This week, the State Department held a “virtual ribbon cutting” for a new initiative, Leaders Engaged in New Democracies (LEND). LEND will help leaders in fledgling democracies connect with leaders who have experienced democratic transition in their own countries. As Voice of America reports, the initiative will facilitate conversations between leaders “by leveraging voice, video and […]
It appears Paraguay (as I covered last month) is not the only country embroiled in an impeachment scandal. Last Friday July 6 Romania’s parliament voted to impeach President Traian Basescu, who has violated the Constitution and acted as a dictator according to opponents (note: all news-related information and quotes in this article derive from […]
This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finally approved a rapid, over-the-counter, and at-home test for HIV. The test, called OraQuick and made by OraSure, allows people to check their serostatus in the convenience and privacy of their own homes and illustrates the change in perception around HIV ever since it became an epidemic […]
While much of what is immediately important about a democratic election is whether it was sufficiently free from corruption and interference for voters to decide the outcome, the devil is sometimes in the details. Seemingly minor bureaucratic and logistical concerns can threaten the value of an otherwise legitimate democratic exercise. Even in the United States, […]
I want to provide an update on my story about Mexico’s presidential election, which takes place today, July 1. It seems this election is as much a referendum on democracy and the openness of the Mexican political system itself as it is about any one candidate. After 12 years of struggle to move Mexico forward under […]
Egypt is getting most of the headlines this week for its historic and dramatic change in leadership. But it is not the only country testing the strength of its democracy. Last Friday (June 22), the legislature of Paraguay removed President Fernando Lugo from office following an impeachment trial. Lugo referred to the act as an […]
The international relations history buffs among you probably know the story of former Chinese premier Zhou Enlai’s quip about the French Revolution: when someone asked him about the revolution on one of President Nixon’s trips to China in the early 1970s, he said that it was “too soon to say.” Last year, a former foreign […]
I’ve focused much attention this year on the rise of drug-resistant strains of diseases. There’s been a lot of panic in the U.S., for example, around MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and new discussions about how to combat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. As I’ve written before, I believe drug resistance is going to be one of our greatest global […]
By Scott Bleiweis and Tim LaRocco Recently Scott connected with fellow FPA blogger and journalist Tim LaRocco. Tim lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and shares his perspective on some issues raised in Scott’s recent post about chances for democracy in Cambodia. Tim writes, “Having been a resident of Phnom Penh for awhile now, I have had […]
If you are also a fan of global opinion polling, Wednesday was an exciting day. A few weeks ago, I wrote about Gallup’s findings on world opinion of U.S. leadership. Yesterday, the Pew Global Attitudes project released new data that, with greater specificity, measures world opinion of Barack Obama, American culture and U.S. foreign policy, […]
A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that as many as one in ten cases of tuberculosis in China is multi-drug-resistant, with eight percent of those cases being extensively drug-resistant (XDR). One in four cases is resistant to at least one drug. Although China has a relatively low prevalence rate (108 […]
While the North African revolutions of the past year and a half swept away several long-serving dictators, sadly rulers with an ironclad hold on power remain in various parts of the world. In Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen has ruled the country since 1985 and shows no signs of relinquishing power. He is the longest-serving […]
Last Friday, Stanford’s Policy Review published a feature written by global health luminaries Mark Dybul, Peter Piot, and Julio Frenk entitled Reshaping Global Health. The article reads as a call to action, urging the global health community to “give up a lot of turf” and assemble a Bretton Woods-style conversation to reshape the Global Health […]
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) has released a report on food, agriculture, and sustainability ahead of the Rio+20 Earth Summit. Although “Food and Agriculture: The Future of Sustainability” focuses primarily on environmental issues, it draws attention to the health implications related to the current global food system. More than one […]
Recently I’ve focused on democracy issues on a pretty grand scale: the nation of Egypt’s first open presidential elections, Greece’s struggle to form a government and how it might impact the global economy. Yet one of the remarkable things about democracy is that you don’t need large numbers to make a difference. Sometimes all it […]