On June 10, one million South Koreans from all walks of life poured onto the streets of Seoul, the nation’s capital, to protest the newly elected President Lee Myung Bak’s deal with the United States to fully open Korean markets to U.S. beef.
When New York City wanted to make the biggest purchase of subway cars in U.S. history in the late 1990s, more than 3 billion dollars worth, the only companies that were able to bid on the contract were foreign. The same problem applies to high-speed rail today: only European or Japanese companies could build any of the proposed rail networks in the United States. The U.S. has also ceded the high ground to Europe and Japan in a broad range of other sustainable technologies. For instance, 11 companies produce 96% of medium to large wind turbines; only one, GE, is based in the United States, with a 16% share of the global market. The differences in market penetration come down to two factors: European and Japanese companies have become more competent producers for these markets, and their governments have helped them to develop both this competence and the markets themselves.
In May 2008, in the midst of the ongoing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, Islamabad concluded at least two peace agreements with Taliban and Taliban-linked groups operating in Pakistan. Although negotiations with the Taliban are necessary for any broad-based peace settlement in the region, these agreements threaten to complicate policy options for Washington and the Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan.
Criticism has been leveled against the Pakistani government’s efforts to hold talks with militant groups. While concerns about the Taliban regrouping remain valid, it is in America’s long-term security interest not only to support the multidimensional peace plans being formulated, but refrain from words and actions that could jeopardize the process.
In many respects, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has played right into the hands of cynics who have long doubted his promises to create a new and more progressive role for the United States in the world. The very morning after the last primaries, in which he finally received a sufficient number of pledged delegates to secure the Democratic presidential nomination and no longer needed to win over voters from the progressive base of his own party, Obama – in a Clinton-style effort at triangulation – gave a major policy speech before the national convention of the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Embracing policies which largely backed those of the more hawkish voices concerned with Middle Eastern affairs, he received a standing ovation for his efforts.
In 1954, acclaimed novelist and thinker Richard Wright published Black Power about his visit to the Gold Coast (later Ghana) and his observations concerning the rise of the Pan-African movement. On the 100th anniversary of Wright’s birth, the American University of Paris is holding a centennial conference on June 19-21. In the lead-up to this conference, FPIF’s E. Ethelbert Miller discusses the novelist’s views on Africa and colonialism with James Miller (English and American Studies, George Washington University), Michele L. Simms Burton (African American Studies, Howard University), and Jerry W. Ward (English, Dillard University).
When Bush’s former press secretary admits that the administration used a “political propaganda campaign” to sell its case for war and calls the mainstream media “deferential, complicit enablers” – as Scott McClellan does in What Happened – it’s time to examine just how badly the press failed.
After five years of war and little end in sight, much of the anti-war movement has acquired a case of “war fatigue.” Over the last two years, some of the most energized movements opposing the war have not been those made up of civilians but those who have served on the front lines.
As the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) goes around meeting with Members of Congress this week, they will be arguing for stronger sanctions against Iran. Their latest focus will be “sanctions” on refined petroleum products to Iran.
Sudanese girls seen in Darfur, Sudan, June 25, 2005. The 12-year-old girl wearing the striped scarf, front, reported how she was separated from her two friends, and raped by soldiers from the Sudanese government. Photo by R. Haviv