By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS, September 19, 2011 — Amid the arrival of presidents, prime ministers and kings, the 66th annual session of the UN General Assembly debate will open in New York, Sept. 21. But the session hardly starts in a celebratory mood as much as a reflection and reappraisal of a series […]
By John J. Metzler NEW YORK, September 12, 2011 — On a picture perfect September day in 2001, the Grim Reaper visited New York to spread carnage and to shock and stun the very foundations of American society. Passenger aircraft, hijacked by Al Qaida terrorists, slammed into the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon, and […]
By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS, September 5, 2011 — Two years ago the North African state of Libya was celebrating the 40th anniversary of the military coup which brought Col. Muammar Gadhafi to power and subsequently established the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. Lavish festivals and garish spectacles, fueled by petrodollars and regime hubris […]
UNITED NATIONS — There’s rarely good news from North Korea. The quaintly-titled Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is facing a worsening humanitarian crisis, while at the same time the government is heightening political repression, and the communist rulers are vaingloriously pursuing their nuclear weapons program. Valerie Amos, the UN’s Humanitarian chief just returned from […]
NEW YORK — A crucial defense dilemma is looming under the radar screens, both over the Taiwan Straits and the Potomac; namely seriously upgrading Taiwan’s aging jet fighter force against a fast rising military threat from Mainland China. While Beijing’s double-digit military spending is now focusing on high-tech sophisticated fighter aircraft, tiny Taiwan still relies […]
By John Metzler UNITED NATIONS — The four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are stalking Somalia and riding further a field into the impoverished Horn of Africa. Drought, famine, militias and global indifference plague this parched region at the mercy of weather, failed states, and donor fatigue. Today, over thirteen million people face a deteriorating food […]
By John Metzler PARIS — The albatross of the debt crisis continues to dominate headlines throughout the European Union and indeed the United States. While whopping budget deficits and massive social service obligations serve as a millstone to European economic recovery, many economists are nervously looking to the long term stability of the Euro currency […]
NEW YORK — Returning to New York Sunday night, the sweeping view of Manhattan from the bridge was unusually clear; the skyline, the shimmering lights, and the still sadly gaping void where the World Trade Center once stood. I still can never view lower Manhattan without remembering the searing events of September 11th 2001 and […]
UNITED NATIONS — Political winter has returned to Lebanon, the tiny but cosmopolitan country on the crossroads of the Middle East. The long shadow of Syria and Islamic Iran has again fallen over bustling Beirut and brought the Lebanese to the brink, as the militant Hizbullah movement has deliberately engineered a collapse of the country’s […]