· June, 2008

Stories about International Relations from June, 2008

Trinidad & Tobago: Silence that Kills

  30 June 2008

Four Fingers and a Thumb 2.0 speaks out against political tyranny and the passivity that allows it to continue. “A dictator in the world,” she says, “is like the abusive father in the community that no-one wants to report.”

Israel: Sarkozy Security Scare at Airport

As French President Nicholas Sarkozy departed Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport, shots rang out. A quick assessment revealed that one of the Israeli members of Sarkozy's security detail had turned his weapon on himself, apparently committing suicide. The victim, whose name has not been revealed at his family's request, was in his...

Cuba: Developing Hackers

  28 June 2008

André Deak is a Brazilian blogger who has recently visited Cuba, and in ‘Cuban Hackers‘ [PT] he tells about the ‘Universidad de las Ciencias Informáticas‘ (Informatic Sciences University), where local developers are learning to create code in one of the most precarious technological environments, caused by the US embargo. Deak...

Palestine: Visiting Arafat's Tomb

Fugitive Peace blogger Gideon Lichfield recently visited Arafat's tomb. He reports: “I paid my first visit to Yasser Arafat’s new mausoleum… It’s an austere, brilliant pearl incongruously plopped in the middle of the ramshackle Muqata complex, the presidential headquarters: a cube-shaped mausoleum at the end of a long plaza, with...

Israel: No Nuts for You!

Israel is the world's largest consumer of pistachio nuts, but recent reports reveal that illegal imports from Iran may be its primary source. Jewschool's Shalom Rav jokes: “Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Israeli snacking habits will attest that Israel will be hard pressed to give up their pistachio...

Palestine: She Shoots, She Scores

Muna Nawajaa has scored a victory for social justice. Using a camera given to her by B'Tselem's Shooting Back project, Palestinian Nawajaa recorded the masked beating of members of her family, resulting in an investigation and arrest of suspects by Israeli police. In a post entitled “Cameras as Weapons,” Uriel...

Israel: Broken Truce Angers Israelis

Six days after Israeli and Palestinian forces brokered a ceasefire agreement, four kassam rockets fired from Gaza blasted the Western Negev. Islamic Jihad claimed credit for the attack, while Hamas, Palestine's ruling party, encouraged “all Palestinian factions to abide by the calm agreement,” asserting, “Hamas is keen to maintain the...

Cuba: Waiting in Miami

  26 June 2008

Ninety miles away….in another country points readers to an article about the cultural milieu of Miami's Little Havana, where old men eat Cuban sandwiches and dream of regime change in the island of their birth.