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By Teymoor Nabili in Americas on November 21st, 2009
Photo from AFP

Hamid Karzai has promised that government officials in Afghanistan will henceforth be compelled to declare and register their assets, a strategy apparently insisted upon by Hillary Clinton.

But in a world where even top UN officials are able to profit to the tune of tens of millions of dollars through activities that many are calling a conflict of interest, Harvard Professor Stephen Walt ponders whether the principle of transparency shouldn't be more broadly applied, including in western nations.

By John Terrett in Americas on November 18th, 2009
Photo by Reuters

Reports on the aftermath of September 11, 2001 seldom focus on the group of people I spent Wednesday morning with.

They're the first responders - about 300 fire fighters, police, ambulance crews and volunteers of every description who helped on the day the towers came down in Lower Manhattan and then stayed in the ruins for months.

They're angry.

It's taken eight years for Congress to get round to discussing legislation to provide federal help for emergency workers who fell ill after 9/11.

Many are slowly dying from illnesses their doctors say were contracted at Ground Zero.

Teresa Quibell's fiance, Gregory, was among the rescuers in 2001. Five years later his body began producing Benzene, the result of inhaling too much jet fuel, according to doctors.

Teresa told me: "When we first diagnosed him with a leukaemia he had no red blood cells in his bone marrow whatsoever."

By Gabriel Elizondo in Americas on November 18th, 2009

Do you want to know what it can be like to live in Rio de Janeiro? Take a look at this 58 second Youtube video, for a raw, unedited scene from one man's window.

By John Terrett in Americas on November 18th, 2009
Photo by AFP

At the height of the great financial collapse of 2008, insurance giant AIG could not come up with enough cash to reimburse the many companies and countries that had insured against a collapse in the US sub-prime housing market.

AIG was such a huge firm that foreign governments from Europe to the Middle East and Latin America were phoning the White House to plead with the Bush administration to stop AIG from going out of business, in case their own economies were ruined.

The US government answered the calls by bailing out the big insurance company - and paying off, in full, the companies that AIG insured. 

Now, twelve months on and $150bn dollars of federal cash later to help AIG, a new report says the US federal authorities were too swift to pay back in full the big Wall Street banks who were insured against a collapse in the housing market through AIG.

By Rob Reynolds in Americas on November 17th, 2009
Photo by AFP

Back in the spotlight, former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin sat down with talkshow queen Oprah Winfrey on Monday, promoting a new autobiography and perhaps relaunching her political career.

In a mostly rather bland interview, Winfrey, a vocal supporter of Barack Obama in 2008, asked few probing questions, instead spending much of the hour-long show discussing Palin’s family life, relationship with husband Todd, and experiences as the mother of a baby with Down Syndrome.

There was little talk of policy, with Palin offering up such vague but patriotic-sounding nuggets as: “I'm gonna fight for whats good for America from a different plane and that’s what I am doing.”

Palin’s folksy style energised conservatives in last year’s campaign. Her blockbuster speech was the highlight of the otherwise grim gathering of Republicans at the National Convention in St Paul, Minnesota,

By Gabriel Elizondo in Americas on November 16th, 2009
Photo by Reuters

There are some interesting diplomatic dynamics from Brazil in relation to the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and relations between Iran and the United States.

Consider these travel schedules:

ISRAEL: President Shimon Peres visited Brazil last week – Nov. 10 through 15 – making stops in Brasilia, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Peres’ visit marked the first time an Israeli head of state visited Brazil since Zalman Shazar did so in July 1966. (The visit barely registered on international radar screens, or in Brazil for that matter, as on Peres' first night in Brazil the country saw a nationwide power outage that cut electricity to nearly 90 million people.)

Nevertheless, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with Peres in Brasila. Afterwards the foreign ministry sent out a press release trumpeting the fact both countries signed a cinematography co-production agreement.

By Teymoor Nabili in Americas on November 16th, 2009
Photo by AFP

Not my words, but those of Richard Grenell, spokesman for the last four U.S. Ambassadors to the United Nations.

there is no better way to bring the American message of democracy and hope to 200 million Arab households than to speak directly and unfiltered to the network they are watching.

That the Bush administration went out of its way to demonise this network, perhaps even to try to destroy it - is now common knowledge.

Tariq Ayoub, Zuheir Iraqi, Tayseer Allouni and Sami Al Hajj have been the most visible faces of that policy.

By Teymoor Nabili in Americas on November 15th, 2009

There's a new front developing in the Middle East propaganda battle, with right-wing political and media voices in Washington now turning their firepower against the National Iranian American Council.

In a long article  it declares to be "exclusive", the reliably partisan neo-conservative organ The Washington Times has decided to attack the NIAC, and "its charismatic leader, Trita Parsi", accusing him and the organisation of "skirting" lobby rules.

By Gabriel Elizondo in Americas on November 13th, 2009
Photo by Getty Images

It’s been an eventful past 48 hours in Brazil related to the environment.

Brazilians woke up this morning to front page news that deforestation had fallen 46% in the Brazilian Amazon from August 2008 to July 2009, according to the National Institute for Space Research (referred to as INPE in Brazil), the official government agency that tracks deforestation. It’s the biggest drop in 21 years. 

By Gabriel Elizondo in Americas on November 11th, 2009
Photo by Reuters
Blackout. Simple as that.
 
By now, you probably heard the news that Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and cities in 18 different Brazilian states were plunged into darkness last night with a massive power outage.
 
I am in Sao Paulo now, but when I heard the news last night, I was in the Houston, Texas airport waiting to board a flight back home. But from those I have spoken to since returning to Brazil this morning, it was a scary night that caused panic on the streets but no major public security incidents.
 
For those of you who have never been to Sao Paulo, and can’t imagine what the city would be like in total darkness, just imagine New Delhi totally without power. Or Los Angeles, Mexico City, or Bangkok.
 
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