Pakistani President Musharraf Calls Opposition "Pussies"

Is President Musharraf using the international hand signal for vagina? I wonder who he could be talking about, hmmm, looking at you Benazir Bhutto.

Tip Benazir Bhutto: a great way to respond is by spreading two fingers across your mouth and sticking your tongue out in a repeated motion. Works everytime.

Charismatic Sarkozy

French President Nicholas Sarkozy is in town this week, and I must say I am wowed by this man. He is comfortable in front of a crowd, as seen in this clip of him speaking to the French community in Washington D.C.

The clip is in French, but he speaks slow enough I could understand some. What really caught my ear was the part about equality. When was the last time you heard our president speak about equality?? It's almost like a bad word to some politicians.

Sarkozy heralds a new era in French-American relations. I am sure once Bush is out of office relations between France and America will only grow stronger.

United States #1 in Competitiveness

Although there are great fears of the United States losing its competitive edge, the World Economic Forum, a think-tank in Switzerland, ranks the United States as Numbero Uno.

The above group comes from The Economist, which has a small article about the graph.

Click here for the World Economic Forum's report on Global Economic Competitiveness.

U.S./ Pakistani Relations

How much sway does the Bush Administration have over General-President Musharraf? (AP, "Bush urges Musharraf to hold elections")

Hold onto your hats, kids, we're about to find out.

Now I won't claim to be an expert on Pakistani politics, but Musharraf has never seemed to me as one who likes to give up any sort of power. If he is to resign as commander of the military, it will only be when his ascension as President is ensured; requiring a deal between him and Bhutto.

Foreign Affairs: Losing Russia Article

My November/December issue of Foreign Affairs came in the mail this weekend. It takes me a while to get through the entire magazine, so I'm sure I'll have posts throughout the month on it.

The first article I read was Dimitri K. Simes's article titled, "Losing Russia". Dimitri Simes is president of the Nixon Center, a think-tank I have in a way admired for its realist view towards international politics. I also consider myself a Russophile.

Well, I was a bit perplexed while reading Mr. Sime's article. I thought it was biased and blamed America a bit too harshly for its poor relations with Russia today. He also seems to consider the way America tried to spread its influence in the region of the former Soviet Republics as a bad thing. That didn't make much sense to me. In the 1990's, knowing that Russia was weak, wouldn't a realist policy be to take advantage and spread American influence as much as possible in the region, especially towards the new states??

Also, America's policy towards Russia wasn't a total failure during the 1990's. I noticed no mention in the article about letting Russia join G7 to make the G8.

Click here for the article. Sorry Foreign Affairs only gives the first page and so, you have to pay for the rest.