An American diplomat in Nairobi attends a party at his ambassador’s residence and, possibly after a drink or two, gets into a head-on collision with a car driven by a teacher. The diplomat calls the American Embassy for help, a security detail arrives and whisks him away to a hospital, while ...
Author: Peter Maass
I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.
Nestle to (Famine-Hit) Ethiopia: Give Us More Money!
Fact #1: Ethiopia faces a famine that could be worse than the one that took a million lives in 1984.
Fact #2: Many years ago Ethiopia’s government nationalized a minor company partly owned by Nestle.
Fact #3: Ethiopia is offering $1.5 million to Nestle, which earned $3.9 billion in net profits ...
Disappearing in America
This is not a good time to be considered an “enemy combatant.” If you want to know why, click here to read my latest story in The New York Times Magazine.
Being and Adaptation
A few nights ago I saw “Adaptation,” the smartest movie since “Being John Malkovich.” There’s a reason why.
Brother, Can You Spare $200 Billion?
The cost of invading Iraq, according to The Washington Post. No refund from Saudi Arabia this time.
Shakespeare Explains the Balkans
The Bosnian war had its share of unforgettable monsters—Slobodan Milosevic, Franjo Tudjman, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic come to mind—but the most intriguing (and least notorious) was Nikola Koljevic, a Shakespearean scholar who was an architect of the attempted genocide against Bosnia’s ...
The Internet Meets Philanthropy
Organizations like United Way can give philanthropy a bad name. This story in The New York Times outlines the deceptive manner in which United Way accounts for the money it receives, and as the Times notes, “Its accounting ...
How to Win Friends and Influence People–In Afghanistan
Bob Woodward’s new book, “Bush at War,” offers more details on the campaign to buy victory in Afghanistan. According to an excerpt in today’s Washington Post, a senior CIA undercover agent, ...
Cash Killed the Taliban
In a story that previews Bob Woodward’s new book, “Bush at War,” The Washington Post reports that the purchase of warlords’ loyalty played a large role in toppling the Taliban from power. ...
The Quiet American
On September 10, 2001 a test audience viewed an early cut of “The Quiet American,” which stars Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser in an adaptation of Graham Greene’s classic novel about America’s unfortunate foray into Vietnam. The audience loved the film but a day later ...