While the movie, Trade, may be a somewhat glamorized and dramatized Hollywood film, you are left with questions regarding the plot. The film does however highlight the many of the realities of modern day slavery and human trafficking…a problem which plagues our global world. By giving …
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main opposition party to Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF, has broken his rceent silence to explain why the increasingly splintered Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) acquiesced to the recent Constitutional changes that Thabo Mbeki helped broker. Speaking in Masvingo at the party's eighth anniversary celebrations, …
The Springboks mashed the USA Eagles 64-15 in each team's final first round matchup at the Rugby World Cup in France. South Africa finished atop Pool A and will face unfamiliar foe Fiji in theis first knockout round fixture next weekend. The Americans played scrappy, defiant rugby, but were simply …
This pungent article from yesterday's "NY Times," At Climate Meeting, Bush Does Not Specify Goals, has some quotes too good to miss. (It also has an insightful "Back Story" from the reporter, John Broder. It's a great four-minute interview. Plus, there's a link at the article to …
This week's news roundup is truly a mixed basket of stories, including a look at the new US citizenship test, a new set of statistics on immigration, which raise a few questions for the Home Secretary in the UK and a story on how a new musical phenomenon is visualizing …
The normally cantankerous Paul Theroux has a glowing review of Tim Jeal's new biography of Henry Morton Stanley in this week's New York Times Sunday Book Review. Here is the concluding paragraph:
There have been many biographies of Stanley, but Jeal's is the most felicitous, the best informed, …
Rwanda has joined much of the international community in a call for the end of the death penalty. It's a pretty compelling argument, all in all: If the Rwandan government can end capital punishment with countless perpetrators of genocide still to be punished, there are …
While the White House was hosting talks in Washington, Bill Clinton had world leaders and worthies of every stripe in New York talking about, among other things, climate change. The indispensable "Financial Times" has considerable coverage here on the Energy & Climate Change discussions at the
There is a new story about political intrigue, firings, scandal, corruption, and crime reverberating through South Africa with the issue of an arrest warrant and suspension of National Police Commissioner (and head of Interpol) Jackie Selebi. This might represent Thabo Mbeki's stiffest …
The Defense Department has granted suspected terrorists held at the U.S. naval facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba the right to request legal representation.
Defense Department officials gave 14 high-value detainees, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, “Legal Representation Request” forms.
The form allows them to state their desire “to have a …
Help Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, and take a moment to write a letter to your Congress, and ask them to pass the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007.
Human Rights Watch has launched a campaign in support of the Act called, Children in the Ranks, the …
We as a global society work tirelessly to ensure the wellbeing of our financial assets and stability, our commodities and resources. Yet, while we may not always do our best, they are looked upon highly, and frequently. And while we have the knowledge and energy to purse such …
This week there is no disputing among the international community that the people of Burma are suffering. Burma is literally a country burring, as the fires of repression have burned too long. While it is much too lengthly to go into the full extent of Burma/Myanmar's …
Mexican writer Fernando del Paso has been awarded the Juan Rulfo literary prize, a major honor in Spanish literature. Born in Mexico City in 1935, Del Paso is the author of Palinuro of Mexico and Noticias del Imperio, among other works. Though best known for …
Well, earlier in the week I predicted it, not because I am especially perspicacious, but because it was so predictable: “Prepare for rhetorical brickbats to come from Zim's wily tyrant.” And brickbats we have gotten. In his Wednesday address before the United Nations, Mugabe …
