NEW YORK — Traveling across Southeast Asia, one regularly hears that the United States is losing its foothold in Southeast Asia, and squandering away the goodwill it has enjoyed for decades in most of the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The U.S. administration, say many in the region, is consumed with diplomatic and military fights in the Middle East, and has neither the time nor the interest to look at Southeast Asia. At the same time, thanks to its growing economic power, China is steadily expanding its sphere of influence by providing all manner [...]
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — When the Cuban government in 2005 selected Andres to treat the sick in Venezuela’s barrios, the chance to help poor Venezuelans was less important for the Cuban doctor than the opportunity to escape his communist homeland. “I didn’t arrive in Venezuela to work, I arrived and deserted right away,” he recalled in a recent interview in Bogotá while awaiting a hoped-for United States visa. Like other Cuban defectors, Andres asked that his full name not be used in order to prevent possible retaliation against relatives in Cuba. Cuba, whose socialized medical system is admired by many, has [...]
Most analysts of the Bush administration’s “surge” strategy in Iraq have focused on its military dimension, especially the prominent deployment of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Baghdad and other contested regions of the country. Another important element of the administration’s strategy, however, is the renewed effort to advance Iraq’s economic reconstruction with the provision of considerable new funding and other additional support. The first results of this economic surge are now in — and they do not look encouraging. According to a July 30 report of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), headed by [...]
