January 2010 - Foreign Policy Public Health Blog

The lost Haitian revival

As Mark Goldberg writes for the Daily Beast , Haiti just can't catch a break. The country, which has been through years of war and upheaval, and remains woefully poor, yesterday was hit with a massive earthquake which has caused critical damage to...

Published Wed, Jan 13 2010 8:22 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Disasters

Fears about the United Nations mission in Haiti

Very troubling reports out of Haiti this morning. The earthquake struck near the country's main population center, Port-au-Prince, and its surrounding suburbs and slums. Elisabeth Debrosse Delatour, the first lady, said much of Port-au-Prince is destroyed...

Published Wed, Jan 13 2010 7:40 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Disasters, Latin America, International Relations

Morning Brief: Haiti devastated by massive earthquake

Haiti devastated by massive earthquake Top Story: The devastation is near total and the death count is thought to be in the thousands after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti yesterday. As many as 3 million people may have been affected by the quake...

Published Wed, Jan 13 2010 5:58 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

Beyond Google, a bigger China story

My colleagues here have been weighing in on Google's "bombshell" revelation that China has been spying on dissidents and human rights activists, trying to crack open their Gmail accounts, presumably with the aim of monitoring and disrupting...

Published Wed, Jan 13 2010 5:46 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Science & Technology, Diplomacy, East Asia, China, Freedom, Internet, Obama Administration, U.S. Foreign Policy

Google threatens to pull out of China

Last month Google's operations in China noticed that a sophisticated hacking operation had illegally attempted to access the records of dozens of targetted Gmail users -- specifically those of prominent human rights activists, based in China, Europe...

Published Tue, Jan 12 2010 8:50 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: East Asia, China

Massive quake rocks Haiti

Early this evening, a massive earthquake rocked Haiti, the United States' island neighbor to the south and, by far, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. The earthquake measured a 7.0 on the Richter scale and occurred close to the densely...

Published Tue, Jan 12 2010 7:07 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Latin America

Tuesday map: "______ spoken here"

This map from the Modern Language Association shows concentration of speakers foreign languages in the United States. The map above is Spanish but it will let you see anything from Armenian to Yiddish. You can look at individual states too. ( Hat tip...

Published Tue, Jan 12 2010 3:28 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Tuesday Map

White House foreign-policy speechwriter in the news

Today brings a good Washington Post style section profile of the White House's speechwriter on national security and foreign policy, Ben Rhodes, as well as his inaugural contribution to the blogosphere. Our parent publication describes Rhodes'...

Published Tue, Jan 12 2010 2:40 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: U.S. Foreign Policy

"El Qaeda" is nothing new

Last week, I complained that Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was using the drug bust of three African suspected al Qaeda members as proof of an alliance between al Qaeda and Colombia's FARC rebels when there weren't even actual FARC members...

Published Tue, Jan 12 2010 11:23 AM by FP Passport

Russian Communists: Ban Avatar!

U.S. conservatives have blasted James Cameron's blockbuster space epic Avatar for depicting U.S. marines as villains, others have critiqued it as a patronizing tale of a white American rescuing a native people from the ravages of imperialism, but...

Published Tue, Jan 12 2010 9:33 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Russia, Culture

What the heck is Cabinda?

In the the wake of last week's tragic attack on the Togolese soccer team at the Afrcia Cup of Nations tournament, Ethan Zuckerman provides some useful background on Cabinda, the fluke of a province where the attack took place: If the world’s media...

Published Tue, Jan 12 2010 8:56 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Africa

Freedom House: freedom declines again

Freedom House released its 2010 Freedom in the World survey, which sadly, shows overall freedom declining around the world for the fourth straight year. The report designates a total of 89 countries as free, 58 as partly free, and 47 as not free. Last...

Published Tue, Jan 12 2010 8:39 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Freedom

Morning Brief: On Pacific trip, Clinton downplays tension with Japan and China

On Pacific trip, Clinton downplays tension with Japan and China Top story: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is kicking off a nine-day tour of the pacific region with a meeting in Hawaii with her Japanese counterpart, Foreign Minister Katsuyo Okada....

Published Tue, Jan 12 2010 5:22 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

Jon Yoo on John Stewart, II

Well, I just watched John Yoo -- a member of the Office of Legal Counsel during the George W. Bush administration and the author of the infamous "torture memos" -- on John Stewart's The Daily Show . It was among the more excruciatingly awkward...

Published Mon, Jan 11 2010 9:16 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Terrorism, Bush's Legacy, Bush Administration

John Yoo on Jon Stewart, II

Well, I just watched John Yoo -- a member of the Office of Legal Counsel during the George W. Bush administration and the author of the infamous "torture memos" -- on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show . It was among the more excruciatingly awkward...