Category: General

In an apparent effort to dumb down the concept of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) for its readership, The Economist developed what it calls the “Big Mac Index.

This is a guest note by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett. Flynt directs the New America Foundation/Iran Project and is a former Senior Director of Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council. Hillary is chairman of Stratega, a political risk consultancy. They are co-publishers of the new blog, The Race for Iran.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Richard Lugar (R-IN) and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) have jointly written a compelling case to end the travel ban for all Americans desiring to go to Cuba.

I just published an article at The Daily Beast on White House Counsel Gregory Craig’s resignation. For the record, I am an admirer of Greg Craig’s.

(Digital Globe-ISIS photo of Qom facility and tunnel entrances; courtesy ISIS) The Institute for Science and International Security has just posted the just released IAEA reports on both Iran and Syria.

This is a guest note from Richard Vague’s Delancey Place which ran on 16 November 2009.

For those who haven’t seen it yet, CNN’s Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank had an excellent piece air this weekend, detailing efforts by former Libyan terrorist leaders working with the Libyan government to convince jailed militants to renounce violence and al Qaeda for good.

I can’t see this flag from my hotel window, but I could see it from the balcony of the Merit Hotel in Nicosia, Cyprus, where I attended a briefing today with Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Dervis Eroglu. The Turkish Cypriot national flag is embedded in the “five finger mountains” of Northern Cyprus.

Recently, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice went at it during a session when 187 Members of the United Nations were about to vote against the United States and two allies on the issue of the US embargo against Cuba.

Some diplomacy data points I have picked up during my trip to Havana in the last couple of days: ~ There are 65% more non-immigrant visas processed by the US State Department for Cubans wanting to travel into the United States this year than last year.