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 …
The Euro Zone Crisis: Are the Merkozy Headed for Divorce?
The seamless partnership France and Germany forged in past weeks now shows signs of fraying as both countries spar over the role of the European Central Bank (ECB) and proposals to mutualize euro zone debt. By pooling financial liabilities and assets across the 17-nation euro zone, stronger nations like Germany and France could back …
Should World Soccer Chief Sepp Blatter Quit Over His Racism ‘Denial’?
Updated: Fri. Nov. 18, 4.45 a.m. ET
The irony was inescapable. FIFA President Sepp Blatter, a man who can’t seem to avoid controversy and spends much of his waking life shaking hands, has found himself at the center of a new imbroglio by suggesting that pressing the flesh was a suitable remedy for racial abuse. Specifically, he …
Fareed Zakaria: Time for China to Grow Up
In his column in this week’s issue of TIME magazine, Fareed Zakaria takes Beijing to task. China has been in the news this week on two different fronts: first, as a political brick likely hurled around during the upcoming U.S. Presidential elections and, second, as the often unspoken subtext behind much of President Barack Obama’s …
Why a Marathon Man Got Mocked: Venezuela’s Leftist Revolution Again Faces Anti-Semitism Questions
Few stories at this month’s New York City Marathon were as inspiring as Maickel Melamed’s. The 36-year-old Venezuelan man, born with a severe muscle-depleting condition that makes it difficult to move across a room let alone a 26-mile marathon course, finished the race in 15 hours and 22 minutes to “help people realize the things …
Storming Kuwait’s Parliament: What’s Behind the Latest Arab Revolt
The worldwide spread of protests this year may have started with the Arab spring, but when Kuwaiti demonstrators stormed their parliament on Wednesday, they appeared to be taking a page from the more theatric elements of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The protestors’ raid was brief. They called for the fall of the Prime …
The Whole World Watches Again: Occupy Wall Street Strikes Back
When New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg authorized the city’s police force to move in and bring an end to the near two month occupation of Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, he struck at the symbolic heart of a movement that, through the sheer fact of its presence, captured the imagination of thousands around the world. Bloomberg …
Obama in Indonesia: Will the President Speak Out on Human Rights?
Obama loves Indonesia. He lived there as a boy and returned, last year, as president of the United States. In his homecoming speech at the University of Indonesia he reminisced about the Jakarta of his youth, conjuring scenes of rice paddies and kites drifting on the breeze. “Indonesia is a part of me,” he mused, lauding the young …
The Syria Game of Thrones: Turkey vs. Iran vs. the Saudis in Battle to Shape a Rebellion’s Outcome
The Arab League called Wednesday for “urgent measures” to protect Syrian civilians in the face of violent repression by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. But lest anyone take that as an echo of the call that legitimized the NATO-led military operation in Libya, the League’s statement also rejected “all foreign intervention” …
“The Spring That Never Blossomed”: The Plight of Azerbaijan’s Dissidents
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These are heady days for the powers-that-be in the oil-rich Republic of Azerbaijan. The former Soviet satrap on the Caspian Sea recently was elected as a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. Better yet, its capital Baku will be hosting 2012’s …
Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga: Substance or Hot Air?
‘Tis the season. The season of talks on Afghanistan, that is. Two weeks ago it was Istanbul, where Afghanistan’s neighbors met to discuss their roles in the country’s stability going forward. Early next month it will be Bonn, Germany, where the rest of the world will convene to ask, again, “whither Afghanistan?” And today, …
Fayyad Reported Sidelined as a New Palestinian Political Era Emerges – Will Abbas Follow?
Once hailed by Western pundits as the technocrat-magician who would conjure a Palestinian state into being through irrepressible institutional competence, Salam Fayyad has been unceremoniously sidelined from his job as Palestinian Prime Minister according to a deal announced Tuesday — a sign of the collapse of the illusions …
A Chinese Peace Prize Names This Year’s Winner. Ummm, Vladimir Putin?
Guess who is this year’s messenger of peace? Why it’s Vladimir Putin. In September, an obscure Chinese cultural organization revealed the finalists for the second annual Confucius Peace Prize, an award that suddenly popped out of nowhere last year after imprisoned Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. The …