Which Summer for the Arab Spring?

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This is a guest note by Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, visiting professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and Associate Fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy. He was also formerly the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.

Those on the Front Lines of Diplomacy

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My good friend Fay Lewis died last September, and I’ve been mulling her passing the last many months. For years, I had grown used to Fay calling me up and shaking me out of my self-importance and a schedule that I thought couldn’t bear any more meetings.

The View From My Window: Vienna Opera House

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(Vienna Opera, June 2011; photo: Steve Clemons; click image for much larger version) I love Andrew Sullivan‘s “The View from Your/My Window” concept and thank him for letting me borrow the practice for The Washington Note.

Comments Alert

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Greetings readers. Well, have to get back to monitoring again. I have just banned a couple of prominent commenters — sorry, but just had to.

Hossein Derakshan: Sued Here and Imprisoned There

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Yesterday I received the distressing news that the father of blogging in Iran, Hossein Derakshan (aka Hoder) — the young person who had helped create the on-ramps for hundreds if not thousands of bloggers inside Iran as well as inspiring Iranian-Americans around the world to express themselves — failed to secure an appeal of a…

Thoughts on the Internet, Foreign Policy & Citizenship

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I did this short interview yesterday with ‘Karl’ outside a very good conference organized by the State Department and US Embassy to Austria in Vienna titled “Blogs and Bullets: How the New Media Shape Political Action.” More soon from Vienna.

Addressing America’s Infrastructure Deficit

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Today from 9:30 am until about 12:30 pm, The Atlantic will be hosting a forum in the US Senate on the costs and opportunities of a national infrastructure bank. The sessions follow after the extension — and the meeting will stream live here.

Thanks

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Greetings readers. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been a bit slower posting — and I just wanted to express my deep thanks to all of you to allow me the space to make some shifts in the way my professional life is organized.