Somewhere in Newark Liberty International Airport, vessel containing 5,000 Chobani yogurt containers idly sits in refrigeration, its future unknown. The yogurt, meant to nourish the athletes of the US Olympic Team in Sochi, had been blocked by the Russian government on the grounds that the US has not submitted the…
So China — as in, the People’s Republic of — is really into the Little Mermaid, and not that saccharine Disney cartoon we feed our tumescent American children. The Hans Christian Andersen fairytale is apparently a huge deal in China, so much so that Denmark has been able to establish a strong diplomatic relationship…
Today, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that effective immediately, visa applicants who are married to a person of the same sex will be treated exactly the same as those in heterosexual marriages. And yesterday, the Senate approved several openly gay nominees to various posts with no debate or opposition. It's…
In the arena of foreign policy, sartorial choices aren’t just personal statements about how hopelessly conventional world leaders want us to believe they are. The clothes a president or prime minister or emperor or consul or khaleesi chooses to wear will inevitably speak to the national character of the people that…
Is Vogue editrix and roman à clef supervillain Anna Wintour qualified to succeed Louis Susman as the U.S. ambassador to the U.K.? That's the question everyone, with varying degrees of thinly-veiled sexism, seems to be asking after rumors started gamboling wildly about the press that Wintour was President Obama's top…
Birds do it. Bees do it. Secretaries of State hearing UN pleas do it. Yesterday, a photographer caught Hillary Clinton aimlessly drawing on her speech notes during a UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East peace process. The situation is grim, shooting, suffering etc., but all of that starts to run together…
South Africa's Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, left, dances to African music with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during a gala dinner at Sefako M. Makgatho Presidential Guest House in Pretoria, South Africa, Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was offered an especially unpleasant greeting in the Egyptian port of Alexandria on Sunday when crowds started chanting, "Monica, Monica" in reference to her husband's affair with Monica Lewinsky. Then the convened Egyptians started throwing tomatoes — which apparently isn't just…
The Secretary of State has invited the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan to discuss WTF is up with North Korea and its recent bad behavior. Suggestion: They should begin the meeting with some Kim Jong-Il Looking at Things.
In Jenna's words, "I expected some kind of pink-and-purple glittery shit from Claire's. I clicked the link and...she pulled her hair back? I don't get it!" And yet, The Hair is an international topic.
Several bloggers found out on Tuesday that they're on Sarah Palin's shit-list, and thus were banned from attending a Going Rogue event in Wasilla. Sarah's black list includes three known Alaskan-based bloggers, and a mysterious fourth. [Gawker]
Tricky Dick 2.0 thinks Obama's foreign policy strategy is stupid, but Ben Smith points out the Nixon bowed to Mao, G.H.W. Bush bowed to the casket of WW2-era Emperor Hirohito, and, well, our nation still stands. [Politico, Politico, NY Times]
It's a good morning for Barack Obama: He woke up early this morning to the news that he has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." [AP, NYT]
I think I've finally realized why Tina Brown's July 13 screed about Hillary Clinton continues to bother me so much. Thing is, it took today's fawning coverage of Hillary's heroic, journalist-saving husband, Bill, to figure out why.
