I don’t know what to make of the decision by the World Diamond Council, and the United Nations-backed Kimberley Process to allow Zimbabwe to export limited diamond sales from its Marange fields where the regime has been accused of gross human rights violations. On the one hand, continuation of the diamond market ban would further […]
Next week, 31 prefabricated modules will be delivered to Resolute, Canada as construction begins on the Polar Continental Shelf Project. The federal government announced plans to build the new research facilities in January 2009. A news release stated, “The multi-task building includes a state of the art laboratory, complete kitchen, dining room, living room and […]
Sabrina Tavernise’s new piece for the New York Times is a must read for anyone interested in Pakistan. Here’s the real take away, come what may: “Out of more than 170 million Pakistanis, fewer than 2 percent pay income tax, making Pakistan’s revenue from taxes among the lowest in the world, a notch below Sierra […]
Imagine a piece published in the New York Times that tries to tackle the epidemic of tax evasion in Bangladesh. Imagine that in the first few paragraphs, the piece rushes to describe the sights and smells that stand behind and in front of that seemingly intractable epidemic : “Much of Bangladesh’s capital city looks like […]
Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations and former Bush administration national security leader, has come out with a sobering critique of the current war in Afghanistan. Off the bat, he discusses how the war has changed from one of necessity to know one of choice. Here’s Haass: The war being waged by […]
As India and China battle it out in the Indian Ocean, human rights takes a back seat in South Asia.
Turkish militant Muslim groups are using gorilla methods to intimidate their enemies, namely the U.S. and Israel and even the Armenian minority that has been long persecuted by the Turkish Government. Earlier this week Turkish Hackers stole addresses of 100,000 Israelis according to reports. The information stolen included email addresses of the victims as well […]
I hope you’ll all understand that I am taking a few days to decompress, get my life back together, sort through mail, return to a semblence of a normal home life, wade through 2000 or so emails thsat I either left unopened or simply unaddressed, re-establish a writing schedule, teach my summer grad class, deal […]
Bangladesh’s political economy made it into the front page of the New York Times this morning. Unfortunately, though important, it was a story about the garments industry in Bangladesh. That is, it was a story about the downward push of wages and regulations in the garments industry in Bangladesh. The kind of downward push that is […]
Already there has been lots of speculation on why Fidel Castro chose this moment specifically to give himself a bigger presence in Cuban life than he has had for the last several years, during which he had taken on the role of a nearly invisible but omnipresent source of critical opinion through his written commentaries. […]
Last Thursday, Parliament introduced legislation that would significantly change the status of Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees. The proposal would have increased Palestinian access to employment, social security, and land ownership. A vote on the bill has been pushed back a month to allow time for negotiation and consensus building. It seems that the prospect of Palestinian […]
Thousands of people from all over Lebanon and the Middle East turned out today to mourn the passing of Grand Ayatollah Hussein Fadlallah, who died this past Sunday at the age of 75. The loss is big not only for Lebanon, but for the entire region, as Fadlallah was a highly revered and influential figure in […]
Fidel Castro returns to Cuban TV (NPR) After so very few public appearances since intestinal surgery in 2006, this was news indeed. Fidel Castro appeared on Mesa Redonda, a prominent talk show on Cuban television, to discuss world events. His comments included an accusation that the United States was the culprit in the sinking of […]
More than 50 “drug subs” have been seized by law enforcement from Ecuador to Mexico over recent months. Many of these vessels are considered “semi submersibles,” capable of travelling 5-10 meters below the water’s surface and carrying hundreds or thousands of pounds of drugs. At this depth, they tend to leave a surface wake, allowing […]
One of the principal reasons that Bangladesh’s economic development has been so slow in coming and so meager upon arrival is that information hasn’t reached the poorer, farther flung, places in Bangladesh. Villages that do not have easy transport access (and therefore do not have information, publicly or privately bundled) do not enjoy their fair […]