The 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released last week rates Somalia as the World’s most corrupt country and New Zealand the least. The CPI is a project of Transparency International, a global non-profit, that analyzes business and expert surveys to measure “the perceived level of public-sector corruption in 180 countries and territories around the world.
After publishing a Daily Beast piece titled “The Assassination of Greg Craig,” I did this interview above with Cenk Uygar of The Young Turks that some folks may find interesting.
The Pentagon, which favors a surge in US troops to Afghanistan knows how defense bidding goes. They’ve seen enough of it from the large defense contractors to know that you bid low and reconcile at a multiple of two or three times higher than the contract later.
In an interview with ABC News, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey stated that sending more troops would be a mistake that could “wipe out every initiative we have to rebuild our own economy.
(Photo credit: The White House) Patrick Doherty directs the New America Foundation/U.S.-Cuba 21st Century Policy Initiative. Yesterday, three significant statements were made regarding the United States’ policy towards Cuba. President Barack Obama, responding to dissident Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, signaled to Congress and Havana his willingness to break the stalemate on Cuba policy.
This is a guest note by Ted Sorensen, whose most recent book is Counseler: A Life at the Edge of History. Sorensen, former special counsel and adviser to President John F. Kennedy, is a widely published author on the presidency and foreign affairs.
The is a guest note by Fadi Elsalameen, publisher of the Palestine Note. For the past several years Palestine Prime Minister Salam Fayyad‘s name on the streets of the West Bank and Gaza has become synonymous with the words credibility, honesty, and transparency.
Europe is correct to be skeptical of Turkey’s European Union accession prospects – but Brussels should be wary not because Turkey is not “part of Europe,” but because its democracy remains fragile and its liberalism incomplete. The most obvious evidence of Turkey’s uneven progress is the ongoing Ergenekon investigation that continues to roil the country….
With all of the talk and controversy about the war in Afghanistan in the past months, it has been easy for many to forget that despite the reduction in violence brought about partly by the 2007 troop surge, Iraq remains troubled.
This is an audio clip of an extensive discussion with Brian Lehrer on WNYC National Public Radio today about Barack Obama’s options in Afghanistan. I am pleased and applaud President Obama for requiring his advisers to come to him with plans including serious “exit strategies.
