Jonathan Wallace is the Assistant to the President at the New America Foundation. After the G-8 meetings in Italy, President Barack Obama will travel to Ghana on his first visit to Africa (discounting his visit to Egypt).

Jonathan Guyer is a Program Associate for the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force. Last week, the mainstream media only touched on the attempt by the Free Gaza Movement to reach the occupied territory by boat. Israel Defense Forces boarded their vessel, The Spirit of Humanity, which was carrying humanitarian aid.

Here is a brilliant take by James Pinkerton in a special Politico online forum on the failings of the Obama administration so far when it comes to turning this economy around: Obviously the “stimulus” was a a dud–and the rate that things are going, the next “stimulus,” too, will be a dud.

My colleague Jon Weinberg has posted a provocative piece about Vice President Joe Biden’s comments about Israel and Iran. Weinberg debates how much of a faux-pas Biden’s comments were — and I think that this general line of attack against Biden’s statement is off the mark.

Jon Weinberg is a Research Intern with the New America Foundation’s Middle East Task Force.

Katherine Tiedemann is a Policy Analyst at the New America Foundation. The drone wars continue. This morning’s Predator strike in Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud’s hometown of Makeen, South Waziristan is the 25th this year (compared to six this time last year), and the fourth in the last two weeks to target Mehsud.

On Saturday the Organization of American States (OAS) withdrew Honduras’ participation rights citing their breach of the Inter-American Democratic Charter as the basis for this decision. The charter insists that all member nations abide by democratic principles and outlines repercussions for “unconstitutional interruption of the democratic order”.

In the two weeks since French President Nicholas Sarkozy condemned the all-enveloping burqa or niqab garment as a sign of the “subjugation” and “debasement” of women, words have flown in France as well as Britain and the United States about the proper extent of religious practice in public.

I just stopped at an internet cafe in Perugia, Italy and watched this short Al Jazeera clip done by my friend Clayton Swisher who is apparently embedded with US troops in Afghanistan. One of the most interesting lines in the clip is a comment that chasing the Taliban is “like chasing ghosts.

A reader just forwarded me this New York Times clip on the “confession” of Mohammad Ali Abtahi, an adviser to former Iran President Khatami who has also been an important and talented blogger.