Sunjeev Bery

Tag: Obama

  • After Saudi Arabia: White House Said No Talk of Human Rights (Transcript)

    White House briefing post-Saudi trip, as quoted in San Francisco Chronicle blog: Key part bolded/underlined. From the White House briefing for press with senior administration officials on the President’s meeting with King Abdullah, March 28:

  • Al-Monitor: “Members press Obama to raise human rights in Saudi Arabia” (Article)

    “This is the beginning of an expression of popular concern articulated through the US Congress about that relationship,” predicted Sunjeev Bery, the advocacy director for Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International USA. “The Saudi Arabian government’s repression is so bad across so many fronts that it has created an environment in Washington, DC,…

  • Israel’s Ban on Crayons

    The Huffington Post Posted: June 18, 2009 11:09 AM By Sanjeev Bery Israel’s massive blockade of Gaza continues, but it is easy to lose sight of what this really means. As the BBC reports, the blockade is so extensive that the Israeli government even bars musical instruments from entering the territory. Little is allowed to…

  • John Kerry on Iran

    “The last thing we should do is give Mr. Ahmadinejad an opportunity to evoke the 1953 American-sponsored coup, which ousted Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and returned Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to power. Doing so would only allow him to cast himself as a modern-day Mossadegh, standing up for principle against a Western puppet.” U.S. Senator…

  • U.S. soldiers on Afghan troops

    The Guardian (UK) has done a video report on how U.S. soldiers feel about the Afghan soldiers they are tasked with building into an army.  The piece hints at a broader reality:  it is a bit difficult to build a national military on another nation’s behalf. Interesting excerpts: Supervising Afghan soldier to reporter (translated): This…

  • Building (good) government

    The Obama Administration has nominated a major microfinance leader to serve as U.S. Under Secretary of Global Affairs in the State Department.  It’s a great example of how to bring people into the U.S. foreign policy establishment who have a direct understanding of strategies for international poverty alleviation. Read on for the full press release…

  • Chris Matthews, Cold Warrior

    Amidst all the buzz around new U.S.-Cuba relations, Chris Matthews found a way to sound the old Cold War alarm.  Avoiding the messy details of real history, Mr. Matthews criticized President Obama’s call for a new U.S.-Cuba relationship: Well, I just am not a Castro fan. You know, he [Castro] bought the wrong ticket. He…

  • The Al Qaeda two-step shuffle

    Al Qaeda and the “war on terror” seem to be the ultimate linguistic props.  Now you see them, now you don’t. First, the disappearance — the Washington Post reports in late March on the new name for the “war on terror”: In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department’s office…

  • “That wasn’t a date…”

    Did they shake hands?  Did they chat?  Was there a peck on the cheek?  As with all first dates, it depends on who you talk to. The New York Times reported that a pair of top diplomats from the U.S. and Iran had a polite chat at an international conference on Afghanistan this Tuesday.  According…