After becoming an expert on U.S-Russia relations during her campaign for the vice-presidency by claiming that Russia could be seen from Alaska, Sarah Palin can now add a second major power to her foreign policy credentials: China. By reading a prepared, major foreign policy speech before a packed ballroom in Hong Kong’s Grand Hyatt hotel, Sarah Palin has now clearly and firmly cemented her foreign policy...

Continuing with our global coverage of President Obama’s decision to put an end to Bush-era anti-missile bases in East Europe, this is a German editorial roundup of nine regional newspapers from the Financial Times Deutschland. They are unanimously supportive of ditching the bases. For example, medium-sized newspaper, the Fuldaer Zeitung of Fulda, opines on the president’s decision: “From...

I just received an e-mail in Spanish from a friend. It was titled ” La Culpa es de la Vaca,” (It’s the cow’s fault), and started as follows: COMUNISMO: Tienes 2 vacas. El estado te quita las dos y te regala un poco de la leche. (COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and gives you a little bit of milk) And so it went on with Socialism, Fascism, Capitalism,...

So who comes out ahead of President Obama’s decision to freeze or scrap Europe-based, Bush-era anti-missile sites? According to this op-ed by Dominique Jung of France’s Les Dernieres Nouvelles d’Alsace, Barack Obama is looking like a pretty good card player right at the moment. For Les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace, Dominique Jung writes of why East and West Europe differ in their reactions...

Continuing with our global coverage of President Obama’s decision to scrap Bush-era missile shield plans for Eastern Europe (more from Poland, Germany and France later this evening), we just posted something by Alexander Golz of Russia’s Yezhednevniy Zhurnal that is likely to surprise many American cable news viewers. What people of the neocon persuasion are calling the mistake of an amateur is...

Those who long for less government, less government “interference,” and more privatization may want to take a look at The Netherlands. In an article in the Dutch NRC Handelsblad that starts with the assertion that “Nobody is in charge in the Netherlands – even democracy has been privatized,” Marc Chavannes, a Dutch journalist and political columnist, tells us: The Netherlands was late in professing...

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TWENTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE, 2009 STATE OF HAWAII H.C.R. NO. 19 H.D.1 HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION STRONGLY URGING THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES TO AWARD SGT. RAFAEL PERALTA THE MEDAL OF HONOR. 15 WHEREAS, his battalion redeployed to Iraq’s Anbar Province 16 in 2004 as part of Operation Phantom Fury to battle insurgents 17 in their stronghold of...

Some areas in this region of climate change skeptics have received as much as 20″ of rain since Friday. Three Interstates are closed. There are detours around detours. There have been six deaths of drivers swept off roads by water. And a 2-year-old was swept out of his father’s arms in the rushing current: Just months ago the region was suffering from a massive, two-year drought that left rivers...

I’ll admit it: I’m afraid of East Jerusalem. The reason isn’t that hard to discern. It wasn’t so long ago that an Israeli Jew who found himself lost in the Arab part of the city could be stoned, pulled out of the car and attacked. These days, though, East Jerusalem is mostly safe and filled with tourists searching for the best kanafeh, a syrup-drenched cheese and dough dessert. Still, it was with a...

Iraqis ponder the impact of September 11 on them. So how were Iraqis feeling on September 11, 2009, eight years after the attacks that led – justifiably or not – to the invasion of their land? Judging by this op-ed from Iraqi magazine Iraq of Tomorrow, the people of the country are anything but grateful for the role America has played in their nation’s recent history – despite being...

To the dismay of our military leaders, President Barack Obama is pulling a Brett Favre in deciding to send more troops to Afghanistan. While weighing a change in strategy by the president , Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal warns that unless he is provided more forces and a robust counterinsurgency strategy, the war in Afghanistan is most likely lost. Today I am filing a comprehensive report on the Afghan divide based...

So the long-rumored deed is done: American has decided that the anti-missile shield, parts of which were to be built in Poland and the Czech Republic – is best set aside for other considerations. When one get’s past all the bravado and one-upmanship of foreign affairs, what impact will it have on Russian behavior? This editorial from Russia’s Gazeta newspaper, notably owned in part by Mikhail...

I will never forget then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s answer to a question by Army specialist Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team, back in December of 2004, nearly two years after the start of the Iraq war. The setting was a town-hall style meeting Rumsfeld was holding with over 2,000 Iraq-bound troops in a cavernous hangar at a remote desert camp in Kuwait. Set out on display...

Georgia congressmen Sanford Bishop and David Scott are both ‘Blue Dog’ Democrats. And both are being put to the test by the raging health care debate. McClatchy Newspapers: While both men say they’re comfortable balancing the fiscal conservatism and strong support for the military that the Blue Dog Coalition advocates with the black caucus’s socially progressive platform — which includes pushing...

I lived in the Netherlands for many years and I fondly remember its windmills, its gorgeous fields of tulips, and of course its delicious cheese—made from that great Dutch koe melk (cow milk). I don’t remember, however, seeing any camels grazing in the luscious Dutch pastures. That’s why the headline in this morning’s news.scotsman.com got my attention. Under the banner, “Dutchman...

I have always been in awe of the incredible acts of valor and selfless sacrifice our military are capable of. More recently, I have been puzzled—and have questioned—why there have been so few Medals of Honor awarded to our heroes who have continued to “distinguish themselves conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of their lives above and beyond the call of duty” in combat in...

One of the many under-reported stories in our nation’s media are U.S. plans to build a number of new military bases in Colombia and expand others around the region. This article by Angel Guerra Cabrera from Mexico’s La Jornada reflects the views of a huge swath of Latin American opinion – and it’s anything but music to U.S. ears. For La Jornada, Angel Guerra Cabrera writes in part: “Over...

A couple of months ago, President Obama announced that he would be awarding the Medal of Honor to Army Sgt. 1st Class Jared C. Monti, who was killed by enemy fire on June 21, 2006, while trying to rescue wounded comrades in the mountains of Afghanistan. This afternoon, the President performing what probably is one of his most solemn duties as president and commander-in-chief, presented the Medal of Honor posthumously...

Is it time to, “completely forget the classic Left-Right dichotomy and apply what we’ve discovered about left- and right-handers to today’s problems?” In this tongue-in-cheek article from Frederico Bastiao of Portugal’s Jornal de Negocios, a completely new way of addressing the world’s problems needs to be considered. For the Jornal de Negocios, Frederico Bastiao writes...

After bitterly contesting the case, a British oil trading giant has agreed to a multimillion-pound payout to settle a huge damages claim from thousands of Africans who fell ill from tonnes of toxic waste dumped illegally in one of the worst pollution incidents in decades, reports The Independent. The Western world has shown remarkable tolerance towards economic/business/environmental/political criminals, while...

Ever since the collapse of the mighty Soviet Union, the doomsayers are having field day predicting the break-up of India and Pakistan. Last year, a leading Russian political analyst stated that the economic turmoil in the USA had confirmed his long-held view that the country would divide into separate parts. Cashing on this phobia, Slate offered last month a “week-long thought experiment” on “the...

Muntather Zaidi, the Iraqi television correspondent who became (in)famous when he hurled his shoes at then-President Bush yelling, “This is a gift from the Iraqis! This is the farewell kiss, you dog!” was released from an Iraqi prison yesterday. Zaidi was sentenced to three years in prison, but his sentence was later shortened to one year and then the judiciary ordered him released this month. According...

It’s hard to know how to react to this article in China’s state-controlled People’s Daily. But it’s certainly interesting. An ode to the ideals held by the Kennedy family and the recently deceased Senator Ted Kennedy, columnist Li Hong writes that ambitious families in so-called communist China and other countries like Brazil, could learn a lot from the Kennedy clan, and ‘run...

‘THE TRIAL OF EMBASSY WORKERS’ Who detests the other more: The United States government or the regime at the helm of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Based on this article from the tightly state-controlled Kayhan newspaper, one would have to think that the Iranian Mullahs come out on top on that question. For Kayhan, that newspaper’s regular columnist on foreign affairs, Kian Mokhtari, writes...

What is it about Libyan despot Mouamar Qaddafi that Western leaders find so irresistible? There’s no mystery about that, nor the unmistakable hypocrisy it represents. Expressing bile over Western tolerance for the man known in Libya as ‘the Guide,’ this editorial from France’s Le Monde sums it up this way: “His record is damning. The dashing officer who modeled himself on Egypt’s...