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from Reuters Investigates:
Diplomacy Inc
By Ben Berkovitz
Diplomacy is a complex thing, and it gets even more complicated when diplomats are trying to act as salesmen.
A series of State Department cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and provided to Reuters by a third party, demonstrates just how intertwined American political and commercial interests really are. (See special report "Weapons, frozen chicken, and the art of diplomacy")
Sometimes it takes an illustration, like this one, to explain just how these sorts of deals work. One conversation leads to another, which leads to the mention of someone’s interest, which gets passed up a chain of command – and all of a sudden, perhaps unexpectedly, someone gets what they wanted. It may seem simple but it rarely is – some of the transactions mentioned in the cables played out over the course of years, and in some cases they still have not been finalized. (There are examples where the flowchart would take up two computer screens just to summarize.)
(For a multimedia PDF version of the special report, click here)
from FaithWorld:
U.S. eyes Egypt Islamists as extremist fears fester
(An Egyptian flag with a peace sign at a rally in Trafalgar Square, in central London February 12, 2011/Luke MacGregor)
U.S. officials are concerned that Islamic extremists may try to exploit Egypt's upheaval but are not yet convinced that the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's most influential Islamist opposition group, is necessarily a threat.
from FaithWorld:
Will Pew Muslim birth rate study finally silence the “Eurabia” claim?
(Photo: Muslims who could not fit into a small Paris mosque pray in the street, a practice the French far-right has compared to the Nazi occupation, December 17, 2010/Charles Platiau)
One of the most wrong-headed arguments in the debate about Muslims in Europe is the shrill "Eurabia" claim that high birth rates and immigration will make Muslims the majority on the continent within a few decades. Based on sleight-of-hand statistics, this scaremongering (as The Economist called it back in 2006) paints a picture of a triumphant Islam dominating a Europe that has lost its Christian roots and is blind to its looming cultural demise.
from Reuters Soccer Blog:
Cosmos and Cantona could take MLS to the next level
For all the progress made by Major League Soccer since it began in 1996, there is not one team in the league that can match the old New York Cosmos for name recognition – not globally and not in the United States.
But when the new owners of the Cosmos name announced in August that they planned to bring the team back to life and take them into MLS, there was a good deal of scepticism in the American soccer community. Now they have named former Manchester United great Eric Cantona as director of soccer.
from FaithWorld:
WikiLeaks bares even tiny Vatican’s diplomatic soul
(Photo: Vatican City with St. Peter's Basilica at left and the square Apostolic Palace -- home of the pope and many Vatican offices -- to the right and the long Vatican museum in the background, April 6, 2005/stringer)
The Vatican may be the world's smallest state but even its diplomatic soul has been laid bare by WikiLeaks cables covering everything from sex abuse and media blunders to old "technophobic" cardinals. Cables sent from the U.S. embassy to the Vatican to the State Department depict Pope Benedict as sometimes isolated as aides try to protect him from bad news, and say his number two is seen as a "yes man" with little credibility among diplomats.
The cables were published by the Guardian newspaper, one of several news organizations with have been given access to the leaked cables from U.S. embassies around the world.
from Reuters Soccer Blog:
In FIFA, U.S. are no superpower
So it will be Qatar and not the United States who host the 2022 World Cup finals – a decision from FIFA’s executive committee that left many fans in the U.S. angry, dismayed and a little confused.
The machinations of FIFA decision making are far from transparent as U.S Soccer chief Sunil Gulati implicitly acknowledged when he said that the vote wasn’t just about the merits of the bid: "It’s politics, it's friendships and relationships, it's alliances, it's tactics."
from Reuters Investigates:
America’s “Dreamless Dead”
Washington economics correspondent Emily Kaiser delves into plutonomies and what pollster John Zogby calls the "Dreamless Dead" for her special report on income inequality in the United States.
Here are some interesting numbers from the OECD on how the wealth gap in America compares to other countries. (Full disclosure -- I'm British)
from Reuters Investigates:
Following the money in O’Donnell’s campaign
Mark Hosenball has been in Delaware and Pennsylvania reporting on the midterm election campaign for our special report "Conservative donors let Christine O'Donnell sink."
If that's not enough O'Donnell for you, here's his report from a bastion of conservative thinking in Delaware:
from Full Focus:
Big U.S.
Recent figures confirm that the United States is the most obese country in the world, with 34% of the adult population classified as obese. This follows a trend noted in a report that obesity rates are climbing across the nation, prompting the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to call it "a major public health threat". Photographer Rick Wilking set out to document the story by breaking it down into sub-topics like an obesity research study, youth and teen obesity solutions, the “Biggest Loser” TV show phenomenon, bariatric surgery and a 500 pound proponent of "fat acceptance" who says obesity isn't always a bad thing.
from Reuters Investigates:
Club Fed: the ties that bind at the Fed
We're getting a lot of good feedback on our special report on cozy ties between Wall Street and the Fed. As one Wall Street economist put it: "I've never seen the 'Fed Alumni Association' used more extensively for back-channel communications with the Street than has been the case since June."
The story pulls back the veil on the privileged access that Federal Reserve officials give to big investors, former Fed officials, money market advisers and hedge funds.
