BLOG… Post #61 – A Bad Start to the New Year in the Middle East 6 Jan 201527 Feb 2017 Having been thwarted in the UN Security Council when a vote to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank went against it, the Palestinian Authority (PA) decided last week to…
BLOG… Post #60 – China’s Triangle Diplomacy 26 Dec 201427 Feb 2017 Back in the days of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, the “strategic triangle” with the Soviet Union and China was the great game. The idea was to play off the…
BLOG… Post #58 – The Abe-Xi Mini-Summit: A Positive Moment 14 Dec 201427 Feb 2017 The Chinese have a diplomatic tradition of “drawing from strength to offset weakness” (qu chang bu duan). The tradition was on display recently when China’s President Xi Jinping met with…
BLOG… Post #53 – AR5: Another Urgent Report on Climate Change 12 Nov 201427 Feb 2017 When we consider benchmarks that will help explain why the world ignored dire warnings of climate change, we will want to dwell on AR5, the fifth assessment report of the…
BLOG… Post #51 – Back to Basics on an Israeli-Palestinian Peace 1 Nov 201427 Feb 2017 The September 2014 issue of Harper’s carried a fascinating dialogue among eight prominent Israeli and Palestinian citizens on the future of their relationship. It took place against the background of…
BLOG… Post #50 – The Lessons of Ebola 24 Oct 201427 Feb 2017 The battle against Ebola is in danger of being lost. A top official of MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders), the lead NGO in West Africa with about…
BLOG… Post #47 – Mission Impossible 29 Sep 201427 Feb 2017 The New York Times editorial board has finally awakened to Obama’s “strategy” in the “war” (as it is officially called now) against ISIS. It is essentially the same strategy that…
BLOG… Post #43 – Peacemaking or Provocations in Ukraine’s Crisis? 1 Sep 201427 Feb 2017 Call it aggression, invasion, incursion, or an illegal border crossing—whatever you call it, the fact remains that Russia has now become a direct participant in Ukraine’s civil war. To his…
BLOG… Post #36 – What Works? Person- and Planet-centered Development 22 Jul 201427 Feb 2017 The usual script for international development is the provision of aid—mostly in loans, occasionally in outright grants—by a “developed” country or international institution to an “underdeveloped” one. The money goes…
BLOG… Post #35 – Mr. Xi Goes to Seoul 17 Jul 201427 Feb 2017 China and Korea watchers jumped to attention when it was announced that Xi Jinping would visit South Korea from July 3-4, rather than visit North Korea first. Although the trip…
BLOG… Post #31 – What Works? The Courage to Blow the Whistle 26 Jun 201427 Feb 2017 American heroes come in many forms, and historically, one of them is acting selflessly in the public interest and in defiance of established authority. Daniel Ellsberg did just that in…
In the Human Interest - Mel Gurtov 