A Little Of The Old In And Out



(image via bloomberg)

In: Tim Geithner. Clearly President-elect Barack Obama, with the appointment of Senator Clinton all but likely, will put most of his intellectual efforts towards the economy -- at least in the beginning of his administration. Tim Geithner, slated to take over at treasury, will be in the center of the storm, in the thick of the action.

How a Treasury Secretary Geithner reacts to China and the events unfolding in Asia are worthy of note. James Fallows of The Atlantic posts an email he received from Beijing-based Bill Bikales, the senior economist for China/Mongolia with the UN Development program, on the Asia angle of Tim Geithner's expertise:

".. Tim apparently also studied Chinese, was posted in Tokyo for Treasury, and focused on Asia studies as undergraduate and graduate student. This is all great background for Treasury's international dealings in the coming years.

"Second, he was head of the IMF's Policy and Development Review Department (PDR) for two years. PDR are the people there who provide the intellectual framework for, and monitor and sign off on the work that the country missions do. Some of the best people I ever dealt with at the Fund. I like this because I've thought more than once in recent years that what the US needs to do is take a step back and look at itself just as the IMF looked at, say, Argentina, during those years, and develop a tough IMF program; get your fiscal act in order, get serious about risks in the financial sector, establish external sustainability."

More here.



Out: The Gulf Of Aden. The riotous anarchy that is the Gulf of Aden is, while vaguely romantic, quite dangerous. This blog is called The Corsair -- an antique term for a pirate -- but we cannot condone theft of property, kidnapping and the blackmail of innocent parties no matter how fucked up the situation on Somalia is and how much blame the European powers have for the present pandemonium. From the AP:

"NATO, the U.S. Navy and other militaries say it isn't as easy as sighting a pirate speedboat and intercepting it.

"They say their radar does spot pirates on the prowl and they alert crews of threatened ships. But the vast stretch of the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden is simply too large. Warships cannot escort every ship and cannot always get to an attack scene in time.

"Their focus has been the Gulf of Aden, between Somalia and Yemen, where 20,000 merchant ships a year pass on the way in and out of the Suez Canal, the quickest route from Asia to Europe and the Americas. Three NATO and Russian vessels and up to 15 other warships from a multinational force are patrolling there, along with an unannounced number of U.S. Navy ships.

"They have carved out a protected corridor through the Gulf of Aden, and last week the NATO ships engaged in a firefight with pirates attempting to hijack a Danish ship. Still, on Tuesday, pirates succeeded in seizing a Hong Kong cargo ship carrying wheat to Iran.

"The capture of the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star opened up an entirely new front farther out in the Indian Ocean — nearly as far from the Gulf of Aden as Paris is from Moscow. It signaled a threat to another key route, one that rounds Africa's southern tip and is used by vessels too large to traverse the Suez Canal with full cargos."

Is there any doubt that an age of International Law is not too far on the horizon? More here.



In: Christiane Amanpour. Sure, Amanpour is probably a bit disappointed that her husband's loyalty to The Clintons will probably keep the dashing Jamie Rubin from becoming the United States Ambassador to the United Nations -- a role he was born to play -- but she is not doing so bad herself.

Amanpour, the smartest roving international journalist, is getting her own daily show to compete in-house with Fareed Zakaria's magnificent (but weekly) GPS. From the NYTimes:

"Tony Maddox, executive vice president and managing director of CNN International, said: 'Our thinking was we wanted a big, the biggest, name to hub our international prime time, and when it comes to global international superstars that list pretty much begins and ends with Christiane Amanpour.'

"Ms. Amanpour’s program will go after big interviews but also include reporting and round- table discussions, he said. It will begin in the second quarter of 2009, joining several other new programs that the network — which reaches about 240 million households worldwide — has already started to show in the noon to 6 p.m. Eastern time period, which is prime time for much of Europe, Africa and the Middle East. 'BackStory,' with Michael Holmes as anchor, began in October; other programs, planned for early 2009, are in the pilot phase."

We look forward to that. And, as TVNewser notes, Amanpour was recently honored.