· January, 2008

Stories about U.S.A. from January, 2008

Iraq in the State of the Union Speech

  31 January 2008

Iraqi blogger Raed Jarrar discusses Iraq in the US State of the Union speech. ‘Last year, it was more about “we're loosing, we have to stay and fight”, this year it's “we're winning, we have to stay and fight”,’ he writes.

Barbados, Bermuda, USA: Standing for Change

  30 January 2008

Cheese-on-bread! notices a similarity between the new Barbados government's campaign slogan and Barack Obama's – and hopes that the “rallying cry will work for him as well as it did for PM Thompson et al…”; while Politics.bm thinks Bermuda's government “represents everything Obama rejects.”

Tunisia: Obama's Religion

  30 January 2008

“Should I worry about the way Islam is made out to sound like a plague that everyone wants to distance themselves from? Should I be wondering what the religion of a person has to do with them being electable to office or not?” writes Subzero Blue from Tunisia, after reading...

MENA: Little Interest in US Elections

  30 January 2008

The Lounsbury says there isn't much interest in the Middle East and North Africa in the US elections at this stage. He further adds: “This being said, operationally or ‘conversationally’ speaking, I would say that there is but passing interest in MENA, except among those circles that may be qualified...

Mexico: Conditions for Plan Merida

  28 January 2008

Enigmatario [es] wonders how much more access the US will request for its Drug Enforcement Agency in Mexico under Plan Merida to fight organized crime especially associated with drug trafficking.

Brazil: How the USA backed the dictatorship

  25 January 2008

Luiz Carlos Azenha [pt] has started a series of posts in which he intends to translate all the official documents about the American support to the 1964 coup in Brazil, currently kept by George Washington University's National Security Archives. In this second post, he deciphers a “message from the then...

Morocco: Obama and Religion

  25 January 2008

“Thanks to Barack Obama, Islam may have to redefine “believer” in Islamic terms as well as who is considered a Muslim, or the world community may have to start working on a new definition for “ethnic Muslim” to accommodate complicated individuals such as Mr. Obama,” writes Myrtus from Morocco.

Jamaica, St. Lucia: Hardwick's Eulogy

  25 January 2008

“Derek Walcott's prodigious gifts, even in the face of tragedy, continue to amaze me”: Jamaican Geoffrey Philp links to the Caribbean writer's eulogy of Elizabeth Hardwick.

Serbia, U.S.: Bobby Fischer

  18 January 2008

East Ethnia writes about the legacy of chess champion Bobby Fischer, who died today: “Maybe there will be an opportunity now to remember him for what he achieved, less so than for what he became.”

Iran:Excluding Iran

  18 January 2008

Nart Villeneuve writes” according to The Register, Yahoo! (png) and Microsoft (png) had removed Iran as an option in their country lists used when signing up for an account.Google still has Iran as an option for creating accounts, but does block GoogleEarth downloads from users in Iran (png).”

Iran:New York City to Iran Phone Link

  18 January 2008

The Enough Fear campaign connects Americans and Iranians through direct phone calls as part of our person-to-person diplomacy campaign.On Saturday, January 19th, we will set up four phones in City Hall Park in New York that will be connected to volunteers in Iran