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Somalia and Yemen: Al-Qaida's Next Hot Spots?
The Obama administration understands the strategic importance of the Gulf of Aden. The warm waters between Somalia, Yemen and Djibouti are the gateway to the Suez Canal, which carries the heaviest shipping between Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. The administration does not need a terrorist attack on shipping through the gulf similar to…
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When the Tsunami Hit
On Dec. 26, 2004, at least 230,000 people died when the second-largest earthquake in recorded history erupted beneath the Indian Ocean, triggering a devastating series of waves. Places as far apart as Sri Lanka, Thailand and Somalia were affected. Nearly two-thirds of those who perished were from the Indonesian province of Aceh. I worked in…
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Obama Is Treading Water
Despite the brilliant Nobel rhetoric, Barack Obama is a president treading water. The peace efforts in Iran and between Israel and the Palestinians that seemed so promising at the end of summer are fading. America will soon have 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan. The bombings and general destabilization in nuclear-armed Pakistan continue at a frightening…
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Letter From Cambodia, Part 2
PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA—A few weeks after we met, I called Arn to tell him that I would be traveling north to his home province of Battambang, Cambodia. “I’m in the movie theater,” he said. “I’ll call you back.” He said it was a horror movie about a Cambodian woman who could command the nation’s snakes—he…
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Letter From Cambodia
PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA—Arn and I watched the rain from a sweaty cafeteria in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where we talked about the peculiar habits of our dead fathers. Mine never ate at the dining room table. He came home from his grocery store and took his meals in bed where he called his three children to…
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Obama’s Inherited Mess
The daily death toll in Afghanistan makes it hard to see beyond the horizon. Twelve killed Wednesday in a home used by UN staffers; eight soldiers dead the day before. This in addition to hundreds killed this week in neighboring Pakistan and in Iraq. As the administration considers its options on Afghanistan, much of the…
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Why Obama Deserves the Nobel Peace Prize
Why is it so hard to acknowledge that President Barack Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize? When I went online today, I could feel the cynicism oozing from my computer. “Premature ejaculation in Stockholm,” a Slate editor wrote on Twitter, perhaps not realizing that the prize is given out in Oslo, Norway and not the…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
