Editor’s Note: “Corridors of Power” is a new weekly column written for World Politics Review by veteran foreign affairs correspondent Roland Flamini. Each week, Flamini will report news items drawn from his extensive travels and contacts with diplomats and foreign policy officials from governments around the world. White House security adviser Stephen J.Hadley’s suggestion in the leaked Iraq memo that Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad should be encouraged “to move into the background and let (Prime Minister) Nouri al-Maliki take more credit for positive developments” must have been good news for the Afghan-born American diplomat. What seems at [...]
CARACAS, Venezuala – The ear-splitting explosions came ripping through the quiet about 5:30 this morning. BA-BOOM!! BA-BOOM!!, BA-BOOM!! – every few seconds right outside the window, followed by a crack-crack-crack-crack that through the haze of sleep sounded for sure like machine-gun fire. But those of us living here in the downtown bureau know better and within a few seconds we were clear that this was no gun fire, but a wild dawn fireworks display being launched from the top of a building beside the state oil company, PDVSA, a few blocks away. The election is just a few days out [...]
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — In recent weeks, the biggest political scandal yet to confront the Uribe government has been grimly unfolding in Colombia. Three senators and one congresswoman have been purged from office. They have been arrested for alleged conspiracy and links with former paramilitary groups. Worst still, a former governor has been charged for masterminding the murder of a mayor and the former director of DAS (Colombia’s secret police) is also accused of collaborating closely with paramilitary groups. The details of how members of congress and the paramilitaries worked in close partnership have been revealed in the computer archives of [...]
