If the dramatic advances in recent days that have taken opponents of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi toward — then into — Tripoli have thus far elicited only the most careful responses from tight-lipped Western leaders, there’s a good chance those officials are showing more emotion over the conflict, which is apparently nearing …
South Sudan? Where? Don’t ask Google Maps.
An excellent guest blog on how technology can struggle to keep up with giant human events, from TIME’s East Africa correspondent and Sudan specialist, Alan Boswell.
If a new country is born, and no one sees it online, does it really exist? More than a month after South Sudan’s independence, the new African nation is still not on …
Dilma Goes After Brazil’s Corruptos – Is the Rest of Latin America Following?
Brazilians sardonically refer to their often corrupt public bureaucracy as O Trem de Alegria, or The Joy Train. I’ve written about a number of the train’s happy passengers over the years, including the mayor of a small working-class town near Rio de Janeiro who jobbed the system so brazenly that he earned a $264,000 annual salary …
Couch Potato Briefing: From Brecht to Jackie Chan, Via ‘Game of Thrones’
Global Spin’s weekly list of five rental movies to bring you up to speed with the past week’s world events
Game of Thrones
Let’s start with the big picture, shall we? Things are falling apart, everywhere you look: Both the U.S. economy and Europe are crumbling, and with …
How European Leaders Are in the Same Boat as Obama When it Comes to Debt
A few of you, or at least your 401(k)s, may have noticed that financial markets plummeted again on Thursday. European markets closed at or near two-year lows across the board and the Dow closed down more than 400 points.
Asian markets Friday morning opened in the tank: the Nikkei index tumbling more than 2.5%, Sydney down 3.5%, …
Suicide Attacks in Kabul: a Sign of Things to Come?
When suicide bombers attack, the knee jerk response from officials in NATO and the U.S. Military is that the tactic is a sign of desperation and weakness, and that insurgents would only use it because they have exhausted all other alternatives. Well, it looks like the Taliban are getting pretty good at desperation. Friday morning’s …
Basketball Brawl Undermines Biden’s Diplomacy in China
When Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping welcomed his American counterpart Joe Biden to Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on his first visit to China in a decade, their remarks were distinctly parallel and overwhelmingly positive. “It is the joint desire of the people of China and the United States and elsewhere in the world to stay …
A Mideast Game of Thrones Threatens to Provoke a New Israel-Gaza War
Any reader of the George R.R. Martin Songs of Ice and Fire series (whose opening book, Game of Thrones, was turned into riveting television on HBO) might see a familiar pattern in the events that threaten to plunge the Israel-Gaza border into a new escalation of violence.
In Martin’s fantasy geopolitics, as in the real world, …
Cristina Fernández a Safe Bet to Continue As Argentina’s Leader – But Not Latin America’s
Like most Latin America correspondents, I’ve marked my calendar for October 23: Argentina’s presidential election. Then again, maybe I can just watch NFL games that day, since the race actually seems to have been all but decided last Sunday, Aug. 14. Argentina held its first (and compulsory) open primary voting; but since most …
What Was Behind the Attack in the Israeli Desert?
What headlines described as a terrorist attack in the desert just north of the Israeli resort city of Eilat was in fact a sustained assault, a complex military attack that included missiles, mortars, improvised explosive devices, small arms and, on the bodies of two of the seven assailants killed, explosive vests. Israeli security …
Prime Minister Obama: Would the U.S. Be Better Served by a Parliament?
Over at the GPS Blog, Fareed Zakaria asks a pointed and valuable question: “Does America need a Prime Minister?” Given the paralysis and farce that has gripped Washington in recent months, it’s worth considering. As Zakaria observes, presidential systems never resolve the “basic contest for legitimacy” between the power of the …
Somalia: A Very Man-Made Disaster
The difference between a drought and a famine is down to man. Texas is in the middle of its worst drought on record right now but cowboys aren’t starving – because Texas, and the US, have government and economy enough to ensure they don’t. Somalia doesn’t have any government worthy of the name and that’s one reason why persistent …
U.K. Hacking Scandal: A Hollywood Connection?
Writing about the smoking gun letter from the News of the World‘s former royal editor and convicted phone hacker Clive Goodman on Aug. 16, I observed that it was only a matter of time until Hollywood took an interest in the saga. That moment may have come even sooner than expected with the Aug. 18 arrest of James Desborough, who …