John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Kofi Annan seems to have clinched a diplomatic deal in Damascus which may stop or at least decompress the debilitating year-long conflict in Syria which has taken 9,000 lives, mostly civilians. The former UN Secretary General in a bout of shuttle diplomacy has received approval from the Bashar Assad […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — A spate of seven seemingly unexplained serial killings has shocked France with the uncomfortable realization that the specter of terrorism has not vanished. But the shootings of three soldiers and later, the calculated cold- blooded rampage at a Jewish school killing a rabbi and three children, turned the tragedy […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — As the ongoing conflict in Syria churns out a ghastly humanitarian carnage, diplomatic efforts to halt the violence are shadowed by last year’s Libyan intervention, which morphed into a six month long military operation to topple a tyrant. So when the UN Security Council met again on Britain’s initiative […]
John J. Metzler MONTREAL — It’s takes a comedian to break the ice in the often frosty linguistic debate in Montreal, the cosmopolitan Canadian city where the French-speaking majority jealously and legally holds the linguistic high ground. So when an Indo/Canadian immigrant Samir “Sugar Sammy” Khullar brought a hilarious comedy show in Franglais, a mix […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — In a world beset by war, ethnic conflict and humanitarian disasters, Burma seems one of those rare places where diplomats can say they are making a positive difference. Maybe that’s precisely because this Southeast Asian land, was until recently a pariah state, suffering from the self- inflicted wounds of […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — In a political tsunami of condemnation, the General Assembly slammed Syria’s rulers for “widespread and systematic” human rights violations and demanded the Damascus regime cease the ongoing violence which has caused more than 6,000 lives during the past year of civil strife. Given the setting and the players amongst […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Rhetorical gales from Argentina are again battering the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. And while the presumably noble sentiments of Argentine sovereignty blows over the windswept islands, just under the adjacent waters may sit massive petroleum deposits which would change the geopolitical calculations both for Britain and Argentina. […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have lambasted Russia’s veto of a Security Council resolution on Syria, calling it a “travesty,” but did she really think for a moment that Moscow was going to ditch an old political ally? Did Hillary moreover really believe that Beijing was going to […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — When the government of erstwhile U.S. ally Egypt shut down seventeen Western pro-democracy groups, trashed their Cairo offices, and slapped travel bans on some of their staff, political relations between Washington and Cairo hit a new and unexpected low. Just a year after a tumultuous political uprising topped the […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — “Following two years of anemic and uneven recovery from the global financial crisis, the world economy is teetering on the brink of another major downturn.” That’s the sober assessment of a key UN report which warns that “output growth has already slowed considerably during 2011 and anemic growth is […]