On September 15 last year, the United States, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed what has been called “a positive step toward stability in the turbulent Middle East.” The key goal: endorsing a significant new trend in Arab-Israeli relations through: —Recognition of Israel and normalizing its diplomatic relations for the first time with several Arab…
A U.S. State Department report, “The Climate Crisis; Working Together for Future Generations,” sums it all up: “Bold action to tackle the climate crisis is more urgent than ever. The record-breaking heat, floods, storms and drought, and wildfires devastating communities around the world underscore the grave risks we also face. “Through our actions at home…
The tiny ministate of 2.9 million citizens just due north from the western shore of the Gulf, joined on the Arabian Peninsula by a narrow border with Saudi Arabia. Yet its role in the region’s diplomacy is stunning for a country of its size. As an August 31 deadline approached for the United States and…
“My four children are now all safe,” Suneeta told CNN on August 28, as they were being air-evacuated from Kabul. Suneeta did not want her name or her children’s names published because of understandable safety concerns. Her husband had worked with U.S. troops prior to his disappearance in Afghanistan eight years ago. His fate remains…
The scene: a platform at the base of the steps to the Lincoln Memorial on the northernmost end of the National Mall. The speaker: African-American Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., America’s most prominent civil rights leader at the time and for generations to come. A quarter of a million people gathered in D.C. shortly after…
The situation in the strategically important South/Central Asian country of Afghanistan is crucial in the foreign policies of the U.S. and its NATO partners in the days ahead. In Afghanistan itself, August 19 would normally be a day of celebration: independence from British control on that date in 1919. That’s hardly the case in 2021.…
By Alan Heil Who would have thought two years ago that this East African country of 128 million residents would be the scene of a deadly civil war in 2021? Ethiopian President Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. His country had ended a decades-long war with its neighbor to the north…
As the Associated Press put it in a dispatch from Beirut on August 4: “United in grief and anger, families of the victims and several thousand Lebanese gathered at the port as the country marked the first anniversary of the horrific explosion of 2020. “That blast killed at least 214 people and devastated entire neighborhoods…
By Alan Heil On August 3, the Biden administration announced it would begin distributing vaccines to 65 nations, many in Africa. Official global deaths so far have reportedly reached at least 4,255,657, a vast undercount by most estimates. VOA’s Hayde Adams interviewed U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs Akuna Cook about the…
By Alan Heil Please forgive these midsummer musings. When the Heils moved to their retirement community in the mountains of northern Maryland in 2018, we were awed by the beauty of the surrounding forestland. On a trail encircling our community, we noted 30 weathered one-holed birdhouses, modestly constructed with all the same dimensions. But there…