April 2010 - Foreign Policy Public Health Blog

Petraeus picks up coveted Daily Telegraph endorsement for 2012

Gen. David Petraeus has done about everything he can to dispel expectations that he's planning a presidential run for 2012, but some are still holding out hope. Toby Harnden, Washington correspondent for the Telegraph, for instance, still thinks the...

Published Mon, Apr 05 2010 9:06 AM by FP Passport

Morning Brief: U.S. consulate in Peshawar attacked

U.S. consulate in Peshawar attacked Top news: Militants attacked the U.S. consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan this morning, killing at least three people. The attackers first detonated car bombs outside a checkpoint near the consulate. Gunmen then fired mortars...

Published Mon, Apr 05 2010 5:59 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

Gamal Mubarak is trying to bamboozle you

The full article is not online, but Joshua Hammer's look at the upcoming presidential race in Egypt in the April 5 New Yorker has some interesting moments. Hammer spoke with a number of Egyptian insiders and well-known regime critics, as well as both...

Published Sun, Apr 04 2010 9:23 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Egypt

Friday photo: iDdiction

NEW YORK - APRIL 02: People wait in line (facing camera) outside the flagship Apple store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to purchase the iPad when it debuts tomorrow morning April 2, 2010 in New York City. Around ten people were already waiting in line...

Published Fri, Apr 02 2010 2:57 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Friday Photo

Will the real Rob Malley please stand up?

The news out of the Middle East today is that high-ranking former U.S. officials have been holding quiet talks with the Palestinian movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip. These contacts, which included the State Department's approval of a debate...

Published Fri, Apr 02 2010 1:27 PM by FP Passport

Your daily Yar'Adua death-watch update

For the last five months, it has been pretty much anyone's guess whether the Nigerian president, Umaru Yar'Adua, was alive , dead , or somewhere ambiguously in between . No one has seen him in public since November. But in the latest odd twist...

Published Fri, Apr 02 2010 10:56 AM by FP Passport

With Obama heading to Prague, still no U.S. ambassador

Next week, President Obama will head to the Czech Republic to sign the new nuclear arms reduction treaty with President Dmitry Medvedev. The location and date were chosen to mark the one-year anniversary of Obama's famous Prague speech calling for...

Published Fri, Apr 02 2010 10:41 AM by FP Passport

India's census: Michelle Bachmann's worst nightmare

Some fringier elements of the American right have lately come to the conclusion that the whopping ten questions on this year's U.S. census constitute some sort of flagrant and sinister invasion of privacy. I can only image what Michele Bachmann, Glenn...

Published Fri, Apr 02 2010 9:58 AM by FP Passport

Is Henry Kissinger lobbying for Rio Tinto in China?

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that in an effort to secure the release of four of its executives who were convicted on corruption charges in China last week, mining giant Rio Tinto has secured the services of a guy who knows a thing or two about making...

Published Fri, Apr 02 2010 9:22 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: China, Business

The transformation of Doku Umarov

Radio Free Europe's Liz Fuller has a useful profile of Doku Umarov, the Chechen rebel leader who has taken responsibility for this week's Moscow subway bombings. Most interesting is Umarov's evolution from a Chechen nationalist to Islamist...

Published Fri, Apr 02 2010 8:20 AM by FP Passport

Morning Brief: Hu to attend Washington summit

Hu to attend Washington summit Top news: Chinese President Hu Jintao has agreed to attend this month's nonproliferation talks in the United States after weeks of increasingly strained ties between Beijing and Washington. Hu's attendance of the...

Published Fri, Apr 02 2010 5:12 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

Obama cozying up to Cuba? Not so much.

The State Department was quick to portray Wednesday's meeting between Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton's powerful chief of staff, and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruni Rodriguez, as a big old nothingburger -- even though it was the highest-level contact...

Published Thu, Apr 01 2010 7:54 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Latin America, Obama Administration

My least favorite day

Not to dwell on my own gullibility over the Naomi Campbell thing, but I have to say that given the people involved, that story seems more believable than the idea of a sitting U.S. congressman earnestly asking a Navy Admiral whether he's worried that...

Published Thu, Apr 01 2010 2:07 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Media

Pirates choose the wrong boat to pick on

As if yesterday's insight into capturing pirates were an eerie premonition, the U.S. Navy today did exactly that: scooped up five pirates in a firefight . The pirates fired on the U.S. Ship, the USS Nicholas, and imagine the pirates' surprise...

Published Thu, Apr 01 2010 11:47 AM by FP Passport

Not-so-heartwarming story of the day

It's well known that America's immigration system has its problems. But the travails of 30 survivors of January's earthquake in Haiti may take the cake for complete ineptitude and inhumane treatment. In the wake of the complete devastation...

Published Thu, Apr 01 2010 10:46 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Disasters, North America, Justice, Migration/Immigration