Wednesday-Night

J Street
Jeremy Ben-Ami: The flotilla’s lessons for Mideast peace advocates
Back to the table — Israel’s prime minister sounds upbeat, even if no one else does
The first direct Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in 20 months began in Washington. Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas began talks urged on by President Barack Obama along with President Hosni Mubarak of […]

Dick Cavett: Real Americans, Please Stand Up
I’m genuinely ashamed of us. How sad this whole mosque business is. It doesn’t take much, it seems, to lift the lid and let our home-grown racism and bigotry overflow. We have collectively taken a pratfall on a moral whoopee cushion.
Surely, few of the opponents of the Islamic cultural […]

(NOAA) HURRICANE KATRINA — MOST DESTRUCTIVE HURRICANE EVER TO STRIKE THE U.S.
NYT Times Topics - Hurricane Katrina
Wednesday Night #1227 (7 September 2005)
(MSNBC) Rising from ruin Since early October 2005, MSNBC.com journalists have been documenting the efforts of the coastal Mississippi towns of Bay St. Louis and Waveland to rebuild from the devastation wrought by Hurricane […]

More on Biofuels and clean energy
Race for biofuels heats up in Africa
The drive to produce crops such as sugar cane and palm oil that can be converted into biofuels is spurring land grabs across Africa that may contribute to food shortages and deforestation, Friends of the Earth says in a new report. […]

(Sierra Club) Environmental Impacts of Tar Sands Development; (Pembina Institute) Tar Sands Watch; Oil Notes on WednesdayNight.com; (National Geographic March 2009) The Canadian Oil Boom - Scraping bottom; More on oil & tar sands

The tar sands consist of a mixture of silica sand, minerals, clay, water, and most importantly, crude bitumen. The process of converting bitumen […]

NYT Pakistan News
CIA World Factbook - Pakistan
BBC Pakistan country profile
Reuters blog Pakistan: Now or Never?
Pakistan’s Gambit in Afghanistan
There’s a sense that Afghans are losing confidence in the allied operations, and Pakistan is looking to “exploit that advantage,” says CFR South Asia expert Daniel Markey. Pakistan would like an […]

New York Times Topics: Afghanistan
(FT) Afghanistan elections 2009
Afghan elections 2009
(Stratfor) The 30-Year War in Afghanistan
The Runaway General
(Rolling Stone) Stanley McChrystal, Obama’s top commander in Afghanistan, has seized control of the war by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House
The Professor of war (Vanity Fair profile of […]

G8 Summit July 8-10 2009 ; Canada & the Arctic

For foreign policy-making, don’t look to Foreign Affairs
(Ottawa Citizen) … So what then is the policy role of Foreign Affairs — in Afghanistan or, potentially, anywhere else? What becomes of the Afghan Task Force when the Afghan war ends? Will it wither away — a highly […]

See also Wednesday-night.com on Burma
Elections and Opportunity in Myanmar
(Council on Foreign Relations Expert Brief) … Myanmar has become increasingly important, as rivalry between regional powers increases. Myanmar sits in a strategically vital location in Asia and possesses some of the region’s largest reserves of oil and gas. As a result, its future path is critical […]

Global voices Iranian elections 2009 ; NYT Topics Iran; The Economist Iran archives & country briefing
(Chatham House) Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran’s 2009 Presidential Election
Tehran’s Take: Understanding Iran’s US Policy (Foreign Affairs July/August 2009)
Iran Clamps Down on Reporting on Protest Leaders
In a further clampdown on Iran’s cowed political opposition, the authorities have […]