On the fourth anniversary of his imprisonment in Cuba, former U.S. government contractor Alan Gross said he fears his country has “abandoned” him and appealed to President Obama to personally intervene in his case. In a letter to the president, sent via the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana, Gross describes his isolation from the world, adding that his daughter and mother have been stricken by cancer, his wife has had to sell the family home in Maryland, and “my business and career have been destroyed.”

In 2008, 1.9 million Portuguese workers in the private sector were covered by collective bargaining agreements. Last year, the number was down to 300,000. Spain has eased restrictions on collective layoffs and unfair dismissal, and softened limits on extending temporary work, allowing workers to be kept on fixed-term contracts for up to four years. Ireland and Portugal have frozen the minimum wage, while Greece has cut it by nearly a fourth. This is what is known in Europe as “internal devaluation.”

After 12 years, nearly $700 billion, and more than 2,000 dead U.S. soldiers, here's what the United States has to show for its efforts in Afghanistan: a government that's perceived to be as corrupt as North Korea, according to a new report from the anti-corruption group Transparency International. File it away under things U.S. officials would probably rather ignore.

During an official visit by Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos to the White House on Tuesday, President Obama reiterated his government's support for continued peace talks between the Colombian government and the Marxist rebel group, FARC. The meeting between the two hemispheric leaders focused on the ongoing peace talks, being held in Havana, Cuba, and on other issues like human rights and trade.

“We are not blind, and I don’t think we are stupid,” said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in response to fierce Israeli criticism after the first round of talks about Iran’s nuclear program earlier this month failed to reach a deal. Now the deal is done, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is even harsher in his condemnation of Kerry’s handiwork.

In a room in which journalists were outnumbered by security agents and paramilitary fighters, the tall Iranian commander stood and issued his judgment. “Our ideology will not be undermined by some negotiations,” Mohammad Reza Naqdi, the hard-line head of the paramilitary Basij force, told the selected group of reporters in a gathering days before Iran signed an interim nuclear agreement with the United States and other world powers.

The interim deal concluded on November 24th between six world powers and Iran is much better than its many critics allow. In return for six months of “limited, temporary…and reversible” relief from some international sanctions, Iran has said it will not just freeze its progress towards a possible nuclear bomb, but actually take a few steps back. This, too, is limited, temporary and reversible; nothing is being decommissioned, and six months is a short time.

China seemed to take the air out of the Geneva Accord on Iran with its simultaneous announcement last week that it is creating an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea. The ADIZ will be implemented by the Chinese Ministry of Defence and obliges all aircraft flying in the zone to accommodate a number of rules including: the identification of flight plans, the presence of any transponders and two-way radio communication with Chinese authorities.