China has been the world’s factory floor for over a decade, but its manufacturing dominance is abating. Sure, a significant amount of investment will continue to enter the Middle Kingdom, if for no other reason than to target its burgeoning middle class, but factory investment that used to automatically go …
The eyes of the nation were glued on the Narayanganj City Corporation elections these past few days. Many wondered why this particular mayoral election of a newly formed city corporation near the capital was of such great significance. The reason for this election’s socio-political significance was …
Lots of moving parts in the Afghanistan situation. I’ll cover them in a series of blogs. Last week the Department of Defense released its quarterly report: Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan. If you’ve read any of my previous blogs, you’ll remember I always like to begin …
I went to hear a most interesting talk the other night, centered on how we need to get much smarter, quick, about agriculture and what we eat. Jonathan Foley, the Director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, gave the broad …
Tokyo is planning to allow thousands of Thai workers employed by Japanese firms to come to Japan to work for six months as an “emergency and temporary measure.” This move is meant to offset the damage months of flooding have wreaked on Japanese companies in Thailand.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura …
Africa struggles with secondary education
Governments in Africa are struggling to meet demands for secondary education, with girls facing more challenges to securing access than boys, according to a report from UNESCO. Many countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, are unable to successfully provide education services to more than …
Attempting to quantify the depth of damage to global food security by the food crisis of 2006-2008, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released its annual “The State of Food Insecurity in the World” report. The theme of the report coincides with the recent
Monday was World Polio Day, and there was much to celebrate: as of now, the world has seen a 99% reduction in polio cases. That’s incredible news. We have reached a point where polio could be wholly eradicated in less …
I recently had the opportunity to catch up with producer Matthew Tollin about his new documentary, Back Door Channels: The Price of Peace.
Back Door Channels is the true story of the men who brought an unlikely lasting Peace to the Middle East.
For the first time ever, the filmmakers …
Since its entry into force in February, the U.S. and Russia have been busy implementing the hard-won reductions embodied in the New START treaty to which both countries are party. On Tuesday, the State Department released new numbers reflecting reductions that have …
“It shows that the OAS cannot be relied upon as a neutral, independent arbiter of electoral disputes, because of the control of its administration by the United States government and its allies,” read a report recently published by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
The Organization …
Back in mid-February, amid the optimism of the immediate post-Mubarak era, I wrote a blog post exploring the future of philanthropy and the NGO sector in Egypt, noting that the field had been developing quite rapidly despite a restrictive operating environment. I speculated that if regulatory interference from the …
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was in New York recently to address the 66th session of the UN General Assembly. During her stay, she sat down for an interview with the WP. One of the topics discussed during the course of the interview was the impact of microcredit in …
It’s become so fashionable to automatically diss everything Putin does that critics are rarely forced to use their brains.
That’s the only way to explain the curious liberal denunciations of the Eurasian Union, a free-trade economic and political bloc of major former Soviet states that Putin is …
The Horn of Africa is suffering from the worst drought in 60 years, forcing people to flee their homes in search of food and water. Women and children are suffering the most due to malnutrition, especially in Somali, where the famine hit the hardest. Many mothers say they would rather …
