Globe Trot 10.10

The global economic recovery is “on the ropes,” according to a report from the Brookings Institution, with growth dissipating “in nearly all major advanced and emerging market economies.”

More than 300,000 Syrians have fled their homeland to neighboring countries to escape the ongoing civil war. Medair and other NGOs are mobilizing to help them through the winter, but currently most refugees lack basic supplies and shelter.

In Aleppo, one local resident reports at least 40 civilians dead in recent weeks within the Armenian Christian community. “Daily more than 5-10 and sometimes 17 rocket missiles explode in our Christian (mainly Armenian) areas from the armed rebels,” he said, with also daily deaths due to sniper attacks.

In Brussels today are Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. George Allen, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, for a NATO meeting to discuss the fraying relations between NATO and Afghan forces.

On the day he was killed in an attack in Libya, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens sent a cable to Washington warning of the disintegrating situation among Libya’s militia leaders “and acknowledged the rise of Islamist forces in the militias.” The cable makes no mention of the U.S.-made video or planned protests at the U.S. Consulate.

Mitt Romney, in his Monday speech at the Virginia Military Institute on foreign policy, spoke of the attack in Benghazi and said President Barack Obama’s policies “have not been equal to our best examples of world leadership. And nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle East.”

Globe Trot will be on hiatus until Mon. Oct. 22.