WPR Blog Archive

Alex Harrowell of AFOE isn’t the only person concerned about the recent resurgence of reactionary xenophobia in Italy. Recently a research fellow from a French think tank I was speaking to drew a direct link between European immigration policies and the “Clash of Civilizations” scenario. He made particular mention of Italy, and called what’s going on there “very disturbing.” Harrowell argues that the European Commission should make itself heard, along the lines of its official sanctions against Austria for admitting an extreme right party to its coalition government. This could be an opportunity for Nicolas Sarkozy to pivot back to […]

Nouriel Roubini’s RGE Monitor Newsletter explains the outlook for oil prices. While it looks like rising prices may be beginning to affect demand in developed economies, that demand slowdown may take a long time, and emerging-market demand may offset it: There may be signs that high oil and product prices are having an effect though, at least in industrialized countries, which still account for the bulk of demand. U.S. imports of crude oil have been falling for several weeks and gasoline purchases are being watched closely for any decreases. Yet the recent output increase from Saudi Arabia is all bound […]

The U.K.’s Telegraph speculates that McCain’s consideration of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal as a running mate is at least in part aimed at countering the “diversity” argument for Barack Obama as the first African-American president. Jindal would be the first Asian-American on a presidential ticket, the Telegraph points out, although the British paper’s assertion that Jindal might have some effect on African-American support for Obama seems a stretch. As World Politics Review contributor Turna Ray noted in February, however, a Jindal selection would no doubt please India. Ray noted then that the Times of India and other Indian papers had […]

WASHINGTON D.C. – Financial, FATA and fuel security concerns dominated Congressional foreign policy committee meetings this week – no surprise, given the dismal economic and political news simultaneously coming out of Wall Street and Islamabad. The House Committee on Foreign Affairs began the week with a hearing to determine the full impact of sovereign wealth funds and, according to Chairman Howard L. Berman, “the power that these massive funds may have over U.S. national security interests.” But contrary to Berman’s opening remarks, the experts seemed to agree that SWFs are symptomatic of U.S. economic downturn, if not a changing world […]

I’m not sure I’ll have a chance to post again beforehand, so for any Sirius Satellite Radio listeners, I’ll be appearing on The Blog Bunker this Tuesday, May 27, from 5:30-6pm.

In case you haven’t noticed the front page, WPR has got a pretty solid one-two punch of must read articles today. The first, by Charles Crain, discusses the ways in which the Obama-McCain dust up over negotiating with enemies like Iran is divorced from the reality that we’re already negotiating with enemies like Iran. The second, by Brian Burton, dissects the ways in which the consensus view of Iran as the source of all the Middle East’s problems is divorced from the reality that the Middle East is the source of all the Middle East’s problems. I’d been meaning to […]

Three opinion columns in the People’s Daily Online pretty much run the gamot of the takeaway from the response to the Sichuan earthquake: Chinese pride, international solidarity, and finally pan-Chinese solidarity (Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc.). I don’t think there’s anything cynical about noting that this is about the best possible narrative that could have come out of the enormous catastrophe, mainly because however much it serves the interests of the Chinese government, it also serves the interests of humankind as well. Frankly, if we couldn’t pull together around something of this magnitude, there wouldn’t be much hope left. The only […]

Two posts over at Fairer Globalization discuss the impact of ethics on consumer choices, and the role of principles in corporate practices. The latter identifies four explanations for a growing trend on the part of globalized businesses to “over comply” with ethical practices: privatization, globalization, NGO oversight/consumer activism, and the rise of socially responsible investing. All of those fit under the umbrella of increased public awareness, whether of the globally borne costs of development (ie. climate change) or of the local impact of particular companies’ practices. It’s another example of how globalization is inseparable from the information revolution that has […]

Yesterday’s daylong nationwide transport workers strike in France was a qualified success for the unions, who achieved their goal of putting half a million people in the streets. But as Libération explains, it won’t be very easy for them to convert their show of force into a unified stance. To begin with, they remain divided amongst themselves about the ongoing reform of the “special regimes.” A few militant unions are pushing to return them to 37.5 years of contribution for a full pension, some are okay with where things stand now (re-aligned with the general retirement system of 40 years […]

What’s it like being a harmless tourist in Iran? Judging by this post at the Lowy Interpreter, it sounds like a weird cross between a police state and Footloose. I’ve always felt that the fatal flaw of theocracy is that, by criminalizing human nature, it subverts the legitimacy of its own authority. Most people want to follow the rules. The two sure ways of keeping them from doing that is to make the rules so cumbersome that it pays to break them (e.g. French labor laws), or else by defining infractions so broadly as to include people in the criminal […]

A Fistful of Euro’s P O Neill raises a good point about who is really involved in a “peace deal”: When a long running conflict is finally brought to “closure”, is the deal only an arrangement between elites on each side? The question is prompted by the Northern Ireland peace process, where great progress in reducing violence and devolving powers has not been matched by more harmonious relations at the community level. He (or she, there’s no bio) draws a comparison to the Middle East, suggesting that one internal contradiction of the Bush democracy promotion agenda (besides the fact that […]

The EU member states just greenlighted the opening of negotiations for a new cooperative framework agreement between the EU and Russia. The talks had been blocked less than a month ago at the EU foreign ministers’ summit by Lithuania, which had several outstanding grievances against Moscow, including resumption of interrupted oil deliveries. Those disputes have been included in the mandate of issues to be resolved in the new negotiations, which (barring any surprises) will open next month at the EU-Russia summit. That the negotiations’ opening rounds will take place under the French EU presidency is a stroke of luck, because […]

The amount of progress that’s been made since last November on the Turkish-PKK conflict is impressive, and worthy of mention. Yesterday, the Prime Minister of the Kurdish Regional Government, Nechirvan Barzani, had this to say about stopping PKK attacks originating from Iraqi territory to Turkish reporters while in Washington: Turkey’s demand — asking our territory not to be used against Turkey — is a just and righteous one. This from the nephew of KRG President Massoud Barzani, who up until a few months back was threatening to bring the fight to Ankara. PM Barzani also said of the Kirkuk referendum: […]

Nikolas Gvosdev has a provocative post, titled The Gamble, in which he suggests that there might be an “expectations gap” between what a new American administration is willing to offer and what the world is hoping for: . . .[W]hat I think might end up occurring is that a new U.S. administration might be prepared to offer something that would have been acceptable in 2002 or 2003 but that by 2009 may seem insufficient — so I do think that there is a clear “expectations gap”, certainly in the trans-Atlantic relationship. It bears watching, and it means that we need […]

WASHINGTON – Derailing counterinsurgents in Pakistan and combating the state’s narcotics enterprises remain two of the largest obstacles to peace and stability in Afghanistan, and the solutions to these problems might not arrive for years to come, Jeremy Shapiro, director of Research at the Brookings Center on the United States and Europe, said at a May 21 briefing here sponsored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “The first goal from the U.S. and European perspective is to ensure Afghanistan isn’t a source of instability for the world,” Shapiro said. “The military on the ground sees it this way, and they see […]

Last week the U.N. Security Council approved a peacekeeping operation for Somalia. It’s the first step to actually deploying troops to the region. There are huge hurdles, of course. The last time the U.N. tried to intervene in the mostly ungoverned country, 18 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Somalis died in the Battle of Mogadishu. It’ll be an uphill fight getting donor nations to pony up forces after that. But the African Union force in Mogadishu has proved that peacekeeping can work in Somalia. The A.U. has shown that it’s vital for peacekeepers to be perceived as neutral parties in […]

The anti-immigrant violence in South Africa highlights some of the problems for intra-African trade that I mentioned last week at On Political Risk. Mob violence has killed at least 20 in and around Johannesburg as violence against immigrants continues to spread. Tensions have been high for years in South Africa’s poorer neighborhoods, where those with next to nothing fear that immigrants with nothing are getting jobs that should go to South Africans. The official unemployment rate is 23 percent, inflation is rising, access to medical care is low, and housing conditions are abysmal. But compared to neighboring Zimbabwe this looks […]