Efforts to combat trafficking are diverse and growing. Businesses, NGOs, academics, politicians, governments and individuals all have a role to play.
So, instead of spending Thanksgiving weekend watching the Macy’s Parade, eating turkey and shopping (my usual Thanksgiving activities), I was in Amsterdam and London …
Summary 2011
Latin America in 2011 became more important and influential on the world stage as the economies of the United States and Europe could not achieve the growth it required after the 2008 economic crisis, placing emphasis on the BRICS nations, particularly Brazil in Latin America to be the engine …
The year 2011 has been marked by a continued, if not official, recession in the U.S., while other Western nations have turned to austerity measures to fight off national bankruptcy. Developing African states have suffered through famine and extreme violence, while the youth in the Middle East have raised their …
Iceland’s Minister of the Interior, Ögmundur Jónasson, rejected Chinese businessman Huang Nubo’s bid to purchase a large tract of territory in the northeastern region of the country. Huang had sought an exemption from an Icelandic law which prohibits nationals from outside the European Economic Association from purchasing large amounts of …
Iraq has agreed to a $17 billion deal covering the next 25 years with Royal Dutch Shell and Mitsubishi to capture the natural gas that is currently being flared off in its southern oil fields. The BBC reports “The new venture will be called Basra Gas …
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came into being at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the convention got underway yesterday in Durban, South Africa. There are 194 countries …
The son of the Iranian ayatollah who issued the 2006 fatwah calling for the assassination of Azeri author Rafiq Tagi has issued a statement on his web site praising Tagi’s murderers.
Sheikh Mohammed Fazel Lankarani, a prominent ayatollah like his late father, has written on his site that “Without a doubt, …
Japan has voiced concern over the second trial of China’s first aircraft carrier, which started Tuesday.
Even though the refitted Soviet carrier is technologically pretty much what you’d expect from a third-world country, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said, “I am concerned about their reinforcement of national defense power, which lacks …
“Haiti is a country that supported the fight for freedom in Latin America, a country that terrified slave owners across America and is now subjugated to foreign occupation that has nothing to do with humanitarian purposes, as proposed,” said Julio Turra, president of Unified Confederation of Workers (CUT French acronym). …
Thousands gathered in Senegal yesterday for the opening of the second International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP), the largest meeting of its kind, which will run until December 2, 2011. The objective of the groundbreaking meeting is to push forward an agenda for broad …
2011 evidenced our inability to predict substantial change and respond to tumultuous events. The ramifications of foreign policy decisions will not show their true colors for some time. Below, I discuss notable states – Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Qatar, Cuba, Burma, Ivory Coast, Norway, Israel, and Palestine – that I …
There’s a LOT going on in the Middle East/North Africa this week—elections in Morocco and Egypt, unrest in Syria, crackdown on protesters in Bahrain…the list goes on. Don’t have time to sift through all the commentaries and coverage? No problem. Let me break it down for …
On November 22 Mexico signed a free trade agreement with the Central American states of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. At the signing ceremony in San Salvador, El Salvador, Mexican foreign secretary Patricia Espinosa said: “This new agreement is very innovative because it fosters dialogue among companies, …
According to a recent poll by Latinobarómetro, a public opinion survey conducted in 18 countries in the Latin American region, 45% of Brazilians agree that “democracy is preferable to any other type of government.”[1] Alarmingly, the figure is down from 54% last year. …
It is roughly 1644 miles between Tibet and Ho Chi Minh City, where 48 years ago Buddhist monks burst into flames in protest against the U.S. backed government. Those actions also burst into the public eye through newspaper photos and television reports, igniting a different …
