Latest posts
Europe’s Ghosts
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The struggle to keep the Eurozone intact threatens the future of a united Europe. It is not, however, the only threat the EU faces, and perhaps not even the primary one. Robert Kaplan, in a new essay (“Europe’s New Map” for The...
Le 9 mai
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Even though we are still commemorating great political, social and military achievements, their meanings and symbolisms are fading away. History is all around us, is present and shapes our lives everyday, but remains unknown and too often misundersto...
Farewell My Lady
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Margaret Thatcher, also known as the Iron Lady, has died on April 8th. The media and think tank planets have not missed the occasion to discuss her policies, attitudes and legacies. I will neither write an obituary nor a commentary on Ms. That...
An intimate conversation with HR Ashton
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Several weeks ago, HR Ashton, EU foreign policy chief, announced that she will be done at the end of her mandate in 2014. In an interview – posted below – orchestrated by Steven Erlanger, Paris Bureau Chief of the New York Times, and orga...
Brave New Bailout
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Writing in 1931, Aldous Huxley used Cyprus as the setting for a social experiment gone wrong in his dystopian novel “Brave New World.” The experiment had failed and sent a warning to future generations regarding excessive social tampering...
Why Cyprus Matters
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To American policymakers working through the sequester, Cyprus’ 10 billion euro bailout must sound like a rounding error. Context is key: the amount equals nearly half of Cyprus’ annual GDP. Euro-watchers first warned that the disjointed...
Reflections on Cyprus, Iran, Syria, and President Obama’s trip to Israel
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On March 22, 2013, WVUM, the student radio of the University of Miami, invited me into its station in order to discuss the mess taking place in Cyprus. Despite talking for almost 15 minutes on the roots of the crisis in Cyprus and the ECB’s ult...
Camp 14: Total Control Zone (2012)
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What could be worse than living in a North Korean labor camp? Apparently, not much. This documentary centers mainly on Shin Dong-Huyk, an inmate who escaped Camp 14 and who now lives in South Korea. The tale he tells is horrific: beatings, torture, h...
Israelis Show the Truth about Obama
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Up until President Obama touched down in Tel Aviv earlier this week, the headlines roared for years about new tensions between the United States and Israel, not to mention the sour relationship between bout countries’ head of state. During the...
The Asia Pivot Has Credibility Problems
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Tom Donilon, the U.S. national security advisor, was at the Asia Society in New York last week to talk (transcript here; video here) about the Obama administration’s effort to shift Washington’s strategic focus away from the military quag...
On the Road to Pemex Reform
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President Enrique Peña Nieto has mounted an assault against Mexico’s entrenched monopolies over the past two months. He first took on the teachers union, then the telecoms, explaining his aim was to “transform the country, not just...
For Russia, it’s a Permanent Naval Port in Cyprus, Stupid!
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The eurozone crisis is back on the international agenda with a very serious crisis unfolding in Cyprus right now. Some Wall Street investors might argue just in time to pull the rising U.S. stock market indices — the Dow Jones hit an all...
Iraq, Stalingrad, Gettysburg and the Limits of Remembrance
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“Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,” exclaims Shakespeare’s Henry V in his fervid St. Crispian’s day speech on the eve of the battle of Agincourt in 1415. In the observance of this month’s 10th anniversary of the i...
Testimony at Congress Raises Awareness on the Persecution of Bahá’í’s in Iran
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On Friday, March 15 Kenneth E. Bowers, Secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States, testified at a hearing of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (TLHRC). The hearing featured testimony on the current sta...
The Day the Terminator Walked into the Embassy
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After nearly two decades of conflict, the Democratic Republic of the Congo makes a regular appearance in international news. The most recent chapter of the story is the conflict between the Congolese government and the M23 rebel group which started i...
The Congo and Why Obama Should Repudiate Clinton Policies
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by S.N. Sangmpam One item that dominated American politics after President Obama’s re-election was the opposition by Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham to Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., as Obama’s presumptive...
The European Game of Thrones
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Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, called it quite. They both announced in a matter of days that they would retire from their respectiv...
A Lesson in Alternative History from Tony Blair
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Although Tony Blair has “long since given up trying to persuade people [that the Iraq War] was the right decision,” he has found a convenient new way to justify it in time for the 10th anniversary of the invasion. According to Blair, sinc...
The Northern Sea Route: An Iceland-China Link
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Coming on the heels of a UCLA study reporting that new trans-Arctic routes could be open to shipping by mid-century, Huigen Yang, the Director Polar Research Institute of China, met with Iceland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, &O...
The 19th Knesset is Formed, at Great Cost to the 20th Knesset
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This week Benyamin Netanyahu built a coalition, securing himself a third term as Israeli Prime Minister. He will shortly become the longest serving Prime Minister of Israel since David Ben Gurion. While his retention of this top spot was all b...
