Foreign Policy Public Health Blog

Lebanon's soccer wars

Just when you think Lebanon couldn't get any stranger, the country manages to outdo itself. In commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the beginning of the country's 15-year civil war, Lebanon's leaders divided up into two teams based on...

Published Tue, Apr 13 2010 3:20 PM by FP Passport

South Korea experiments with video game curfew

Data rockets across South Korea's broadband network at an average clip of 14.58 megabits per second. This makes the country's network the fastest of any in the world. (In comparison, the average American broadband connection chugs along at a sluggish...

Published Tue, Apr 13 2010 2:41 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Science & Technology, East Asia, Health

This just in: "We are working every day and making progress"

The State Department's press operation works in mysterious ways. For instance, this short transcript just arrived in my email in box, under the grandiose headline "Remarks with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu Before Their Meeting"...

Published Tue, Apr 13 2010 2:17 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: State Department, Turkey

Raul deregulates barber shops

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Raul Castro has made some modest reforms since taking over in July 2006. A few token changes, including the introduction of cell phones, DVD players, microwaves and computers, have...

Published Tue, Apr 13 2010 9:04 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Latin America, Politics, Development, Economics

U.S.-Russia adoptions in jeapoardy after boy "returned"

U.S. officials are on their way to Moscow this week to push the Russian government to continue to allow adoptions after a seven-year-old boy was sent back to Russia on a plane by a woman in Tennessee last week with a note explaining that she no longer...

Published Tue, Apr 13 2010 8:51 AM by FP Passport

The day Somalia's music died

Taking a page from the Taliban, Somalia's Shabaab militants have effectively banned music from the radio in Somalia: The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says the order to stop playing music and jingles was issued 10 days ago. All but two...

Published Tue, Apr 13 2010 7:36 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Africa, Culture

Morning Brief: Talks with China and a deal with Ukraine at nuke summit

Talks with China and a deal with Ukraine at nuke summit Top news: The massive U.S. -rganized international summit on nuclear nonproliferation continues in Washington today and President Barack Obama is continuing to seek agreements on securing nuclear...

Published Tue, Apr 13 2010 5:48 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

Quiz: What percentage of world trade is carried on ships?

For those of you who don't subscribe to the bimonthly print edition of Foreign Policy , you're missing a great feature: the FP Quiz. It has eight intriguing questions about how the world works. The question I'd like to highlight this week...

Published Mon, Apr 12 2010 4:47 PM by FP Passport

Meet the new, less anti-Semitic Malaysia

Mohammed Najib Abdul Razak, the prime minister of Malaysia, is in town this week for Barack Obama's nuclear summit, and this afternoon the two leaders met to discuss nonproliferation A State Department readout of the meeting was nothing but gumdrops...

Published Mon, Apr 12 2010 3:53 PM by FP Passport

Foggy Bottom's logistical nightmare

If you know anyone who works in the State Department's Office of Protocol, this is a week to be especially polite to them. The 46 international delegations converging on Washington D.C. for President Obama's nuclear summit today and tomorrow present...

Published Mon, Apr 12 2010 3:13 PM by FP Passport

Nets new owner accused of Mugabe ties

As a dislocated Brooklynite, I've been following the New Jersey Nets' faltering attempts to build a new stadium in my borough for years now -- my distaste for poor urban planning and eminent domain abuse only slightly outweighing my fantasy of...

Published Mon, Apr 12 2010 3:05 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Africa, Russia, Sports

David Hoffman wins Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction!

Congratulations to journalist and Foreign Policy 's resident nuclear guru David Hoffman for winning the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for his book, The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy . Also...

Published Mon, Apr 12 2010 12:17 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Foreign Policy magazine

The world's most irrelevant terrorists

Not that terrorism is ever defensible as a political tactic, but it's at least possible to determine the political motivation behind a terrorist attack. That's not really true of the Real IRA's latest bombing , carried out just hours before...

Published Mon, Apr 12 2010 10:50 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Terrorism, Europe

Goodluck Jonathan promises credible elections in 2011

One of the great ironies of reporting overseas is that it's often much easier to hear a political leader speak candidly here in Washington than in an interview back home. Such was the case today, as Nigerian Acting President Goodluck Jonathan spoke...

Published Mon, Apr 12 2010 10:41 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Africa

Two steps back on Holocaust Remembrance Day

As survivors and the descendants march at Auschwitz today for Holocaust Remembrance Day, election results yesterday in nearby Hungary, where the far-right Jobbik party earned 16.7 percent of the vote, evoked memories of that time in a very different way...

Published Mon, Apr 12 2010 10:27 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Europe, Race/Ethnicity, Religion