Foreign Policy Public Health Blog

Holy awesome musical taste, Pope

The Holy See apparently has no barriers to the types of jams it rocks. The Vatican's MySpace playlist includes artists such as the rock band Muse , the folksy Fleet Foxes and the thuggish ruggish beats of the late, great Tupac Shakur . The Vatican...

Published Mon, Dec 07 2009 1:29 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Europe, Culture

If you're not getting a call from the pope, you're nobody

Either Pope Francis is an old man with nothing better to do than sit around his palace calling old friends, or he has crafted a clever-as-a-fox public relations campaign -- or he's just an extremely nice person. The newly installed and famously down...

Published Fri, Mar 22 2013 2:30 PM by FP Passport

Argentine press reacts to Pope Francis's election

Argentina, home to more than 30 million Catholics (out of a population of over 40 million), is now also home to the first pope from Latin America -- or from the Southern Hemisphere, for that matter. How is the Argentine press reacting to the historic...

Published Wed, Mar 13 2013 3:15 PM by FP Passport

Decline Watch: New York's cocaine come down

Thanks to a sluggish economy, and slightly less astronomical Wall Street bonuses , New Yorkers apparently no longer move snowflakes by the OZ. The New York Post reports : Cocaine-related emergency-room admissions, overdoses and requests for rehab have...

Published Mon, Sep 26 2011 7:33 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Decline Watch

Is Mussolini cool again in Italy?

The open nostalgia expressed by Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his allies for Benito Mussolini isn't really much of a new story. The fascist leader's granddaughter , a former actress and Playboy model naturally, serves in parliament...

Published Fri, Jan 04 2013 10:40 AM by FP Passport

The end of the Al Jazeera decade?

The sudden resignation this morning of Al Jazeera director-general Wadah Khanfar sent shockwaves through the Arab media world, leading to intense speculation about whether the relative freedom the satellite network had enjoyed is about to come to an end...

Published Tue, Sep 20 2011 10:05 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Media, Arab World

Why is Gerard Depardieu becoming Russian?

It's a little hard to believe now, but during the 1990s, Gerard Depardieu was probably France's biggest international star, representing a quintessentially French archetype for moviegoers around the world. But the legion d'honneur winner and...

Published Thu, Jan 03 2013 8:28 AM by FP Passport

An unbanned reading list for Turkey

Turkey is unbanning nearly 2,000 previously blacklisted publications next month, including 453 books. Susanne Gusten looks at what Turks have been missing out on: Among the works to be legalized by the move are several books by Turkey’s greatest 20th...

Published Mon, Dec 17 2012 1:22 PM by FP Passport

Did climate change cause the original Mayan apocalypse?

Despite what much of Russia seems to believe, the ancient Mayans most likely did not believe the world would end next week. But of course, the world as they knew ended more than 1,000 years ago. A paper published in Science last month by Penn State Anthropologist...

Published Wed, Dec 12 2012 3:52 PM by FP Passport

Morning Brief: The Copenhagen backlash begins

The Copenhagen backlash begins Top Story: Just days after countries agreed to a face-saving agreement at the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen, accusations have begun to fly about who was responsible for the disappointing conference. Brazilian President...

Published Tue, Dec 22 2009 6:13 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

Copenhagen fizzle

According the WSJ , there will be no "comprehensive accord" from Copenhagen. But there will be a band-aid deal between US, China, India, S Africa. The Washington Post 's initial headline sounds rather too optimistic to me. Look forward to...

Published Fri, Dec 18 2009 1:50 PM by FP Passport

Al Qaeda apparently not very good at drug smuggling

Is Barack Obama now the president of Haiti?

Tyler Cowen worries that the Obama's presidency may come to be defined by the chaos in Haiti: Obama now stands a higher chance of being a one-term President. Foreign aid programs are especially unpopular, especially relative to their small fiscal...

Published Wed, Jan 20 2010 10:43 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Haiti's Disaster

Foreigners make up a tiny fraction of the Syrian opposition

Despite repeated Syrian government claims that opposition forces are predominantly " foreign terrorists ," a new comprehensive report by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation finally puts numbers to the nagging question of...

Published Tue, Apr 02 2013 5:20 PM by FP Passport

FP: The Restaurant

Over at Mothership Slate , Justin Peters has a clever piece imagining what restaurants based on some of the most popular American magazines and news Websites might look like. For instance, Esquire : "Choose between Seven Lunches We Love, all of which...

Published Thu, Dec 10 2009 4:23 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Media, Fun Stuff, Foreign Policy magazine