In an interview with Bob Schieffer on CBS’s Face the Nation this Sunday, Colin Powell expressed no regret for endorsing Barack Obama in the 2008 election. Although the president might have taken on too much too soon during the first year of his administration, the country, said Powell, is not less safe. According to the […]
Europe may be reluctant to embrace Turkey but the country is well underway to establishing itself as a regional power. As a gateway to the West, it engages with nearby Middle Eastern states, signing free-trade agreements with Egypt, Israel, Morocco and Tunisia. It is currently in negotiations with the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, to […]
Russell Roberts and Marta Mossburg discuss the growth of crony capitalism.
The governing coalition in the Netherlands was brought down Saturday, unable to bridge a divide between Christian Democrats and socialists over whether or not to keep forces in Afghanistan after 2010. For the fouth time, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende had to announce that a government of his had come to its end prematurely. His […]
Euroskepticism is abound anew. Where previously economist Paul Krugman argued that Greece could have weathered its fiscal crisis if it had retained its own currency, Judy Dempsey reports that Germans are increasingly nostalgic for their Deutsche Mark. “For Germans,” writes Dempsey, “the mark was more than just currency.” It represented the country’s postwar recovery, the […]
Housing is too dependent on government.
On the eve of the Conservative Political Action Committee gathering in Washington DC this Wednesday, over eighty conservative leaders led by former US Attorney General Edwin Meese unveiled a manifesto reaffirming the principles of what they call “constitutional conservatism.” The Mount Vernon Statement is a twenty-first century appreciation of the conscience of America’s Founders. The […]
The Pentagon confirmed on February 16 what Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn had announced the day before — that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program will be delayed with approximately one year. The delay is due to the integration of additional test craft that were mandated under an aggressive restructing of the program initiated earlier […]
Excessive government spending, nor European integration, is responsible for Greece’s debt crisis.
“Prejudice and discrimination still sit, defeated, dormant, or virulent, somewhere in the soul of each white man in this country.” So said MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on his show Countdown last Monday. Racism, apparently, still lives in America. Discrimination is still all around us in so many ways, openly re-directed toward immigrants who are doing nothing […]
On The Daily Beast former New York Times columnist and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations Leslie H. Gelb suggests that Barack Obama “desperately needs a sweeping staff shakeup to save his presidency.” Gelb is most concerned about White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel who, although “a terrific political mind”, lacks the […]
American secretary of state Hillary Clinton suggested in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Monday that Iran is sliding into a military dictatorship. The country’s Revolutionary Guard, she said, is gaining influence “across all areas of Iranian security policy, and certainly nuclear policy is at the core of it.” The United States propose sanctions therefore, specifically aimed […]
After The New York Times revealed on Saturday that Wall Street banks helped Greece keep its mounting debt off the books for many years, Edward Hugh at A Firstful of Euros explains how shady financial constructions allowed several European governments to hide part of their financial trouble. Eurostat, the EU’s agency for statistics, has been […]
The Israeli prime minister met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to discuss Middle East peace and Iran’s nuclear program.
In an interview with Piers Morgan broadcast on ITV1 last Sunday, British prime minister Gordon Brown spoke openly about the death of his daughter Jennifer, his son Fraser who suffers from cystic fibrosis, and the leadership deal that was struck with Tony Blair. More than four million Britons watched the show. With his wife Sarah […]
