Former AIG Chairman Maurice “Hank” Greenberg waited outside the Ritz Carlton in a very long line of well-heeled Washingtonians waiting to be allowed by the organizers to access air-conditioning and get into the event ballroom. I clicked my iPhone weather application and it was 89 degrees outside — high humidity.
China’s State Councilor and Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Dai Bingguo said last night at a large dinner in honor of the US-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue: Don’t Lose Any Sleep Over China.
Even as the entire country shifts gears to health care, some people are still concerned about the devastating numbers of unemployed persons and the government’s efforts to get people back to work. CNN has just run a piece I wrote cautioning the Obama administration on its optimistic assumptions about creating green jobs.
To discuss the importance of making manufacturing a part of the Obama team’s “New Economic Foundation,” the New America Foundation/Smart Globalization Initiative is hosting a public forum today.
Rory Stewart, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard and author of The Places in Between, makes the case against escalating the war in Afghanistan in the pages of the London Review of Books.
My good friend Bill Blansett used to drive this Wienermobile featured above in this dog rams house story. Just thought that this would tickle a few folks. Oscar Meyer has said that it is going to pay for the damages to the lady’s house.
This is a video clip of a public event I chaired with Al Jazeera Director General Wadah Khanfar — who was simply outstanding. Anyone interested in Arab media and current trends in the Middle East should spend some time watching this clip.
(photo credit: Andrea Neighbors) This picture of wearable Sarah Palin memorabilia was sent in by a TWN reader in Alaska. The note that came along with it said “So Long”. It does disturb a bit that some folks out there are probably wearing this shirt right now.
Two quick media alerts for this morning. At 11 am EST, I will be chatting with WNYC’s policy sophisticate Brian Lehrer about Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy initiatives and positions. You can listen live through the web if you like.
Tomorrow, senior government officials from the U.S. and China will meet in Washington for the inaugural Strategic and Economic Dialogue, a.k.a. the S&ED, which is the successor to the Bush Administration’s Strategic Economic Dialogue – or SED.
The meeting, at which top level delegations from the world’s two most powerful nations get down to business and discuss some of the world’s most pressing issues side by side – or at least across the same table, represents far more than a shift in punctuation. It is a test of whether the Obama Administration can present a unified front and demonstrate that it is serious about working together to improve and expand the U.S.’s relationship with China.
