From Foreign Policy, The Terrorism Index: More than 100 of America’s most respected foreign-policy experts see a world that is growing more dangerous, a national security strategy in disrepair, and a war in Iraq that is alarmingly off course; it’s not easy representing one of the world’s most vulnerable nations. Not only must you confront such problems as endemic poverty, entrenched corruption, and ethnic violence, but you have to defend your government from ferocious criticism in the media. To get the other side of the story, FPTV sat down with ambassadors from seven of the worst-performing countries on the 2007 Failed States Index.
From American Diplomacy, a review of Divide and Perish: The Geopolitics of the Middle East by Curtis F. Jones. From TNR, why the U.S. must act in Darfur—right now. Forgotten: Despite years of war and now the looming threat of famine, Somalia’s desperate situation is largely ignored by the international community. A review of Timbuktu: The Sahara's Fabled City of Gold by Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle. The age of Google Earth is troubling for someone born with the explorer gene: A review of Lost Oasis: In Search of Paradise by Robert Twigger. A review of Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World by Stephen O'Shea.
From Dissent, Globalization's Mad Scientist: A review of The Rebel Within: Joseph Stiglitz and the World Bank; and Globalization and Its Discontents and Making Globalization Work by Joseph E. Stiglitz. Jeffrey Sachs on Breaking the Poverty Trap: Targeted investments can trump a region's geographic disadvantages. Poor’s for thought: Physicists help map out an answer to the big question: why are poor countries poor?
