Last month, I discussed Japan’s designation of Masuo Nishibayashi as Arctic Ambassador — the second Asian country to create such a position. While Japan joins Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Russia and Singapore as countries with Arctic ambassadors or equivalent positions, the United States still does not have a similar role. Canada once had an Ambassador […]
Japan has appointed an Arctic Ambassador, a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states. Masuo Nishibayashi is already the Ambassador in charge of Cultural Exchange, so he will now fill two roles simultaneously. Nishibayashi joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1983 and has spent most of his career in the Americas. He has […]
Give the people sports and they will forget all about politics. Such a maxim could be attributed to all manner of political figures from Commodus to Machiavelli. We can now add Kim Jong Un to that list after the North Korean leader welcomed former NBA weirdo Dennis Rodman to Pyongyang for a basketball game between […]
You might think most foreign policy wonks were looking forward to last night’s presidential debate but most I know were actually dreading it. It was well known that the difficult and pressing questions on foreign policy would not be asked, and to be honest, foreign policy requires far more nuance and complexity than can fit […]
Global Brief, Canada’s leading geopolitical magazine, asks four writers in different policy fields what they think key questions for the next U.S. president should be. Responses given by the four writers range from fiscal policy (M. Stabile) to the potential for a new war in the Middle East (M. Fitzpatrick), to approaches to Iran’s nuclear […]
Since coming into office as Secretary of State in 2009, Hillary Clinton has pushed an agenda of “21st Century Statecraft” to adapt foreign policy to the 21st century world. A major part of this agenda involves increasing and encouraging the use of connection technologies in foreign policy. The State Department is not alone in this […]
Formal diplomatic relations between Iran and Canada were developed in the late 1950s. As with most relationships, they have experienced their share of ups and downs. While the international community, mainly through the United Nations, mollified many of the pair’s issues over the years, the duo’s fragile relationship reached a breaking point on September 7, […]
Call it the century of African women! First, there was the Nobel winner Ma Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the current president of Liberia. Then, there was the grassroots women’s rights activist Joyce Hilda Banda, who was sworn in April 2012 as the president of impoverished Malawi after the death of wa Mutharika . And now, the […]
On Thursday, the Canadian House of Commons held a 24-hour session to vote on the 2012 federal budget. After members listened to the over 800 proposed amendments, they finally voted in favor of passing the budget. It will now move on the the Senate, where it will almost inevitably pass. One of the notable cuts […]
Grumbles have been filtering out lately, from the CIA and other agencies running covert ops, that The Rule is lately being violated, sacrificed to the needs of self-promoting administration officials (Leon Panetta? 60 Minutes?) who simply cannot keep their mouths shut, cheerleaders jazzed by pre-election jitters who rush to claim kudos for their boss via contacts with the mainstream press–oblivious to the blowback suffered by US intelligence or the foreign nationals who do risk, despite the financial benefits, prison sentences or execution on their own turf.
Such is the case with Shakil Afridi, the 48 year old Pakistani physician recruited and paid (well, no doubt) by the CIA to help in the identification of Osama bin Laden prior to the assault on the dictator’s compound by US special forces. Clearly, Afridi did the US a great service. And the mainstream press recognizes this, all, without exception, on fire with righteous indignation about Pakistan’s decision to allow Afridi to be tried in Pakistan for treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison.
Isn’t Pakistan our friend?
Grow up…
Iran today is well-positioned to leverage the Arab world’s difficult political transition to religious-based politics and influence this transition to suit its geopolitical interests. After a 15-month hiatus marked by mutual distrust and reciprocal accusations of insincerity to negotiate, on April 14 Istanbul hosted a new round of negotiations between Iran and the world’s major powers […]
The following is a guest appearance by Lawrence J. Korb, a Senior Fellow at American Progress. Mr. Korb is also a senior advisor to the Center for Defense Information and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Mr. Korb was also assistant secretary of defense during the administration of President Reagan. The following originally appeared in […]
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