Without a doubt, the 68th UN General Assembly will be remembered as a watershed. Nations reached an agreement on control of chemical weapons that could avoid a global war in Syria. The volatile stalemate on the Iran nuclear program came a step closer to diplomacy....
Left-wing candidate Ollanta Humala emerged the victor in the most highly polarized and contested presidential elections in Peru’s recent history, in which polls showed the candidates in a statistical dead heat going into the June 5 vote. Humala won with 51.5 percent of the vote, while his opponent, Keiko Fujimori — daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori, now serving a 25-year sentence for human rights violations committed during his 10-year authoritarian regime — received 48.5 percent.
In the wake of Obama’s recent tour of Latin America, media reports and commentators claimed that China has been economically outmuscling the United States in the region. The reality, however, is that Beijing’s economic presence has not come at the expense of the United States. Although Washington still maintains an overwhelming edge, its influence is decreasing. This decline will be exacerbated by Obama’s focus on boosting U.S. exports to the region rather than importing more of Latin America’s manufactured goods.
They did it! After pre-announcing that no major decisions would result from Cancun talks and nearly two weeks of debates and discussions, the army of international climate change negotiators reached an agreement fully in line with the low expectations for it. In fact, they even managed to lower the bar on key issues.
Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author, and foreign policy expert. Sameer Dossani interviewed him about the global economic crisis and its roots. His first interview with Chomsky can be found here.