Foreign Policy Public Health Blog

Our favorite Rick Santorum moments

Rick Santorum announced today that he is ending his campaign for president, which will spare him the possible humiliation of losing his home state of Pennsylvania to Mitt Romney at the end of this month. Credit where it's due, the former senator ran...

Published Tue, Apr 10 2012 12:09 PM by FP Passport

Did Italy pay off the Taliban?

The Times makes a very serious allegation against the Italian government today in a piece suggesting that the Italian secret service had been secretly paying Taliban leaders to keep an area it was patrolling quiet. Worse, they reportedly didn't tell...

Published Thu, Oct 15 2009 8:05 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Europe, Afghanistan

Finland makes broadband access a legal right

Finnish citizens now have a legal right to broadband access: very person in Finland (a little over 5 million people, according to a 2009 estimate ) will have the right of access to a 1Mb broadband connection starting in July. And they may ultimately gain...

Published Thu, Oct 15 2009 9:11 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Internet

Is George Clooney helping?

George Clooney's "anti-genocide paparazzi" seems to be dominating nearly every transmission coming out of South Sudan this week. Clooney, along with the Enough Project, Harvard researchers, and some of his wealthier Hollywood friends have...

Published Mon, Jan 10 2011 10:35 AM by FP Passport

The buck stops with Bibi

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted his pay slip on Facebook today, in what his office is billing as a step forward for government transparency. The picture reveals that Netanyahu makes approximately $120,000 a year, significantly less than...

Published Mon, Jan 10 2011 11:07 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Middle East, Israel/Palestine

The Election 2012 Weekly Report: Dark Days

"Spiking the football" As expected, President Barack Obama 's campaign is fully capitalizing on the killing of Osama bin Laden in his reelection pitch. An ad released on the one-year anniversary of the Abbottabad raid features former President...

Published Fri, May 04 2012 12:03 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Election 2012, 2012 Report, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama

Why China Refuses to Arrest its 'Most Wanted' Dissidents

Wu'er Kaixi is homesick. Wu'er, an exiled Chinese dissident and the "second most wanted" man among the student activists of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, has tried to turn himself in to the Chinese government four times. Each time...

Published Mon, Nov 25 2013 10:21 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Human Rights, East Asia, China, Politics

Could Zimbabwe be the next Myanmar?

Yesterday, I had the chance to speak with David Coltart, Zimbabwe's Minister of Education, Sport, and Culture. A human rights lawyer who campaigned against the regimes of Ian Smith and Robert Mugabe, Coltart was a founding member of the Zimbabwe's...

Published Tue, May 22 2012 1:37 PM by FP Passport

Could Eduardo Saverin be barred from the U.S. for life?

The growing number of wealthy Americans giving up their U.S. citizenship to avoid taxes have been given a public face by the case of Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin , a Brazilian-born Singapore resident who gave up his U.S. passport shortly before...

Published Thu, May 17 2012 2:16 PM by FP Passport

Morning Brief: Netanyahu Increases Pressure Ahead of Iran Talks

Netanyahu Increases Pressure Ahead of Iran Talks Top News: With talks between Iran and the West set to resume Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stepped up his effort to scuttle a deal that would trade sanctions relief for restricitons...

Published Mon, Nov 18 2013 6:10 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

A Chinese State Media Producer's Bitter Goodbye

China's state-run media, often criticized by foreign news organizations for prioritizing propaganda over news, has come under fire from a source once within its own ranks. Wang Qinglei, a well-known producer at the state-run network China Central...

Published Tue, Dec 03 2013 11:10 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: East Asia, China, TLN

Kim Jong Un Executes His Uncle Jang Song Taek For Plotting a Coup

Jang Song Taek, the brother-in-law of late Supreme Leader Kim Jong Il, the uncle of current leader Kim Jong Un, and an urbane politician who was thought to have been the second most powerful man in North Korea, has been reportedly executed for planning...

Published Thu, Dec 12 2013 2:59 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: North Korea, East Asia

Morning Brief: Security Council mulls response to ongoing violence in Syria

Security Council mulls response to ongoing violence in Syria Top story: On Thursday, Syria and the United Nations agreed to allow at least 250 unarmed observers into the country to monitor a ceasefire, as foreign ministers from Arab and Western nations...

Published Fri, Apr 20 2012 5:08 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

Michelle Obama says she didn’t know about the bin Laden raid in advance

Apparently the president's wife was just as in the dark as the rest of us about the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound May 1. As hard as it is to imagine that President Obama didn't confide in his wife about what must have been one of the...

Published Mon, Jul 25 2011 10:22 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Obama Administration

Al-Shabab: Samosas are too Christian

In al-Shabab-controlled regions of Somalia, anything deemed un-Islamic is outlawed. This includes mustaches, the World Cup, wearing bras, and dancing at weddings. The militant Islamist group recently added something new to that list: Samosas . How can...

Published Wed, Jul 27 2011 11:18 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Security, Africa, Human Rights, Somalia