Foreign Policy Public Health Blog

Israeli press: Will Obama seek payback against Netanyahu?

Stalled budget negotiations and Benjamin Netanyahu's extension of the timeline for striking Iran's nuclear facilities have the Israeli press speculating that the Israeli prime minister will call early elections in February or March (they're...

Published Tue, Oct 02 2012 11:30 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Election 2012, 2012 Election Poster 1, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama

Morning Brief: U.S. no longer seeking Taliban peace deal

U.S. no longer seeking Taliban peace deal Top news: Top U.S. military officials acknowledged that they no longer expect to reach a negotiated settlement with the Taliban, one of the cornerstones of the U.S. exit strategy in Afghanistan. American commanders...

Published Tue, Oct 02 2012 5:47 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

Former Maldives president skips trial and evades 'island arrest'

The recently deposed president of Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed was scheduled to be tried Monday, Oct. 1, under charges of abuse of power. Instead of making an appearance, he skipped his trial and left in a fishing boat to campaign for the upcoming 2013 election...

Published Mon, Oct 01 2012 3:03 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Law, Politics, Elections, South Asia, Democracy

The world leader endorsement tally

I think we can add Hugo Chavez to the list of Obama endorsements that Ohioans won't be seeing in the president's campaign ads: "If I were American, I'd vote for Obama," Chavez said in a televised interview that aired Sunday. The...

Published Mon, Oct 01 2012 12:06 PM by FP Passport

Foreign-policy pivot: Romney pens op-ed as new ads attack Obama over Libya

Three weeks after the deadly assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi the Republicans appear to be pivoting -- however gingerly -- back to foreign policy, amid a steady drumbeat of reporting and commentary on the Obama administration's delay in characterizing...

Published Mon, Oct 01 2012 8:33 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama

Ikea airbrushes women out of Saudi catalog

The Swedish Wire blog explains : Ikea's catalog is printed in 198 million copies and looks almost the same in 27 languages and in 38 countries. With one big exception. In the Saudi Arabian version of the catalog almost all women have been erased,...

Published Mon, Oct 01 2012 7:48 AM by FP Passport

Morning Brief: U.S. casualties in Afghanistan reach 2,000 amid new attacks

U.S. casualties in Afghanistan reach 2,000 amid new attacks Top news: A suicide bomber dressed in an Afghan police uniform killed three NATO soldiers and at least a dozen Afghan police officers and civilians in the southeastern town of Khost on Monday...

Published Mon, Oct 01 2012 5:42 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

Yemen's president warns of a civil war 'worse than Afghanistan'

Yemen's President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi warned in an interview Saturday that his country, still reeling from the popular uprising that ousted his predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh, risks a descent into a civil war "worse than Afghanistan"...

Published Sat, Sep 29 2012 11:37 AM by FP Passport

Did candidate Obama call world leaders in 2008?

Friday ushered in a surreal new chapter in the duel between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney over how to approach relations with Israel and Iran's nuclear program, as both candidates hopped on phone calls with Benjamin Netanyahu a day after the Israeli...

Published Fri, Sep 28 2012 3:30 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Election 2012, 2012 Election Poster 1, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama

Yemeni president: I love drones

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. this afternoon, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi of Yemen expressed unwavering support for the controversial CIA drone...

Published Fri, Sep 28 2012 2:38 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: al Qaeda, Iran, Arab World, Yemen

The Election 2012 Weekly Report: UNGA-bunga party

Autumn in New York Both candidates were in New York earlier this week as world leaders gathered for the U.N. General Assembly. In his address to the General Assembly on Tuesday, Barack Obama defended the principle of free speech following this month's...

Published Fri, Sep 28 2012 1:41 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Election 2012, 2012 Report

New poll: Iran considered far and away America's #1 geopolitical foe

This year's presidential election has featured a long-running feud about which countries represent America's most dangerous foes ( Iran? Russia? China? ) and most treasured allies ( Great Britain? Israel? ) -- and how to characterize nations that...

Published Fri, Sep 28 2012 12:00 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Election 2012, 2012 Election Poster 1

NYC’s transit authority changes advertising standards in wake of anti-Islam ads

The New York Times reported today that New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority voted 8-0 to change its rules on what advertising it will accept after the furor created by Pamela Geller's anti-Islam ads. Geller, executive director of the...

Published Fri, Sep 28 2012 9:28 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: North America, Islam

On Libya, has Romney learned to hold his fire?

Earlier this month, when Mitt Romney swiftly denounced President Obama's handling of the attacks on U.S. missions in Egypt and Libya as news of the deadly Benghazi assault was still developing, the Republican challenger was showered with criticism...

Published Fri, Sep 28 2012 9:05 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Election 2012, Mitt Romney

Iranian news agency falls for Onion story, plagiarizes it

Readers of Iran's official FARS News Agency encountered a surprising headline today -- "Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama": TEHRAN (FNA)- According to the results of a Gallup poll released Monday, the overwhelming majority...

Published Fri, Sep 28 2012 7:42 AM by FP Passport