The Pope arrives in Cuba for his first visit to the country, where he will give Masses in Santiago de Cuba and Havana following a three-day tour in Mexico.
Mexico
Mexico’s Papal Visit: Will the Ruling Party Get a Benedict Blessing or Backlash?
If you were Mexico’s ruling party, and your presidential candidate was down by double digits in the polls three months before the election, you’d be looking for some divine help too. So President Felipe Calderón’s …
Must-Reads from Around the World: March 16, 2012
Learning More – New details have emerged about the U.S. Soldier who allegedly killed 16 Afghan civilians. The Telegraph reports the accused has hired attorney John Henry Browne, who is best known for his involvement in the …
Must-Reads from Around the World: February 16, 2012
Jobless Woes—Unemployment in the U.K. rose by 48,000 to 2.67 million in the three months to December, official figures show. The BBC reports that while this is the smallest increase in over a year, the country’s unemployment …
Must Reads from Around the World: Feb. 3, 2012
Al Shabaab Splintering – Foreign Affairs investigates the splintering of the al-Qaeda-linked militant group, al Shabaab, in Somalia and its potential fallout for the West. “In a sense, with the gains made in recent months, there …
Did a Gaddafi Scion Try to Enter Mexico?
TIME’S Dolly Mascareñas reports out of Mexico that Saadi Gaddafi, one of the sons of the late Libyan dictator, attempted to enter Mexico on Sept. 6 under the name Daniel Bejar. The Mexican government said Saadi Gaddafi’s wife and two daughters would have accompanied him. Mexican intelligence sources said they prevented them from using …
Five Faulty Foreign Policies from the GOP National Security Debate
As all surely expected from a field of candidates with little genuine foreign policy experience, a lot of silly things were said during last night’s GOP national security debate. Rick Santorum called Africa a “country.” Michelle Bachmann, who, as a sitting member of the House Intelligence Committee should know better, claimed …
Death of Danielle Mitterrand, Hailed Human Rights Activist (And François’ Wife, Too)
It might be inviting to react to the death of former French first lady Danielle Mitterrand as the closing of the historical book on the legacy of her husband, France’s late president François Mitterrand. That reading, however, would unfairly short-change both the impact that Madame Mitterrand herself had on public affairs, and her …
Is the Party of Mexico’s Old Dictatorship Poised to Return to Power?
It’s rarely a good sign for the leader of any country when his party loses a governor’s election in his home state less than a year before the next presidential election — especially when that party’s candidate is the president’s own sister. So while I was in Mexico City this week it was hard not to notice Mexican President …
Fast and Infuriating: America’s Cops Need to Be an Example for Mexico’s
This week the U.S. Senate voted 99-0 to ban future “gunwalker” operations like the Obama Administration’s “Fast and Furious” debacle. “Fast and Furious” was the well-intentioned but awfully executed program headed by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) in Arizona that let hundreds of …
As Assassination Plot Becomes a Sideshow, U.S.-Iran Tensions Hinge on the Nuclear Issue
A used car salesman, a Mexican narco snitch, and an Iranian spook walk into a bar. What is this, says the ex-CIA barman, some kind of a joke?
Let’s just say that the ostensibly Iranian plot to blow up Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington is not yet proving to be the smoking gun that allows the Obama Administration to rally …
Hiring Narcos to Murder the Saudi Ambassador? If It’s True, Tehran Is Pretty Dumb
If Iranian government operatives really did try to contract a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., as the Obama Administration alleges today, then they weren’t just being diabolical. They were being fairly stupid.
Granted, the Zetas – the drug mafia that Iranian-American Manssor Arbabsiar …
U.S. Drug Czar Responds to Global Spin: Legalization Is No “Silver Bullet”
In my Aug. 30 post, I posed two questions about the speech Mexican President Felipe Calderon gave on Aug. 26, a day after the massacre of 52 innocent people in a Monterrey casino set afire by drug-cartel gangsters. The first question: was Calderon, fed up with America’s “insatiable” demand for drugs, in effect telling the U.S. to …