Ambassador

The chosen successor of current Chinese president Hu Jintao is in Washington this week, in another of the series of pre-coronation events for Xi Jinping. What should changes should America expect from the fifth generation of PRC leadership when it takes power starting later this year? The answer is - not much. Other than perhaps an increased focus toward fighting corruption, the new administration will simply continue the work of the current as it builds up its own legitimacy and waits for all of the current leaders to retire.

Facebook Inc. filed for a much awaited initial public offering (IPO) last week which is expected to overtake Google’s record for the largest US internet IPO and value the social networking behemoth between $75 billion and $100 billion, about 5 times the amount Google was valued at during its IPO in 2004.

It is becoming increasingly hard to engage in any conversation about Europe without referencing the seemingly bottomless pit the euro zone finds itself in. The words crisis and euro zone appear to akin to the unlike poles of two magnets. A calamity that has stretched close to two years is still nowhere close to being mitigated while each day heralds news of insurmountable obstacles, endless negotiations, transitory optimism and omnipresent apprehension reflected in the seesawing of the financial markets. Economic harbingers bellowing out warning signs notwithstanding, the powers that be have continued to kick the can down the road. As this multinational drama succeeds in churning one dramatic episode after another, the script writers seem unable to bring this massive spectacle to a closure.

Li Bai (701-762 AD), widely considered the greatest of all Chinese poets, had an unfortunate end. While rafting on a serene lake in a drunken stupor, he spotted the water’s reflection of the Moon and reached out to grab it, only to topple in and drown without a soul nearby. That he died in such a lonely predicament is ironic, for Mr. Li had no shortage of friends and admirers, in either his own time or the present. His contemporaries, many of whom rank highly in the annals of Chinese literature themselves, adored him, as do the millions of Chinese who have since read and memorized his works.

The recent disruptions to Research In Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry service sparked outrage among millions of BlackBerry users worldwide. Though there is never an appropriate time for RIM to hit such roadblocks, the recent mishap could not have come at a more inopportune moment. The Waterloo, Ontario based company has been grappling with shrinking market share for the past year, has been unable to outdo its competition in the smartphone segment, has witnessed declining BlackBerry shipments and has missed earnings estimates.

Looking at Sri Lanka as a case-study for representative government and the role of the wider citizenry in building and shaping the identity of the country.

The Chinese author Lu Xun once proposed a grim analogy to his readers. Imagine, he said, you are trapped in an iron house without windows, one which you have little hope of destroying and in which you will surely suffocate and die. Before you lies a group of sleeping souls, blissfully unaware of their encroaching death. If you wake them and make them aware of their plight, you force them to endure the terror of the situation and the agony of impending asphyxiation. “But if a few awake,” Lu Xun points out, “you can’t say there is no hope of destroying the iron house.”

Talk to people in Seattle, Philadelphia, or NYC about local current events and they may be likely to bring up how they witnessed, or even participated in the Occupy Philadelphia/Wall Street/Seattle demonstration.

Pakistan has always treasured its strategic relationship with China. However, a recent cancellation of $19 billion mining project owing to security concerns has placed a spoke in the wheels of this blossoming alliance.

TEDx Penn was an independently organized TED event held at the Annenberg Center for the Performing arts last Friday (Oct 7, 2011). In case you didn’t know, TED is a nonprofit organization that supports people with innovative and interesting ideas who want to make a change in the world. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Al Gore, and Gordon Brown. TEDx is a program that is of similar goals to TED, except it is run locally so the speakers

Putting down the export cup will also mean boosting domestic consumption, which is a measly 40% of GDP.[i] Why so? In a state that lacks any credible safety net, ordinary Chinese are eager to prepare a nest egg for themselves, squirreling away 30% of their disposable income on average to pay for things like higher education and health care.[ii] The government has been trying harder to reduce this uncertainty; in 2009 it revealed a $123 billion scheme for universal health care, which, despite being underfunded, marks progress of a sort.[iii] But even if its people can be made to feel more secure, China’s entrepreneurs will have a harder time of figuring out just what people will want to splurge on.

China’s seemingly bottomless appetite for natural resources has been the driving force behind its ventures in far away continents such as Africa and Latin America, continents where it is striving to gain access to the key raw materials that it needs to power its gargantuan economy. These overtures have undoubtedly opened new avenues and opportunities for these countries but they are not bereft of potential dangers. Nowhere is this phenomenon more visible than in Brazil whose natural resources have attracted Chinese investment in hordes but also cheap Chinese products in equal measure.

Amidst its dispute with Greece over oil drilling near Cyprus, Turkey requests for the repatriation of a 1,700-year-old marble head that British archaeologist Sir Charles Wilson had removed from the Sidamara Sarcophagus in 1882 and donated to the London Museum in 1933. Even though its political consequences will be much less dire than what may result from the oil conflict, the dispute over the artifact has still sparked serious political implications.

Fears of an impending collapse in Chinese property prices and a recognition of the risks involved and implications of a shock to the real estate sector have prompted the government to take corrective measures. However, what exactly caused this bubble, what are the risks involved and what more can the government do to limit the fallout if the bubble bursts?

As we approach the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the media will surely churn out pieces chronicling the first ten years of the post-9/11 era. But how much really has changed? Though we can never replace the lives that were lost, society has largely recovered. Are longer airport security lines really enough to define an era?

The death of Osama bin Laden is a time for all peace-loving citizens of the world to celebrate. But the world should not be deceived into thinking that the fight against terrorism is over. The problems that we face will not be solved by the killing of one man. The true mission of the war on terrorism was not to bring Osama bin Laden to justice, but to make the world safe from all like him who would bring hatred and violence to peace-loving societies.

Amidst all the uprisings in the Middle East, and protests demanding a democratization of government, many commentators in the political arena (journalists, scholars and lay people) believe that the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been pushed to the back burner. However, with the Palestinian officials’ recently expressed desire of gaining statehood recognition from the United Nations General Assembly in September of this year, Washington and other administrations around the world are turning their attention back to this decade’s long conflict.

One of the big stories that has dominated headlines in the world of business in recent times is the proposed merger between NYSE Euronext and the Deutsche Börse. The merger, if completed, would result in the creation of the world’s largest stock exchange operator. The deal, however, has faced quite a few roadblocks since it was announced in February this year. All attention has been fixed on the name of the new combined exchange, an issue that seems to be rather politically sensitive.

The artist enjoys a peculiar place in human civilization. While his work depends on the material generosity and intellectual curiosity of others, we continue to view him as somehow “separate” from the world, both spatially and socially. In contrast to the lot of us, so the story goes, the artist is imbued with a spark of divinity, able to see the true nature of every ordinary object and idea we mere mortals take for granted. In his hands, the mundane becomes an expression of the noblest truths of the universe. Think, if you will, of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, or perhaps Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, and you will understand what I mean.

Ben Franklin knew the importance of being earnest. A little over two hundred years ago, Franklin, the model autodidact, drew up his own personal course in virtue and practiced it from age twenty till the grave. He distinguished thirteen principles to guide his conduct, quite a few compared to the four that occupied the Greeks and Romans.[1] They were:

The debacle that was the Iraq War has caused the idea of military intervention to go out of style. This was one of the reasons for the failure of the international community to intervene to stop the genocide in Darfur. Against the bleak recent track record for humanitarian intervention comes what appears so far to be a remarkably unified and assertive effort in Libya. For once, the war that needs to be fought and the war that America has chosen to fight have coincided.

On April 2nd, violent protests at a United Nations building in Afghanistan saw at least 12 dead, seven of them UN personnel. Demonstrators were protesting in anger over the burning of a Koran that took place last month in Florida by Pastor Terry Jones.

This article analyzes the issue of forced migration in Afghanistan, taking into consideration the various challenges posed by the such factors as weak governing institutions and societal barriers that slow the advent towards a durable solution.

25 years after its launch, Emirates has established itself as a pioneer in the aviation industry and has set a benchmark for other airlines to follow. Connecting 105 cities across 6 continents, it has emerged as one of the leading airlines in terms of revenue, fleet size, international passengers carried and quality of service in a relatively short span of time.

It is a common observation among the peoples of the world that the American has granted himself every virtue possible for a man to possess. What moral attribute is missing from his character? The American, we are told, is strenuous where others are languid, courageous where others are craven, persistent where others are all despair. He expresses always what is on his mind, and fights always for what is in his heart. He abdicates nothing but the possibility of abdication. And yet for all his fortitude and might, he holds to prudence and a cool head, preferring the art of negotiation to crude belligerence.

Following the recent magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan and the ensuing crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, a wave of anti-nuclear hysteria has seemingly swept the globe. In the wake of Japan’s crisis, Germany, Switzerland, China, India, Thailand, and Malaysia have suspended existing nuclear reactor projects in order to conduct additional safety inspections and reviews of pending projects. While I certainly do not oppose an emphasis on safety and modernization, especially for nuclear power plants, there is a great risk that the world will learn entirely the wrong lesson from the Japanese crisis. In times of crisis, it is necessary to maintain a level head, and to look at the actual science behind the situation instead of making knee-jerk reactions.

The Masdar Initiative is one of the flagship projects which is part of the government of Abu Dhabi's recent initiative to promote environmental sustainability through renewable energy. Given the UAE's heavy reliance on oil and natural gas, the government seems to be taking serious efforts in diversifying its energy sources. It will be interesting to see the impact of this ambitious project on the energy landscape of the UAE.

To the victor go the spoils. That seemed to be the lesson taken from Ireland’s parliamentary election on Friday, in which the Fine Gael Party won a clear victory over the once-mighty Fianna Fail. In this case, however, the spoils include not only political power, but an $85 billion EU loan and a banking system now in tatters. Fine Gael leader Edna Kenney, the shoo-in for the job of prime minister, will have plenty on his plate come March when the thirty-first Dail convenes.

This article examines what the recent hostage killings in Somali waters means for the future of maritime security and foreign policy towards pirates.

Chelsea 2-0 Kobenhavn Real Madrid 1-1 Lyon Bayern Munich 1-0 Inter Milan Manchester United 0-0 Marseille Arsenal 0-2 Injuries Bryan Carrasco's face 0-1 Hand of Edson Montano

The recently concluded G-20 summit in Paris failed to produce any concrete results and the discord among the nations hampered proceedings. Though an early-warning system to signal economic imbalances was agreed on, the indicators suggested by the G-20 appear rather vague as nations quarreled over technicalities and diverging interests were accommodated.

Mick Jagger once asked the great philosophical question “who wants yesterday’s papers?” The thought crossed my mind this morning as I scanned BBC news and found out Tunisia wants their president back.

Protests against repressive regimes in Libya, Bahrain and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa have been compared to the demonstrations in Egypt that overthrew the dictatorial regime of Hosni Mobarak. Is this analogy useful or does it just gloss over vital differences between these countries?

International soccer has started back up with earnest, with a host of international fixtures last week as well as the restarting of the knockout stages of the European Champions League on Tuesday. These matches are a good opportunity to look at the interplay between the club system and matches between national teams.

In the aftermath of the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, similar protests have spread like wildfire across the Arab world. Several countries have already experienced major governmental changes. However, we ought to temper our expectations for these protests, as several variables point against successful revolutions in many Arab states.

In his latest bid to dethrone Joseph McCarthy as the most infamous man to troll the halls on Capitol Hill, Representative Peter King of New York aims to essentially put the American Muslim population on trial this March, relying solely on the testimony of prominent Muslims. Does he understand what he's doing? Does anyone besides Peter King believe this can help our nation?

China's nominal GDP officially surpassed that of Japan on a year-on-year basis, propelling it to the position of the world's second largest economy. Though this announcement merely confirms what has been largely inevitable, it underscores China's economic might and Japan's struggles. The two Asian juggernauts have experienced contrasting economic trends over the past decade. However, China can still take a lot away from Japan and try to avoid Japan's mistakes over the past 15 years.

Arts and Culture - Music An analysis and exploration of Michael Franti and Spearhead's most recent album "The Sound of Sunshine"

The Senate recently took a step toward ensuring that NASA will not be among the government projects targeted by deficit-cutting measures this year. NASA's budget was in fact increased last year, and it is embarking on a number of projects, the most pressing of which is finding a replacement for the space shuttle, due to be retired this year.

I recall distinctly the first time I fell in love.

Social media has been cited by many as being a powerful tool of change. Proponents of this theory point to Egypt to justify their point. But is social media really so revolutionary?

Though certainly encouraging, America’s progress brings to light the tragic fates of smaller gay rights movements around the world. In much of the developing world, the march towards equality is stagnant at best, losing ground much faster than the United States is gaining it. Homosexuals are oppressed by their governments and their cultures to incredible lengths, and no recent event has brought this unfortunate truth to light better than the January murder of David Kato, a Ugandan gay rights activist.

A look at the new exhibit at Fisher Fine Arts Library.

Over the past few days, the eyes of the world have been glued to the unfolding events in Egypt – currently somewhere between a mass protest and a full revolution. The Egyptian military, seen as protectors not oppressors by the people, has played a key role in events by staying in the background and not suppressing the revolt. The toppling of the regime seems all but inevitable, and the world should be wary of the successors of the Mubarak regime.

Though focusing mainly on domestic issues, President Obama's 2011 State of the Union address provided glimpses in a shift in American attitudes toward the rest of the world. A major message of the address was that America is falling behind in innovation and education, and we must work to reclaim our spot at the top. The fact that our president is willing to admit America's shortcomings and face them boldly can only be good for our country - both domestically and in the international arena.

Growing inflation concerns in the developing world fueled by rising food and commodity prices have prompted central banks in emerging economies to tighten monetary policy. Rising price levels have also roused political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa. Though fears of a double dip recession have eased, high inflation coupled with political instability are some of the challenges faced by the global economy in the near term.

The recent wave of corruption scandals targeting government officials in India has generated much anger among the opposition and media. The recent scams highlight the government's struggle to contain subornment within its own cabinet. It remains to be seen if the government will take swift action to deal with corrupt government officials or if it will try to bury the hatchet.

“It has seeped into our society in a way where it is acceptable around dinner to have these conversations where anti-Muslim bigotry and hatred is quite openly discussed.” So spoke Lady Warsi in an interview which followed her Thursday appearance at the University of Leicester, where she gave a speech criticizing the way in which Britons had come to embrace Muslim prejudice as socially acceptable. Ms. Warsi, the first Muslim woman to serve in the British Cabinet, primarily blamed the British media for the trend of closeted bigotry, and she went on to censure its superficial treatment of Islam and the issue of religious tolerance.

Chinese President Hu Jintao’s recent visit to the U.S. has led to the concentration of a lot of media attention towards human rights violations in China, amongst other issues such as U.S-China trade relations and China’s border disputes with neighboring countries, and its alliance with “rogue states” such as North Korea.

Last week, the residents of Southern Sudan took to the polls to express their desire for independence from the north. Surprisingly, the vote was widely hailed as fair and free of political meddling, unlike the unfortunate rigged elections so often seen after long periods of war. Though this is cause for celebration for the people of Southern Sudan, Sudan's other conflict in Darfur has been seemingly forgotten, sacrificed in order to preserve the fragile peace in the South.

Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the US has generated much hype and the focus will be on whether the US and China can make headway in redressing the thorny issues that have impacted bilateral relations over the past year.

The time has come to end this little discourse of mine, and I think it would help the Reader if I were to make some of these abstract ideas a bit more concrete. The world is full of the vain and opaque wanderings of book-learned fools, and we should always try to bring our lofty musings down to earth again. Mr Holmes’s theory, I think, can elucidate much of the rhetoric thrown about in global politics. Antiliberalism is not dead, nor is it merely the toy of a few secluded intellectuals. Many states today still make use of their arguments, particularly those which fear the growth of civil rights, free enterprise, and cultural pluralism. Of course they prefer to couch their objections in less sinister-sounding language, but that does not mute their basic similarity to what Mr Holmes has given in his book.

Recent riots in Tunisia have led a lot of speculation as to whether the regime of dictator Ben Ali is going to collapse and what ramifications this would have for politics in the Arab world.

On December 2nd, FIFA announced that Russia and Qatar would host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Their selections mark a desire for FIFA to expand the horizons of international football and increase its influence as a global force.

Earlier sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council against Iran have often been criticized for not being severe enough. However, the wave of sanctions passed by the UNSC in June seems to be having a noticeable impact on the Iranian economy and its trade relations. The UAE, a long time trade partner of Iran, has been mindful of the sanctions and has taken steps to reduce its dealings with Iran to escape the ire of the permanent members of the UNSC.

*The views presented in this article are the views of its author only, and in no way represent any official position of the staff of the Ambassador or PennIAA.* The recent release of archived American diplomatic cables by the website WikiLeaks is a serious attack on not only the American diplomatic apparatus, but the very principles that underpin the entire international order. WikiLeaks has moved from being a resource to help courageous whistleblowers release information to a front for the unrestricted release of unfiltered and often illegally obtained information.

On Sunday, November 28th, Wikileaks, the whistleblowing organization released the first set of a series of documents that details cable communication between American diplomats and the State Department spanning the past forty years. Amidst accusations that this release was illegal, Wikileaks has consolidated itself as the primary whistleblowing organization of the world. Has this ushered in a new era of transparency or just unnecessary danger and suspicion?

Reports have surfaced that the rift between conservatives in the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) and the ultraconservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is growing, with talks of a move to impeach Ahmadinejad for reasons including illegal handling of Iran’s natural resources and a lack of fiscal transparency in his administration. It may not be the reformist Green movement of last summer’s disputed elections that finally brings down the president after all, but pragmatic conservatives who are opposed to the president’s excessive spending and embarrassing international antics.

Republican Senators are refusing to ratify New START, an arms limitation treaty that was signed by the US and Russia in Prague in April this year. Could this failure to advance in arms negotiations with Russia lead to grave consequences?

The bomb threat on Fedex and UPS cargo planes heading to the US highlighted the growing strength of terror groups based in Yemen and our persistent vulnerability to terrorist attacks. A weak local government and fractious tribes make Yemen a hotbed for terrorist activity.

At the end of his weekend trip to India, President Obama made some waves by announcing in a speech to the Indian Parliament that he “[looks] forward to a reformed United Nations Security Council that includes India as a permanent member." While this was likely more of a play to his audience than an actual promise to push for UN reform, it is nevertheless an opportune moment to examine the issue of UN reform in the context of changing geopolitics. The structure of the Security Council has not changed since the UN Charter was signed in 1945. The same five countries – China[ii], France, Russia[iii], the United Kingdom, and the United States (P-5) – that were accorded permanent seats on the UNSC still have them today, despite huge shifts in international politics. How can a system reflecting the world of 1945 continue to be valid in the world of 2010?

Political Activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was released on November 13th by the military junta. What does her release, and the November 7 elections mean for Burma's future?

Avery Goldstein specializes in international relations, security studies, and Chinese politics. Presently he is conducting research on China’s grand strategy. He is the Associate Director of the Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics and a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

The Penn International Relations Conference was held on the 22nd of October on Penn’s campus. PIRC, organized by members of the International Affairs Association is an initiative currently in its second year that brings together high school students in the Philadelphia region and academic experts and Penn students to enhance and encourage understanding of international relations.

As President Obama embarks on his trip to Asia, his first port of call will be India where he hopes to strengthen the strategic and economic partnership between the world's largest democracies and link strong ties with India to job creation back in the US.

As the United States slowly withdraws its forces from Iraq, a flood of previously secret documents is being released by Wikileaks that purports to expose widespread human rights abuses carried out against Iraqis over the course of the war. Though I am certainly conscious of the national security implications of such a leak and am wary of the manner in which Mr. Assange of Wikileaks has behaved, the essence of his message is clear. The United States must be held accountable for its actions just as it expects other nations to be accountable for theirs. The entrenched idea of American exceptionalism is dangerous for our country and a betrayal of our founding principles.

China is two short years from a major milestone in its politics - the transfer of power to the fifth generation of leadership at the 18th National Party Congress in 2012. Xi Jinping is widely expected to succeed Hu Jintao as paramount leader. This upcoming shift has implications both for Chinese society and the international community.

Sir, I was deeply troubled upon reading of your dissatisfaction with the joint action taken by Russia and the US within your borders. Seldom do I pause to criticize the US anymore. As my radical passions have waned, so has my distaste for American public policy. But in this case I can certainly see her in the wrong. We are nothing if not a communicative people. Any casual stroll down a Philadelphia street, the air full of the colorful language of perturbed morning commuters, will drive home this point. We have never been shy about making our intentions clear, whether it is to stick the buffoon who cuts us off or to conduct a drug raid across international borders. But somehow when it came to informing you that Russia, that perpetual thorn in your side and ours, would participate, we were utterly and curiously silent.

The Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition chalked out the details of the UK's huge belt tightening program aimed to rein the £155 billion budget deficit.

Once upon a time, when Maoist dreams crowded my young and impressionable imagination, I considered it my duty to apologize for every undemocratic, irrational, and contradictory policy of the Chinese state. This much perturbed my democratic aunt, and we carried out many a heated debate across the dinner table or over coffee (“Oh, Maeve, that’s just how they do things”). As you can imagine, I had a rough time of it, and I would blush if some of my reasoning were printed here for mankind to see. It mattered not when policy contravened state ideology, international law, or even commonsense. Thankfully, my love of the country and its people has since been tempered with the sobering hand of prudence and years, but I still, from time to time, rise to defend China when she suffers the slings and arrows of criticism abroad.

President Ahmadinejad was met with a tumultuous welcome during his recent visit to Lebanon amid apprehensions on the part of the US and Israel that the visit may destabilize the region.

In the aftermath of the bloody beheading of investigator and Mexican officer Rolando Armando Flores, Texas Homeland Security issued a travel warning to all U.S citizens, advising them to avoid Mexican travel. In a gruesome twist of events, David M. Hartley, a manager with an oil well services company was fatally shot on September 20th when he was touring the Mexican side of Falcon Lake on a jet ski. After being shot, Hartley’s body has not been found. Commander Flores was investigating the murder of Hartley, which leads many to believe that his beheading was linked to the investigation he was pursuing before he died. To further complicate matters, it is strongly believed that Hartley’s murder was linked to drug related crime, with suspicions that one drug cartel killed Hartley, mistaking him for a member of a rival group.

According to Cicero in On Duties, the moral good and the advantageous should never conflict. We may apply this maxim most profitably, I think, to recent events in Zimbabwe. The defiance of President Robert Mugabe by his Prime Minister and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai makes sense not only from a moral perspective, but from a practical one as well.

Growing differences between the US and China coupled with currency devaluations by major economies have all contributed to a looming currency war that has overshadowed other pressing issues facing the global economy.

Millions of French have poured into the streets to support the unions' fight against government pension reform. The government needs to stand firm and tell its people the hard news: you cannot continue to enjoy the longest retirement of any OECD country while maintaining a sustainable social security program and remaining competitive with countries whose workers put in more hours and years of labor.

On Friday, October 1st, 2010, Penn hosted a TEDx conference, bringing together nine Penn professors and alumni to give talks on subjects ranging from social media to human rights to barefoot running. The idea was to emulate the main TED conferences held each year since 1984, which have featured presentations including Bill Gates releasing a swarm of mosquitoes into the auditorium while talking about malaria. The speakers at TEDxPenn were interesting, engaging, unique, intelligent, and most importantly, inspiring. The motto of TED is “Ideas Worth Spreading”, but the presentations at TEDxPenn not only spread ideas, but also inspired me to take action and explore my own ideas.

Last Wednesday, Sept. 29, the US House of Representatives passed a bill threatening sanctions against China if it does not cease its practice of keeping its currency at an artificially low value. This reflects a wrong-headed, Ameri-centric view of the China-US trade relationship. The hasty actions of Congress risk provoking a trade war which is almost certain to end poorly for the US as well as fail to address the real issues behind the trade imbalance - the "numbers behind the numbers", meaning who actually profits from the trade, and the vast untapped Chinese domestic market.

Six hour bus rides, committee sessions, scheduled events, and long schpeals from David Schwartz, Deputy Director of Penn’s Intercollegiate Model UN team, seem like dreadful experiences, but were actually some of the most fun and memorable experiences I have ever had (minus the schpeals of course)...

It is difficult for me to speak courteously about Greenpeace. While I admire their message and vision, I cannot but remember a meeting with a Greenpeace representative several weeks ago, while walking around Philadelphia. She stopped me to explain the grave state of the world’s rainforests: millions of trees cut down, thousands of species wiped out, the rapid depletion of ozone.

The Venezuelan opposition to president Hugo Chávez, as well as many international observers, are hailing the results of the recent parliamentary elections as a blow to Chávez's power and a milestone for an empowered opposition, finally presenting itself as serious challenger to Chavista forces. However, Chávez still has an overwhelming hold on power despite the gains of the opposition and it is premature to call this small victory a serious blow to his regime. However, this can be seen as a small step in a broad regional shift away from Chávez-led left-wing populism and back toward more centrist regimes.

Brazil went to the polls yesterday to vote for the successor to “the most popular politician on earth.” The era of President Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva, better known as just “Lula,” (who was given the endearing popularity epithet by President Barack Obama) is coming to a close, and not without some fanfare.

The emirate of Dubai hogged the headlines late November last year when it announced that Dubai World, a government owned investment conglomerate that is involved in most of Dubai’s grandiose construction projects such as The World and Palm Islands through its property arm, Nakheel, would require a six month “standstill” on its debt repayments which amounted to around a whopping $60 billion.

Growing up in Sri Lanka, during a Civil War, privacy was not the priority; it was security. We were all required to carry Identification Cards with our names, address, religion and ethnicity, and being stopped by police forces at various ‘checkpoints’ to be ‘inspected’ was a common aspect of our lives. So when I heard of the Indian government’s potential ban on BlackBerry Services until its manufacturer RIM (Research in Motion) agreed to provide access to its encrypted messages, my reaction was simply “Oh, okay.”

Delays, corruption scandals, excessive budget are few of the phrases that come to mind when anyone thinks about the 2010 Commonwealth Games to be hosted by Delhi.

What's the biggest student organization on campus? No, it's not the Asian Student Union (unbelievably). It's the International Affairs Association, which runs the Model UN program at Penn.

This summer, I had the pleasure of reading Ghost Wars by Steve Coll. The book was indeed a very interesting read and it focused on the US involvement in Afghanistan during and after the Afghan War. The book captures the way in which the involvement of the CIA in the Afghan War gradually shifted gears.

Many of us thought that it did make sense to focus special screening on a section of the global population that come from regions involved in exporting terrorism. It does seem unjust that people from a few countries are singled-out but have the authorities been left with any alternative?