Hillary and the Irish Question | Newsweek Periscope

POLITICS
Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary Of State Nominee
12/1/2008 12:00:00 AM
Hillary Clinton's selection to serve as Barack Obama's secretary of State follows her strong race for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination against him. Clinton was among a number of top national security officials named by Obama on December 1. Obama said he would nominate Robert M. Gates to remain as defense secretary, and nominated Gen. James L. Jones, a retired Marine commandant, for national security adviser, Eric H. Holder Jr. for attorney general, Susan Rice as ambassador the UN, and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano for homeland security secretary.
INTERNATIONAL
United States of Africa
Jason McLure 12/1/2008 12:00:00 AM
Britain's American colonies did it. Europe's nations did it. Can Africa's disparate countries form their own political union? Jean Ping, the 67-year-old chairman of the African Union Commission, believes they can, despite the troubled history of Afircan unity. Ping, who left his post as Gabon's foreign minister to take the helm of the pan-African body earlier this year, brings a unique personal history to the job. In the 1930s his Chinese-born father, who sold porcelain along Africa's western coast, missed his boat in Gabon and decided to settle in a small fishing village. He wound up marrying the chief's daughter—who became Ping's mother. Now Ping is charged with bringing unity and order to a continent that has seen little of either in its recent history. He recently spoke with NEWSWEEK's Jason McLure at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa about creating a United States of Africa, bringing peace to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Darfur, and his views of American democracy.
COVER STORY: INTERNATIONAL
What Bush Got Right
Fareed Zakaria 8/9/2008 12:00:00 AM
Compared with the flutters and flurries of the near-daily polls in the presidential race, one set of numbers has stayed fixed for months, even years. President George W. Bush now enters his 23rd consecutive month with an approval rating under 40 percent. (It currently stands at 32 percent.) No matter what he does, or what happens in the world, the public seems to have decided that Bush has been a failure. As a result, both candidates are promising a change from the Bush presidency. Barack Obama, of course, promises a wholly different approach to the world. But even Bush's fellow Republican, John McCain, has on several issues suggested that he would depart from the administration's policies. McCain was last seen with the president at a fund-raiser more than two months ago at which no reporters or photographers were allowed.
MIDDLE EAST
The Other Mideast Talks
5/12/2008 12:00:00 AM
If President George W. Bush truly wants to leave a legacy of peacemaking in the Middle East, he's looking in the wrong place. Instead of focusing exclusively on Israeli-Palestinian talks, Bush should do more to encourage renewed Israeli-Syrian negotiations.
ISRAEL AT 60
From Dove to Hawk
5/8/2008 12:00:00 AM
I remember the moment when the Palestinian diaspora began to interest me, professionally. It was in Rashidiye Camp, outside Tyre, in June 1982, just after the Israel Defense Forces had scythed through on their way north to oust the Palestinian Liberation Organization from Lebanon. A journalist at the time, I picked my way through the devastated buildings. Most of the men had fled or been detained or killed by the Israelis, but I was struck by a group of old women hunched over a tabun, an outdoor oven, making pita bread far from their homeland. A few weeks later a stash of documents produced in 1948 by the Palmah—the strike force of the Haganah, the main Zionist underground in Palestine—was opened for me, revealing why and how many of these people had been displaced as Israel was born.
A Dangerous Place
Sumit Ganguly 5/8/2008 12:00:00 AM
India and Pakistan were on the verge of performing their first tests of nuclear bombs in the spring of 1998 when President Bill Clinton proclaimed South Asia "the most dangerous place on earth." The tests went forward 10 years ago this month--India's on May 11 and 13 and Pakistan's on May 28 and 30. In the decade since, the region has crawled back from the brink. In 2004 the two adversaries began peace negotiations, which are ongoing. Pakistan has made a rocky transition to democracy and New Delhi and Islamabad have recently begun discussions about energy cooperation. With the two rivals making such warm sounds, U.S. policymakers, distracted by trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan, are in danger of largely ignoring the continuing presence and activities of various jihadi groups within Pakistan who remain committed to wreaking havoc in Indian-controlled Kashmir and elsewhere. These entities, which Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate had spawned and nurtured, are still waiting in the wings.