internationalcalamitymiddleeast:
There is an interesting article that will be coming soon out by David Rohde, a Reuters columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author, next month in Foreign Policy Magazine. “The U.S. has drones that circle the world and take out people that we deem terrorists,” Rohde asserts in this interview.
I…
internationalcalamitymiddleeast:
I just watched ten minutes of Al-Jazeera and was reminded once again why NBC nightly news and other mainstream news channels in the United States are losing viewers. Turn on one of the channels in the U.S. at 5:30 and be prepared for a story about the economy, something boring Mittens Romney…
internationalcalamitymiddleeast:
There is an interesting article that will be coming soon out by David Rohde, a Reuters columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author, next month in Foreign Policy Magazine. “The U.S. has drones that circle the world and take out people that we deem terrorists,” Rohde asserts in this interview.
I…
internationalcalamitymiddleeast:
The U.S. pulled its diplomats from Syria today. The U.S. ambassador, Robert Ford, and his staff will now be working from Washington. It’s not the same as working from Syria, talking to the people and witnessing the events firsthand.
Moreover, shuttering the embassy’s doors sends the Syrian…
internationalcalamitymiddleeast:
How should the United States deal with a country that is in a transitional period yet the end point of the transitional period is beyond sight? Libya is a case where the old regime was forced out after a relatively quick war and a new, interim government was put in place largely with the…
internationalcalamitylatinamer:
As a sign of another thaw in the US’s strong-arm relations with Cuba, on March 21st Baltimore Washington International airports will begin servicing flights to the tiny communist island.
But don’t go out and buy your ticket just yet. The federal ban on travel to Cuba is still in effect,…
Back in the 1980’s, during a period the Japanese call the “bashing” (バッシング) period of U.S.-Japanese relations, Japan was the “China” of the day. Ezra Vogel published Japan as Number One in 1979, and you couldn’t find a politician out there that wasn’t afraid of losing jobs to the Japanese. Yet, at the same time, because of this perceived threat, there was a huge effort in America and Japan to create relationships and bonds that could take the relationship through the era of conflict. Tom Foley, Dennis Hastert, Norm Mineta…reading a list of people involved would be like creating a list of who’s who in politics for the last two decades.
Following Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko’s (DPJ) policy speech last night, blogs are lighting up with discussions on the proposed increase in the consumption tax from the current level of 5% to 10% (a rate still below the VAT and General Sales Tax rates of OECD countries) within the next four…
Last Friday, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko reshuffled the Cabinet just four and a half months into his Administration (Asahi Shimbun Article). Among the casualties are Ichikawa Yasuo and Yamaoka Kenji, who were both censored by the Upper House (the opposition’s technique du jour as CFR’s Sheila Smith explains here).
Will this reshuffle carry the Noda Administration and the DPJ into the next elections, which must be called by 2013?
Probably not, and here’s why.
internationalcalamitylatinamer:
In all the hyperbole about the terror of drug trafficking, Mexico is generally the country that comes to mind, and with good reason. In addition to abhorrently high murder rates, Mexico is one of the US’s main trading partners and a neighbor of a 2000 mile long border, therefore the stability and…
