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Well-informed Pakistanis say this dismal performance is all too typical. Worse, they insist, it hints at the structural problems that are plaguing America's aid programs. "I don't mean to be unnecessarily harsh on [US] AID, but I have spent the last eight years on the ground there in Pakistan and feel very disillusioned and extremely bitter that when American taxpayers and the public thought they were helping, their money was not put to good use. It did not reach the people - I saw it with my own eyes," says Nasim Ashraf, a Pakistani American who directs...
Part of USAID's problem is a "bunker mentality" that exaggerates genuine security concerns, he says, noting that agency regulations prevented key personnel from accompanying even members of Congress who traveled there to examine aid projects. But other observers say the problems go far beyond security issues. For Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistan security expert and director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, the core of USAID's shortcomings is that it has outsourced "its thinking, planning and local interactions with the recipients" to Beltway contractors who are more incentivized to keep money flowing than getting...
...refused to say what he had done during the national trauma of the Iran-Iraq war, whether he had seen combat or lost friends. When I asked his opinion of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's famous 2001 Quds Day speech, in which he called for an "Islamic bomb" to counter Israel's nuclear arsenal, Ahmadinejad denied that Rafsanjani had ever made such a speech. I said that I'd been there, using an official Iranian translator, and that the speech had made headlines worldwide. "None of the Iranians here around the table recall such a statement," he said...
...Figo's sticker price is yet to be disclosed, but sources at Ford say it will cost around $7,000. Although the price is more than triple that of Tata Motor's Nano city car, "its aggressive pricing from Ford," says Hormazd Sorabjee, editor of AutoCar India magazine in Mumbai. "It could be the cheapest Ford in the world." Says Colin Langan, auto-industry analyst for UBS Financial Services: "Ford's latest moves are all about gaining market share." (See the 12 most important cars of all time...
Faye, who was head of Italy's first pro-Obama initiative during the 2008 campaign, says he understands the President's not wanting to turn the issue into a diplomatic affair. "But someone has to make him stop. Maybe just a private note through the embassy?" Or maybe the next time he sees Berlusconi, Obama himself can lean over and say, "Hey Silvio, you know the tan jokes? Basta." - With reporting by Michael Scherer / Washington...