Foreign Policy Public Health Blog

The Akbar Zeb story: too good to be true

I wrote last week about Pakistan's High Commissioner to Canada Akbar Zeb's reported rejection as ambassador to Saudi Arabia due to the unfortunate Arabic translation of his name as "biggest ***." Alas, the story turns out to be false...

Published Fri, Feb 12 2010 11:23 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Diplomacy, Media, Fun Stuff, South Asia

Quote of the day: chaos in Kiev

Ukrainian politics are really confusing: "The main result of these elections is that Yanukovich came first, but did not win. Tymoshenko, on the other hand, lost but was not defeated," Ukrainska Pravda commentator Vadym Karasov wrote. Got that...

Published Fri, Feb 12 2010 9:55 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Eastern Europe, Elections

One month after the earthquake in Haiti...

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The Haitian government estimates approximately 230,000 died in the quake It estimates a further 300,000 people have sustained injuries An unknown number of others have died from...

Published Fri, Feb 12 2010 8:54 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: North America, International Organizations, Health

Celebrity do-gooder fail

It's very nice that Madonna wants to build a school for girls in Malawi, but is there really nowhere in the country she can build it without evicting hundreds of people from their homes? Residents have refused to leave the site just outside Lilongwe...

Published Fri, Feb 12 2010 8:15 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Celebs

Chilean coins misspell Chile

A batch of 50-peso coins, each worth about a dime, have returned to cause a headache for the Chilean mint. The coins spell the country's name C-H-I-I-E -- a typo that has recently cost the the general manager of the mint his job. The most remarkable...

Published Fri, Feb 12 2010 7:45 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Fun Stuff, South America, Economics

Morning Brief: Europe vaguely promises help for Greece

Europe vaguely promises help for Greece Top story: After a discussion of Greece's budget troubles in Brussels, EU leaders promised to "take determined and coordinated action, if needed, to safeguard financial stability in the euro area as a whole...

Published Fri, Feb 12 2010 5:38 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

A huge victory for the bad guys

There's a lot of disappointment in the U.S. blogosphere today after the Iranian opposition apparently failed to overcome the regime's vigorous efforts to suppress any signs of disunity on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. Scott Lucas...

Published Thu, Feb 11 2010 8:12 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Iran

GQ gets the Wonkette treatment

I poked some fun last fall at GQ 's " 50 most powerful people in D.C. " list, which ranked various Washington poobahs who "truly have clout" in the U.S. capital. Today comes word that ex- Wonkette and longtime blogosphere fixture...

Published Thu, Feb 11 2010 3:26 PM by FP Passport

China's plane diplomacy

We've heard of ping-pong diplomacy and panda diplomacy ... and now there's plane diplomacy. Actually, the fact that state-run Chinese airlines make politically motivated decisions about whether to give contracts to Boeing or Airbus -- or to split...

Published Thu, Feb 11 2010 3:22 PM by FP Passport

FP contributors weigh in on the latest from Iran

We've had a whole lot of content on Iran this week tied to today's demonstrations. Here's a quick guide: Colum Lynch profiled the key players in the Iran sanctions debate. Daniel Drezner wondered how we will be able to tell if the protests...

Published Thu, Feb 11 2010 3:06 PM by FP Passport

Berlusconi's latest assault on free speech

Italy has now essentially banned talk shows on state broadcaster RAI from commenting on politics ahead of regional elections: The ruling PDL Party's majority on the parliamentary watchdog that oversees public broadcaster RAI forced through rules that...

Published Thu, Feb 11 2010 12:22 PM by FP Passport

Filed under: Europe, Media

Global warming advocates don't care enough about global warming

Back in my days as an editor at Washington Monthly , we were taught to report on something colleagues called the "culture of bureacracy." This may sound like a snoozer topic, but the point is that you can learn a lot about how an institution...

Published Thu, Feb 11 2010 10:48 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Environment

Quiz: How much did opium poppy cultivation change in Afghanistan from 2008 to 2009?

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. (Meanwhile, prepare for the Olympics' opening...

Published Thu, Feb 11 2010 10:39 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Drugs & Crime, Afghanistan, South Asia, Food/Agriculture, AfPak

Haitian judge recommends release for missionaries

The judge deciding whether 10 U.S. missionaries should face child kidnapping charges for trying to remove children from the earthquake-battered country, has apparently decided they should be released: "After listening to the families, I see the possibility...

Published Thu, Feb 11 2010 9:08 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Haiti's Disaster

Zahra Rahnavard beaten by police

The Wall Street Journal passes along a report from the website of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi that his wife Zahra Rahnavard was attacked by police: The site says that Ms. Rahnavard suffered injuries to her head and back from punch es...

Published Thu, Feb 11 2010 8:37 AM by FP Passport