Today's Articles

- The European Parliament awarded Hu Jia the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. This rebuke to the Chinese Communist Party comes as the President of the European Commission calls for greater unity with Asia

- The US seems to be sending drones across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. At the same time, Pakistan is starting to arm tribal miltias.

- Nine of the Somali pirates were captured. Unfortunately, their captain escaped.

Today's Articles

- The Iraqi cabinet worries the Security Agreement will allow America to stay past 2011.

- In the same week, India increases economic ties with Japan and launches an unmanned mission to the moon. Given China's shaky relationship with Japan and its recent spacewalk, the PRC has to be interested in these events.

- Hugo Chavez riles up his base by claiming the US will invade Venezuela soon.

Morning Articles

- The New York Times has an interesting article on the impact of falling oil prices on Venezuela, Russia, and Iran.

- The prospects for the power sharing agreement in Zimbabwe look shaky.

- Thaksin Shinawatra, the exiled former Prime Minister of Thailand, was found quilty of corruption in absentia

- Trade has started across the military border in Kashmir

- President Sarkozy wants European sovereign wealth funds to help re-capitalize banks

Khatami's return?

Barack Obama has been attacked by both his primary opponents and John McCain over his statement that he would meet with the leaders of rogue states. Senator McCain has evoked the image of a President Obama meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust denying, antagonistic president of Iran. But what many Americans don't realize is that Ahmadinejad might be replaced by this guy.

Ahmadinejad faces some serious problems in his re-election effort. Iranians are tired of his confrontational approach to foreign policy and the economy is deteriorating quickly. The Economist lists the ills of the Iranian economy:

The government has failed to spread wealth, despite hefty revenues from oil and gas; ordinary Iranians are furious that inflation that is now running at nearly 30%. The country’s powerful merchants went on strike in October to protest against the introduction of a 3% sales tax. With the price of oil tumbling and the prospect of a sharp drop in hard currency earnings, Mr Ahmadinejad’s prospects look bleaker yet.

Khatami's re-election wouldn't cure all of Iran's ills, but it certainly would be a step in the right direction

Welcome

The Global Analyst was founded in the the spring of 2008 by a group of undergraduate students at Georgetown University. The university and its students have a well known interest in international affairs. While many Georgetown students are intelligent and well versed in global affairs, they lacked a medium to express their opinions. The Global Analyst was founded to fill that void.

The Global Analyst will be published twice a semester with full length articles on our soon-to-be constructed web site. These articles will focus on "big picture" topics and give policy prescriptions. The long time in between publishing articles allows for deep thoughts, but in the quickly changing world, a few days, never mind a few months, can render articles obsolete.

This blog will solve that problem. The posts here will supplement the bi-semester issues with day-to-day articles and comments on global happenings. If you enjoy the commentary here, we hope you will read the published articles.