Recently, two major developments in Somalia and Djibouti have attracted international media attention. John Kerry became the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit Mogadishu, while China has negotiated the construction of a military base in the strategic port of Djibouti.
Hugh Gusterson is a professor of anthropology and sociology at George Mason University who’s also a columnist for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He recently wrote that efforts by the Obama Administration to reach a deal with the Rouhani Administration in Iran and bring the Iranian nuclear crisis closer to a closure are met […]
AP Photo: David Guttenfelder With the official death toll from Typhoon Haiyan topping 4,000 on Wednesday, nations from around the world are ramping up their efforts to help the Philippines deal with over 1,600 missing persons, 700,000 damaged houses and the nearly 10 million people affected. Australia, Britain and the U.S. have so far each […]
This weekend’s meeting in the California desert between a re-elected President Obama and his new Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, will likely leave a large imprint on one of the world’s most important relationships in the years to come. Though the six-plus hours of meetings spread over two days will be unscripted, one important topic of […]
In 2011, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and the BMW Group forged a partnership to create a new model for collaboration between the private sector and the UN. Founded in 2005 under the leadership of the Governments of Turkey and Spain with former Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the head of a group of experts, […]
“More than ever, foreign policy is economic policy. The world is competing for resources and global markets.” John Kerry Considering the positive trend of the past eighteen months, Somalia is en route to recovery, and, in due course, to re-engineer a better state from the ground up. The caveat being: in the long term, this […]
This last week I watched part of Niall Ferguson’s “Civilization: The West and the Rest” series, one of two video segments exploring aspects of Western culture that have set it apart from others. The show is visually rich, with splices of early 20th century footage and modern cityscapes, with Ferguson himself often on camera and […]
After more than a year of planning, much diplomatic hype, and thousands of attendees, last month’s UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro produced what one activist called a “failure of epic proportions.” The few agreements—including yet another “universal intergovernmental high level political forum” to talk some more—seemed to fall well short of the challenge […]
The following is a guest post by Director and Founder of the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD) Mark C. Donfried. Governments in the twenty-first century are faced with a variety of global security risks including terrorism, war and conflicts, stereotypes/ misconceptions and ideological conspiracies, to name but a few. These risks have manifested themselves in […]
The New York Times reported this morning that Secretary of Defense Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey voiced their concerns over a possible military operation in Syria. From the Times: General Dempsey and Mr. Panetta spoke two days after Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who lost to Mr. Obama in 2008, […]
In last evening’s Republican Debate, the issue of Iran’s attempt to develop fissile material for a nuclear weapon was brought up as it has been in most of the previous debates. To be certain, this is neither a Republican nor Democratic issue, but one of national security. One candidate posited that instead of typical American […]
UNITED NATIONS – On the final day of a three month deadline set by the Quartet – Brussels, Washington, Moscow and the UN – for Israelis and Palestinians to resume bilateral peace talks, Israeli attorney Daniel Seidemann convened an exclusive briefing with the UN Correspondents Association to unveil a grim message he will deliver to […]
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