Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon spoke to Channel 2 on Saturday about the meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama, held earlier this week, saying that Israel's government will not allow the U.S. to dictate its policy, and that "settlement construction will not be halted."
Former US President Bill Clinton has been
named by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as his special UN envoy to Haiti. Clinton will reportedly travel to the country at least four times a year.
“[It’s] an opportunity to bring in resources to address the economic insecurity that plagues Haiti,” says Brian Concannon, a human rights lawyer who works extensively in Haiti.
WASHINGTON - While reaffirming the "special relationship" between their two countries, U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared unable to bridge major differences in their approaches to Iran and Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts following their White House meeting here Monday.
Here's the CIA's briefing memo for President Obama, in preparation for his talk with Benjamin Netanyahu -- in my fantasy. If the CIA was really giving the president the information he needs, it would read something like this:
Mr. President:
The Israeli Prime Minister will tell you that he wants the Palestinians to have their own state. He'll also give you a laundry list of reasons why it can't happen yet, and not for a long time. You should ignore all that subterfuge and focus on what really matters -- what Netanyahu is thinking but not saying.
Almost a year after Hurricane Hanna slammed into Haiti, the memory stops her cold.
Gracieuse Marius, a nurse, had huddled inside until the floodwaters subsided in the city of Gonaives, then she raced into the streets to find someone to save. Instead, she was confronted with silence: Cars, trees, and dead animals floated in the water. She still cannot bring herself to talk about the children.
Last Thursday, in what was billed as his very first on-the-record address, Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, spoke to the 2009 Soref Symposium organized by the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy. WINEP, of course, is the chief thinktank for the Washington-based Israel lobby.
And in his talk, Gen. Dayton delivered an important warning.
Three years ago I wrote an article
arguing that the political changes sweeping across Latin America were
epoch-making and probably irreversible, and that they would
fundamentally alter the relationship between the region and the United States.
Some of the most important economic causes of the region's shift to the
left - including the unprecedented long-term growth failure since 1980
- were unrecognised then and remain mostly unacknowledge
WASHINGTON - Despite an overhaul of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, it appears that the U.S. strategy there is running into obstacles as varied as the U.S. Congress and the leaders of those countries, who are both visiting Washington this week.
Before their arrival, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan were harshly criticised as incapable of acting as counterparts to boosted U.S. efforts to put down insurgencies in their countries, with their strategic priorities of fighting extremism and sound long-term development.
There have been hints in the press that the Obama Administration has
been considering conditioning U.S. aid to Israel on a real freeze of
Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank. There's a conventional
wisdom that suggests that doing this would touch a "third rail of
politics." But the conventional wisdom might not have been accurate;
if it once was accurate, it might not be accurate any more.
HAVANA - Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Thursday derided U.S. steps towards improving relations with the communist island, saying the United States wants Cuba to act like a slave willing to "accept again the whip and the yoke."
The 82-year-old Castro, writing in a column published on the Internet, said "the adversary should never be under the illusion that Cuba will surrender."
