For the fourth year in a row, the United States has fallen on the Heritage Foundation’s international Index of Economic Freedom. For 2011, the U.S. fell from 9th to 10th, just behind Ireland. (RELATED: IMF providing bailout support to heavily indebted Ireland)
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Peter Godwin is the author of the recently released book, “The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe.” (more)
As American forces rain down missiles on Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya to prevent the dictator from massacring his people, one cannot but hope that the coalition mission is a tremendous success. All Americans stand behind President Obama and with our troops in harm’s way – or at least, I would hope so. (more)
Amidst the revolutionary turmoil of the Middle East, the shadowy online hacker group known as “Anonymous” has spread its influence. Government websites in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, and Iran – as well as Zimbabwe and Italy — have been attacked and at times shutdown by the hacker group which claims it fights in its own way for freedom. (more)
BEIJING (AP) — The protests in Egypt are about free elections and overthrowing a longtime dictator? Not according to China’s state media, which is painting them as the kind of chaos that comes with Western-style democracy. (more)
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe — The exhibit at the National Gallery is now a crime scene, the artwork banned and the artist charged with insulting President Robert Mugabe. The picture windows that showcased graphic depictions of atrocities committed in the early years of Mr. Mugabe’s 30-year-long rule are now papered over with the yellowing pages of a state-controlled newspaper. (more)
Listening to the local news on the radio recently, I heard a report about how newly elected Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz plans to save $8 million by, among other things, merging the “Office of Sustainability” with the Department of Environmental Protection and Resource Management. (more)
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe’s president said Saturday his party is ready to regain its political dominance, likening it to a fast-moving train that would crush those who stood in its way. (more)
If there’s one thing everyone knows these days, whether they’re happy about it or not, it’s that we live in a “global” economy. This fact is taken as so obvious that anyone who disputes it is regarded as not so much wrong, but as simply ignorant—not even worth arguing with. So it may come as a shock to many that, in reality, the cliché that we live in a borderless global economy does not survive serious examination. The key is to ignore the Thomas Friedmanesque rhetoric flooding the media and get down to some hard numbers. (more)
The sexy redhead accused of spying for Mother Russia was on the feds’ radar a decade ago — thanks to her younger sibling, The Post has learned. (more)
Many of our fellow citizens are up in arms about the prospect of the United States becoming a European-style social democracy. Their stubborn and unreasonable resistance to the obvious advantages of the modern European state, though frustrating, is really not surprising. They’re the same right-wing dullards that always raise a stink when someone tries to improve America. Luckily for the rest of us, we live in a time when our government is chock full of really, really smart people. (Nearly every one an Ivy League grad.) And I hear that they’ve come up with a truly brilliant plan to circumvent this obstinate, brain-dead conservative mob and finally enable the rest us to enjoy the benefits of a more compassionate and humane form of government. (more)
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — An official with the world diamond control body says Zimbabwe will soon be allowed to begin selling its controversy-plagued diamonds on the international market. (more)
Even the most ardent bunny-huggers can’t deny what hunting does for wildlife. In a headline about the current state of wildlife in Africa, Conde Nast Traveler begrudgingly and sarcastically proclaimed, “Perhaps the best way to save wildlife in Africa is to kill it.” (more)
According to conservationists, the Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, will send a modern-day ark – containing pairs of giraffes, zebras, baby elephants and other wild animals taken from a national park – to a zoo in North Korea. (more)
Since 1991, there have been 11,785 attacks and 1,804 murders, and the problem is getting worse, Andre Botha, the president of Agri SA warned. (more)
President Robert Mugabe denounced violence and urged Zimbabweans to focus on rebuilding the country in a speech that marked the nation’s 30 years of independence from Britain. (more)
On the highway leading to Johannesburg, Bruce Ngema* pointed to the city’s skyline and asked, “What’s it like in New York City?” We were driving in from the south side, where the highway is flanked by huge yellow hills made of sand dumped from the gold mines that built the city. Joburg now has more skyscrapers than any place in Africa, so I explained, “It’s like this, but with even more buildings.” (more)
Abstract: In the real world, as opposed to what French President Nicolas Sarkozy calls President Barack Obama’s "virtual world," America faces the reality of Iran’s intransigence and aggressiveness; China’s headlong pursuit of its own national, regional, and global interests; Russia’s determination to regain its Near Abroad; the Arab states’ refusal to accept any kind of a reasonable settlement of the kind that Israel has already offered under several governments; Syria’s designs on Lebanon; and Hugo Chávez’s designs on the weaker countries in Latin America. President Obama’s foreign policy agenda of gradual American retreat will have inexorable consequences: When erstwhile allies see the American umbrella being withdrawn, they will have to accommodate themselves to those from whom we were protecting them. If Obama proves impervious to empirical evidence and experience, all these accommodations, the weakening of alliances, the strengthening of centers of adversarial power in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Caracas, and elsewhere will continue until we are awakened by some cataclysm. (more)
For Ray Finaughty, the dream of farming Africa’s rich soil has ended as the campaign to drive Zimbabwe’s white farmers from their land enters its final stage. (more)
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Regional powerhouse South Africa is urging Zimbabwean leaders to resolve political tensions in time for elections expected next year in the troubled country, a spokesman for President Jacob Zuma said Saturday. (more)
