A majority of people around the world favour strengthening the United Nations to increase its role in peacekeeping, fighting terror and in stopping nuclear proliferation, a new survey has found, and an interview with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Who will win in the 21st century? In the IMD's World Competitiveness Yearbook, the US came in first once again. But other nations are closing the gap. Farmers in Kenya, Burkina Faso and Senegal used to be able to make ends meet. Today they have trouble selling their goods because of subsidized exports from industrial nations that are sold in Africa at dumping prices. But will the West ever change? A review of Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil by Nicholas Shaxson. An interview with John Ghazvinian, author of Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil.
From Foreign Policy, a look at the fast-growing faiths that are upending the old world order. An ability to absorb conflict: A review of India after Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha. Martha Nussbaum on The Clash Within: The frictions that erode democracies are not between civilizations, but within ourselves. The experience of India is instructive, and deeply worrisome. Is freedom failing? Peter Beinart investigates. An ominous arrest in Iran: The unjust detention of an Iranian-American academic shows Ahmadinejad to be his US antagonists' doppelganger.
Shlomo Ben-Ami on America’s suicidal statecraft. What price slaughter? In New York and Jalalabad, human life is valued differently — by the US government. Interventionism's Last Hold-Out: Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi exile who convinced many liberal interventionists to support the war, now stands alone in saying invasion was the right decision.
Form Truthout, Dean Baker on the economic costs of the Iraq War. Blowing Off the War: Paul Waldman on how conservatives know virtually nothing about Iraq or the Walter Reed scandal if they get their news from right-wing media. But they do know that Democrats are to blame. While Republicans try to figure out how to end their war, Democrats should begin thinking about how to secure some peace. That means pursuing Mid-East diplomacy themselves. Branding the Democrats: Staring down the president on the firing of U.S. attorneys sends a message of Democratic toughness. And an interview with anti-war Republican Rep. Wayne Gilchrest on Iraq, the Bush administration, and the "dissolving" GOP
