Following the cancer diagnosis of Argentina's president this week, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday wondered if United States could be infecting the region's leaders with the illness.

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Chavez: Is U.S. behind bout of cancer?

This article, written by Joyce Karam, appeared on The Majalla on December 19, 2011 How is the escalating conflict in Syria affecting Hezbollah’s position and standing inside Lebanon and in the region?

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Hezbollah’s Winter

LONDON — Euphoria over a move by the world’s major central banks to keep Europe’s debt crisis from choking off global lending was tempered Thursday amid renewed signs of the region’s slowing growth and reminders that European woes have no easy fix. Stock markets in Asia were broadly up on the coordinated move by central banks on Wednesday. But markets in Europe opened down, rebounded after relatively good bond auctions in Spain and France, and were mixed approaching midday. Read full article > >

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Dramatic move by central banks cannot solve Europe’s debt woes

Washington entrepreneurs Ted Leonsis and Steve Case have assembled a $450 million investment war chest with the aim of rebuilding a start-up culture in the region that once gave rise to the company that made them rich, AOL. For all its success, the Washington economy has a reputation for lacking the financial growth engines essential to entrepreneurial capitals such as Silicon Valley, New York and Boston. Read full article > >

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Leonsis, Case found $450 million fund to aid Washington area start-up firms

Eurozone finance ministers will meet in Brussels later to discuss ways to expand the region’s bailout fund.

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Eurozone to discuss bailout fund

BEIRUT — Turkey’s prime minister on Tuesday called for the first time for Bashar al-Assad to step down, in a fiery speech that likened the Syrian leader to Hitler and Mussolini and marked the final crumbling of Turkish-Syrian relations, according to analysts. “Without spilling any more blood, without causing any more injustice, for the sake of peace for the people, the country and the region, finally step down,” said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urging Assad to look to the fate of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, who was toppled by an internationally backed uprising and, last month, was killed . Read full article > >

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Turkey urges Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down

WASHINGTON — Hezbollah has partially unraveled the CIA’s spy network in Lebanon, severely damaging the intelligence agency’s ability to gather vital information on the terrorist organization at a tense time in the region, former and current U.S. officials said. Officials said several foreign spies working for the CIA had been captured by Hezbollah in recent months. The blow to the CIA’s operations in Lebanon came after top agency managers were alerted last year to be especially careful handling informants in the Middle East country. Read full article > >

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Hezbollah unravels CIA spy network in Lebanon as agency contains damage

ROME — Even as Europe’s debt crisis sharply escalates, the region’s two largest economies, Germany and France , appear increasingly divided over how and whether to deploy large-scale financial firepower to calm nervous markets . As France, Europe’s second-largest economy, becomes swept up in the market turbulence, it is calling for more radical steps. But Germany, by far the region’s largest economy and still viewed as a safe haven for investors, is far more cautious. Read full article > >

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European financial crisis: A growing gap between France and Germany

BANGKOK — World stocks rose Monday after Japan’s economy grew for the first time in four quarters and Europe moved closer to resolving a debt crisis that threatens to hurl the region into recession. Benchmark oil hovered near $99 per barrel while the dollar gained against the euro but fell against the yen. Read full article > >

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World stocks up as new leaders in Greece, Italy take steps to manage debt crisis; Japan grows

Top White House adviser on the Middle East Dennis Ross plans to step down next month, the Obama administration said Thursday, in what would be the second high-profile departure from the administration’s policy team for the region in six months. Ross, who helped set the administration’s course on relations with Iran as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is returning to private life after a tenure marked by frustrations and setbacks as well as tumultuous change. Read full article > >

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Top Middle East adviser to Obama to step down

Two days after his bosses on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors were returned to office by voters, County Executive Anthony H. Griffin announced Thursday that he will step down in April after more than a decade of service in Virginia’s largest jurisdiction. Griffin, who had alerted board members earlier this year of his interest in retiring in 2012, has served as one of the most powerful behind-the-scenes leaders in the region since 2000, when he took charge of the county’s day-to-day workings. Read full article > >

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Fairfax County Executive Anthony H. Griffin to retire in April

ROME – The epicenter of Europe’s debt crisis was rapidly shifting Monday from tiny Greece to far-bigger Italy, threatening to open a dangerous new chapter in the region’s financial turmoil and plunging embattled Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi into the deepest political crisis of his two-decade long career. Read full article > >

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As crisis spreads to Italy, Berlusconi under pressure to resign

Washington area real estate developers are eager to again build office buildings speculatively — meaning without having leases signed with tenants — but many are waiting on banks to begin financing them again. Work has recently begun or is scheduled to begin in coming months on more than half a dozen speculative office projects in the area, a situation relatively particular to the region. Developers in most other major office markets are holding off as the commercial real estate industry creeps back from the recession. Read full article > >

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Washington area developers ready to take a chance on new office construction

Mario Draghi will take the reins of the European Central Bank on Tuesday, moving into the crosswinds of the region’s financial storm.

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Mario Draghi, Into the Eye of Europe’s Financial Storm

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday told lawmakers that “we should build on our momentum, not undercut our progress” in Pakistan and Afghanistan, part of a bid to stave off Congress’s growing frustration over developments in the region . “Working with our Afghan and Pakistani partners is not always easy, but these relationships are advancing America’s national security interests. And walking away would undermine those interests,” Clinton said. Read full article > >

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Clinton urges Congress: Don’t ‘undercut’ U.S. progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan