Foreign Affairs

Foreign Policy; November/December 2006: By Cyrus Farivar For Commander Sid Heal of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, one of the most frightening aspects of responding to a future terrorist attack is knowing how to respond correctly. In an era of increasingly sophisticated terrorist plots, the proper response may require a Ph.D. in chemistry or biology. “We don’t have anyone who is as capable as a chemical or biological engineer,” says Heal. So he teamed up with British Columbia-based Argon…

I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this prize. As he wrote in the International Herald Tribune earlier this year: It is because all writers have a deep desire to be authentic that even after all these years I still love to be asked for whom I write. But while a writer’s authenticity does depend on his ability to open his heart to the world in which he lives, it depends just as much on his ability to understand…

It’s been a little while since I last blogged about Nauru, a tiny island in the South Pacific (Population: 13,000) that entered into a Faustian tale of strip mining itself into oblivion during the bulk of the 20th century. It’s latest industry is running Australia’s awful offshore detention facility for refugees. This past week, The Age ran a story about Mohammed Sagar, a 30-year-old Iraqi refugee who has been held on the island for the last five years. His companion,…

For those of you keeping score at home, I’ve been on an informal quest for the last few years to figure out how many Americans have passports. Last I blogged about it, I discovered a Slate article, which said there were 44 million passports in existence. Howver, before that, I saw in a Computerworld article from 2005 that said that there are 57 milion passports in circulation. Today, I read in The New York Times that “The State Department estimates…

NYT: Aides to Mr. Bush bristled Monday at the notion that they were trying to avoid a chance run-in between Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Bush in the United Nations hallways. Contending that they were giving no extra attention to the possible walking route of the Iranian delegation or the Iranian leader’s bathroom schedule, they said that to do so would only help to elevate the stature of a man they would rather diminish.

E&P: [Dexter] Filkins, one of the longest-lasting and most-honored reporters in Iraq, said that many situations lately have become even too dangerous for Iraqi reporters to report on. He described the current climate as “anarchy,” and, when asked if the country was already involved in a civil war, he said, “Yeah, sure.” Asked what advice he had for a reporter from a small paper going to Iraq now without the kinds of money and backup that the Times was able…

So I don’t know which is more ridiculous, the cover of this new book Chine-Afrique: Le Dragon et l’Autruche (China-Africa: The Dragon and the Ostrich), or the fact that it would cost me 40 € to buy the book and have it shipped to the U.S., or the fact that I can buy it direct from the publisher in PDF form for 17.85 €.

I was reading up on Hezbollah on Wikipedia earlier this morning and got side tracked to the 1947 UN Partition Plan. Why doesn’t anyone talk about this anymore? The map is pretty sweet. I wonder if we’ll ever see something like it actually implemented.

Mana, the woman who I wrote about for Wired News a few weeks’ ago has finally evacuated to Europe. In order to keep herself busy, she’s started an online store of products of interested to Lebanese expats and Lebanophiles. I think I’m going to get myself a long-sleeved t-shirt with the illustration to the left. The Arabic reads: Wali Lubnani (“And I Have My Lebanon”, a famous line by Lebanon’s adored poet: Khalil Gibran). Check out some of her other…

Before you head out to buy your next tank of gas, go read this incredible series of articles from two-time Pulitzer-winning Chicago Tribune reporter Paul Salopek: Oil Safari What does it take to quench America’s mighty thirst for gasoline? Pulitzer-winning correspondent Paul Salopek traced gas pumped at a suburban Chicago station to the fuel’s sources around the globe. In doing so, he reveals how our oil addiction binds us to some of the most hostile corners of the planet—and to…