By a politically divided 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court on Thursday rolled back restrictions on corporate, including foreign interests, spending in U.S. Federal campaigns. The decision could unleash a torrent of corporate-funded attack ads in upcoming elections, and equates the rights of corporations with the rights of individual citizens.
News of irregular immigration into the United States often focuses on those trying to cross the border via land. Huge fences and security cameras monitor the divide between the US and Mexico (less so the northern border with Canada – that is material for another blog post), while scanning machines …
The Christian Science Monitor carried an interesting feature yesterday about the prospects and potential for land reform in Africa. In it correspondent Jina Moore argues that land and access to resources is at the heart of most of the continent’s conflicts; thus, fixing land issues could offer a …
I apologize for my absence as I’ve been in the middle of an apartment move that made me wish I was literally in a ‘graveyard of empires’. But now I’m nearly settled, the internet now is internetting effectively, and we can get back to all things Afghanistan shortly.
During the past …
With elections to the Iraqi Parliament looming on the horizon (set for March 7, 2010), my next few posts will focus on aspects of political parties, security, terrorism and government responsibility for peacekeeping. The more we as Americans know about the parties running, what they stand for and the chances …
We’re up in Cambridge, Mass., and were over at the MIT Museum yesterday. One exhibit looked at the work of Daniel Nocera and his colleagues on developing a new catalytic process to convert water to oxygen and hydrogen. There is wonderful potential in this …
Egypt has won the Africa Cup of Nations on a header in the 85th minute. They have become the first-ever nation to win the tournament three times in a rown, having taken the cup when they hosted in 2006 and in Ghana in 2008.
Ok. It is official. There are more urgent matters than mediating between Israel and its neighbors. For ten years now, the U.S. has exercised little to no pressure on Israel to go back to the negotiations table. During the Bush years, we witnessed absolute disengagement of the U.S. from the …
Wrap-up of Davos World Economic Forum 2010, from FT’s Money Supply blog.
A committee of the Kenyan Parliament has agreed to do away with the position of prime minister as part of a reform of its constitution. The position of prime minister was created in 2008 as a way to allow for power sharing in bring an end to the bloody confrontations …
“Bailiffs and riot police had been ordered to evict scores of people and tear down their homes, all apparently unannounced”, reports Al Jazeera, describing a scene familiar to anyone who has followed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The bulldozers continued their work,”, continues the …
As most of you know, on the eve of this year’s Africa Cup of Nations football tournament the team from Togo faced the unimaginable when their bus was shot at by rebels seeking independence for Cabinda. Naturally, after suffering death, injury, and considerable emotional trauma Togo chose …
I had a very busy end of the week and now I’m out of town, so I haven’t been reporting. Here, however, are two pretty interesting reads for you, from two of my favorite writers.
The first is from Fiona Harvey, indefatigable environmental correspondent for the FT. She has some unkind …
Havana is not alone in its judgment that the Obama administration has not done enough in its first year to achieve rapprochement. Analysts have been voicing their dissatisfaction in connection with the end of year one: the Center for International Policy’s critique sums up the main complaints …
Qatar Tribune reported a top-level Qatar National Food Security Programme (QNFSP) delegation, led by QNFSP chairman Fahd al Attiyah, will visit agricultural research institutes and meet senior U.S. government officials from the White House, the State Department, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy during its week-long U.S. …
