Editor's note: Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review. A former CNN producer/correspondent, she is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television."

By Frida Ghitis - Special to CNN

When the blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng staged his astonishing escape from house arrest, he sought American protection at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Six days later, when Chen left the embassy for a local hospital, it looked as if U.S. officials had found a solution that, as the State Department put it, "reflected his choices and our values."

One official at the U.S. Embassy said Chen was so grateful for America's help that he told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the phone, "I would like to kiss you."

But the picture is starting to change, with signs emerging that the Obama administration failed to effectively protect Chen.

Did the United States betray the Chinese human rights lawyer?

Read on here.

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly is expected to consider a non-binding resolution that would back an Arab League plan calling for Assad to hand over power to his vice president, paving the way for the formation of a unity government. The Arab League has also called for a joint Arab-UN peacekeeping mission to Syria. Russia, which vetoed the Security Council measure along with China earlier this month, said it could not support a peacekeeping mission until all sides in Syria cease the violence.

FULL POST

Editor's Note: Stewart Patrick is a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Program on International Institutions and Global Governance at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats, and International Security. He writes the blog The Internationalist on CFR.org where this was originally published.

By Stewart M. Patrick, CFR.org

On Saturday, Russia and China cast a double veto of a UN Security Council resolution backing an Arab League peace plan for an orderly departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria, and the creation of a transitional government in that country. This was the fourth time since 2007 that the duo has vetoed resolutions criticizing brutal crackdowns in Myanmar (2007), Zimbabwe (2008), and Syria (2011, 2012).

The proposal sought to end eleven bloody months in Syria, which now threatens to spiral into a civil, and potentially regional, conflict. The veto came on the heels of a brutal massacre by the Syrian government in the town of Homs, where reports suggest that scores of people have died—and on the thirtieth anniversary of the Hama massacre in which ten thousand Syrians perished at the hands of Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Michael O’Hanlon was in Afghanistan earlier this month and is the author of the new ebook, The Wounded Giant: America’s Armed Forces in an Age of Austerity. You can read more from him on the Global Public Square.

By Michael O'Hanlon – Special to CNN

As North Koreans mourn the loss of their so-called "Dear Leader" this week, it is worth tallying up the best estimates of his regime’s abuses against its own people. One hopes that a new North Korean government, even if not prepared to criticize Kim Jong-il, will at least take quiet stock of his catastrophic legacy and resolve to do better in the future for the good of their own people.

That is an optimistic wish, given that many of the key leaders of the new government are, of course, precisely those who contributed to the mistakes and atrocities of the old one. But with a new top leader in the person of Kim Jong-un comes new opportunities as well. States such as Vietnam and China have proven that reform from within communist systems is possible, even when previous leaders have been brutal.

Consider the cruel highlights of the last 17 years, not including North Korea’s nuclear adventures but with a focus instead on what the regime did for, and to, its own people: FULL POST

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

This time of year, Americans are meant to be thankful. However, no one is feeling particularly grateful because we're in a deep funk. The United States seems to have stopped working. Discussion of dysfunction and decline now dominate the national conversation.

So, I thought I would try to bring a note of optimism to the Thanksgiving table. Every time I turn on the TV, I hear some politician talk about how Europe's woes should be a warning and that America is next. This is a fundamental mistake. The United States is not Greece.

Countries like Greece and even Italy have a deep economic problem. They don't produce enough goods and services that the world wants at attractive prices. It's a competitiveness problem.

Greece also has a long history of borrowing too much and being unable to pay its debts. Over the past 179 years, it has been in default about 50% of the time. Its debts are huge and could not be paid under any plausible scenario. And crucially, because it is part of the euro zone, Greece does not have control over its currency, which means it cannot make its goods cheaper on world markets.

Italy, which is in much better fundamental shape than Greece, would face no short-term crisis if it had kept the lira. It could devalue its currency and make itself more competitive overnight.

The U.S. by contrast, has control over its currency, which is the reserve currency of the world. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Pavel Khodorkovsky is the son of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a wealthy Russian businessman who was jailed in Russia in 2003 and charged with fraud. Amnesty International and numerous international observers contend that he was jailed for political reasons. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Pavel Khodorkovsky.

By Pavel Khodorkovsky - Special to CNN

It’s been eight years since Vladimir Putin’s thugs forcibly removed my father, Mikhail, from a plane and took him to prison.

The last time I saw him was a few weeks before his arrest, when he was visiting me at college in Boston. There were already concerns about his safety in Russia; his business partner, Platon Lebedev, had been locked up earlier that summer. And despite the urging of American friends and colleagues to stay here, my father remained firm and returned home.

In the intervening eight years, after enduring two show trials and countless other indignities – all while the international community’s condemnation of his imprisonment fell on deaf ears within the corrupt Russian regime – my father has not given up hope.

FULL POST

Editor's Note: Sarah Morgan and Andrew Apostolou are, respectively, Senior Program Associate and Director for Iran at Freedom House. Apostolou also co-chairs Beyond Sanctions: The Next Iran Strategy, a joint policy task force between Freedom House and the Progressive Policy Institute.

By Sarah Morgan and Andrew Apostolou, Foreign Affairs

Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the United States has vacillated between engagement and confrontation with the Islamic Republic, with sanctions filling the gap. As Iran has moved closer to achieving its nuclear ambitions in recent years, tensions are rising once again. The latest round of U.S. sanctions, signed into law in 2010, has hurt the Iranian government by restricting finance for oil refineries and discouraging foreign companies from conducting business with it. Yet sanctions have not delayed Iran’s nuclear drive, foiled its support for terrorism abroad, or kept it from meddling in its neighbors’ affairs.

In the wake of revelations about an Iranian plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Abdel al-Jubeir, some in Congress are making the case for another round of sanctions, ostensibly to ramp up the pressure even more. But such a strategy leaves much to be desired. Over the past year, for example, Iran has enacted economic reforms and reduced the price of subsidies, riding out and adapting to sanctions. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Isobel Coleman is a Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy, Director of the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative. This blog post is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.

By Isobel Coleman, CFR.org

As anti-government demonstrations continue unabated in Yemen, there are few signs of resolution to its current impasse. Growing violence, in Sana’a and in the north and southwest provinces, threatens to dissolve into full-fledged civil war. This would not only be (further) destabilizing to the region, but runs the risk of precipitating a full-blown humanitarian crisis. Yemen already struggles with acute problems of food security, water shortages, and unemployment. A collapse of the state would reverberate across the Gulf, and demand further international involvement. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Stewart Patrick is a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Program on International Institutions and Global Governance at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats, and International Security.

By Stewart Patrick, CFR.org

On Tuesday the United States and Europe sought to pass a U.N. Security Council (UNSC) Resolution to condemn Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on protestors, which has killed 2,700 civilians since March, but the measure was struck down by Chinese and Russian vetoes.

The double-veto was a return to form for Russia and China. Both have established a longstanding pattern of blocking Security Council action against thuggish governments committing gross human rights abuses against their citizens. The two countries did the same in July 2008, vetoing proposed U.N. sanctions on Zimbabwe, and in January 2007, blocking a resolution demanding that the Burmese junta halt military attacks, end human rights abuses and release political prisoners. By vetoing even a watered down resolution on Syria - in which the word “sanctions” had actually been excised by the sponsors - Moscow and Beijing sent a clear signal that the experience of Libya, where their abstentions had permitted a resolution authorizing coercive action, would not be repeated. FULL POST