Commentary Week in Review: the U.S.-South Korea Alliance

Mexico's election-crisis, the U.S.-South Korea marriage and China's economic tap-dance (or romp) through Africa all got op-ed attention in the world's English-language press this week. Terrorism and the war in Iraq were also woven into an ongoing flood of commentary prompted by the passing of the five-year anniversary of 9/11.

But it was a handful of off-beat articles that grabbed us most, beginning with Carlos Alberto Montaner's reminder in the Sept. 12 Miami Herald that this week marked the start of a meeting in Cuba of world leaders associated with "a curious diplomatic entity known as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)."

Among those arriving in Havana were President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, and possibly Bashar al Assad and Kim Jong-Il, Montaner wrote, explaining that NAM has been around since 1961 when it was founded by former leaders Marshal Tito, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jawaharlal Nehru, of Yugoslavia, Egypt and India repectively.