way to get a vacation anymore.  Which means that I didn’t get any news about anything until Tuesday morning.  And now, […]

Yesterday, the price of crude oil dropped about 10%. This will not bring any immediately relief to motorists, nor does it mean that a bear market has started in the trading pits. The sell-off did not come from the killing of Usama bin Laden (or it would have happened on Monday), nor did any survey, […]

Beware of arguments like those offered in Jonathan Schanzer’s Weekly Standard article, “The Hamas-al Qaeda Alliance.”  The article was a response to the statement earlier this week from senior Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who condemned the bin Laden killing.  Schanzer essentially attempts to conflate al Qaeda and Hamas, writing that “over the course of two […]

I noticed that the first GOP debate of the election season is tonight and this report from the Council on Foreign Relations offers a fascinating overview of the traditional GOP view of the U.S. role in the world. Yes, I know that the Foreign Policy Association is not a partisan group and like all of […]

The use of child soldiers in armed conflict plagues our global society, as thousands of children continue to be recruited into armed conflict by both government forces and armed rebel groups in spite global efforts to combat the continued use of children. UNICEF estimates there are some 300,000 child soldiers actively fighting in at least […]

We are at war. Twelve new wars have broken out in the world since the dawn of the new millennium, including the United States’ war with Afghanistan, Iraq, and the even more recent civil wars in Libya and the Ivory Coast. So much global unrest is enough to make anyone uneasy, despite the recent death […]