The abrupt resignation, late last week, of the Obama Administration’s senior Middle East adviser Dennis Ross poses more of a problem for the President’s reelection campaign than it does for prospects of securing peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The “peace process”, after all, has long been dead; President Obama’s Special Envoy …
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Wilson Ramos’ Rescue by National Guard Underscores Venezuela’s Overdue Police Reform
Venezuela has reason to celebrate this morning, Nov. 12, after last night’s rescue of kidnapped baseball star Wilson Ramos. The Washington Nationals catcher, who had come home to play in the winter league, was abducted by gunmen at his mother’s home Wednesday night in Valencia, southwest of Caracas, in the first known kidnapping …
How Will China Respond to a New U.S. Military Presence in Australia?
U.S. plans to station troops in Australia to help counter China’s growing clout might be expected to provoke cries of indignation from Beijing. But the development, which President Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard are expected to formally announce on Nov. 17 during Obama’s visit to Australia, has thus far …
Thwarted at the U.N., Is Palestinian Leader Abbas Headed Off Into the Sunset?
President Mahmoud Abbas’ attempt to persuade the U.N. Security Council to admit a state of Palestine as a full member of the international body has, all too predictably, hit a wall. The technical U.N. committee to which the issue was referred , not surprisingly, failed to reach a consensus (because there’s no consensus among Council …
Greek Political Crisis Gets Animated
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Taiwan’s Next Media animators are on the case yet again. As Greece’s Socialists, led by outgoing Prime Minister George Papandreou, struggle to form a coalition government with the rival New Democrats, let this 1-minute primer set it all up for you. With …
U.N. Body Accuses Iran of Nuclear Weapons Research, But Can Military Action Stop Tehran?
The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog has finally lent its imprimatur to the suspicion that Iran is using its atomic energy program to put the means to build nuclear weapons within its reach. That’s the upshot of Tuesday’s report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran, making it the agency’s harshest finding yet on Iran’s …
To Help Dissident Artist Ai Weiwei Pay Tax Bill, His Supporters Try Microlending
Faced with a $2.4 million tax bill, Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei has begun to receive money from thousands of supporters in China—a surprising public rebuke to the official case against him. The campaign has drawn upon the large online following that Ai, 54, cultivated before his 81-day detention this spring. The …
Fukushima Women Demand Better Protection for Children Exposed to Radiation
The following is a guest post from TIME contributor Lucy Birmingham.
About 100 women from Fukushima, Japan, have started a week-long sit-in at a government office in Tokyo to demand greater protection for children affected by radiation. “Many children and their families are trapped in Fukushima because they can’t afford to
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Netanyahu’s Response to UNESCO’s Embrace of the Palestinians: Expand the Settlements
The government of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made its answer to Palestinian membership in UNESCO, and it’s an interesting one: Accelerating construction in the West Bank settlements.
Construction of some 2,000 housing units will be hastened to bring more Israelis onto Palestinian land captured by Israel in the 1967 …
Despite Mounting Bloodshed, Syria is Unlikely to See a Libya-style NATO Intervention
Seven months of often bitter fighting and up to 30,000 casualties notwithstanding, Libya’s civil war to end the regime of Col. Muammar Gaddafi was relatively easy for its regional and international stakeholder — at least it was when compared with the challenge of responding the increasingly bloody standoff in Syria. As the Arab League …
London Protestors 1 God 0: Anti-Capitalism Camp Scores PR Victory Against St Paul’s
The Church of England has had 468 years to work on its public relations strategy. The Occupy London protestors camped around St Paul’s Cathedral have had rather less time to perfect theirs. And when the two movements first collided on Oct. 15, it looked like experience would triumph over greenhorn enthusiasm. After the protestors’ …
Outsider Odds: Ireland’s Herman Cain No Longer a Cert for the Presidency
Until three days before the Oct. 27 ballot for the Irish presidency, Sean Gallagher’s 20-point lead looked unassailable. Then scandal blemished his campaign. It wasn’t your usual tawdry tale of a candidate who couldn’t keep it zipped—slacks or unwise opinions. Nor was it about venality in any direct sense. Gallagher doesn’t stand …
As Tunisia Counts its Votes, Can the West Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Islamists?
Tunisia’s election and Libya’s celebration of the overthrow of Col. Muammar Gaddafi won’t have made for a happy weekend among those fevered heads in Washington who believe the West is locked in an existential struggle with political Islam: If anything, the Islamist tones of the Libyan celebrations, coupled with the Islamist victory …