By Carol Bohmer and Amy Shuman Political asylum is a gender neutral concept. The law of asylum is based on the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, currently adopted by 147 countries, so the actual asylum law of receiving countries is quite similar. The impact of this ostensibly gender neutral law is, however, far […]
I am a fiction reader, and it’s rare when a non-fiction story grabs me in the same way as a good novel. Well, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon’s The Dressmaker of Khair Khana is such a book. Lemon was an accomplished journalist, in business school in 2005, who was assigned to write a story on women entrepreneurs […]
by Stephenie Foster In the next two years, the world’s population will reach seven billion people. Today, approximately 925 million people, or 16 per cent of the developing world’s population, are chronically hungry due to extreme poverty. Despite some progress in alleviating hunger in 2010, world food prices rose 15 per cent between October 2010 […]
by Cate Mackenzie When it emerged in October 2010 that there was an outbreak of cholera in Haiti, sympathy poured in for those affected; the presence of journalists and international aid workers meant that people across the world were quickly alerted to the situation. But the fact that 16,000 kilometers away, in Papua New Guinea […]
by Cordelia Rizzo In 2010, more than 465 women were murdered in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, most of them after being raped and severely tortured. They were the latest victims of the nearly 18 years of systematic killings of women in the city, which have claimed more than 1,052 lives. In the past two months, two […]
by Mira Kamdar The Green Revolution that transformed agriculture in the last century was an American invention. It began in 1944 with a project sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico. Dr. Norman Borlaug, a plant geneticist from Minnesota, was sponsored by the Foundation to assist in breeding new plant hybrids that would boost yields […]
by Myra MacPherson The contrasting legacies of two 20th-century American journalists, now long dead, remain fascinating. Walter Lippmann and I.F. Stone are dynamic examples of opposing approaches to journalism. Lippmann the insider, fancied the fine life of being “inside” to a degree unthinkable for most journalists. He wrote speeches for U.S. presidents. When he visited […]
by Sheila Jasanoff In May 2003, the United States and several cooperating countries filed a case at the World Trade Organization (WTO) charging the European Union (EU) with maintaining an illegal, non-science based moratorium on genetically modified (GM) food and crops. Almost three years later, in February 2006, the WTO concluded that EU inaction between […]
by Cate Mackenzie *For many, the 1st of January heralds a new start, and it’s not uncommon for weight loss to top the New Year’s resolutions list. Sense About Science, a London-based nonprofit has released its Celebrities and Science 2010 Review, which counters the more unusual diet and nutrition tips that have appeared in magazines […]
by Cordelia Rizzo It has become very difficult to articulate what is going on in the crime-laden cities of Mexico. President Felipe Calderon makes sure we are constantly aware of the efforts to prevail in the quintessentially unwinnable “war on drugs.” In the meantime, cities have become ghost towns, and society has gone from indignation […]
by Meritxell Ramírez-Olle This Sunday, November 28, voters in Catalonia go to the polls. Catalonia (El Principat de Catalunya) is one of the Spain’s 17 autonomous communities with a population of 7.5 million people whose capital is Barcelona. Catalan, spoken by more than 9 million people, is the national language and has, since 2006, been […]
Time magazine names 25 most powerful women of the last century, from Jane Adams to Virginia Wolf. But was it really necessary to include both Julia Child and Martha Stewart in such a short, international list? Supermodel Kate Moss is crowned best-dressed woman of the decade by U.S. Vogue. Quick, get Kate a nice juicy […]
by Elizabeth Samson On November 10, 2010, the United Nations took an important step towards committing itself to female empowerment with the election of 41 member states to the board of a new agency—the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. Known as UN Women, the new body brings four organizations that […]
We’re looking for a great intern who will devote 10 hours a week to our volunteer-run site. Main duties are writing posts and promoting Women and Foreign Policy on the Web. This is a perfect fit for an undergraduate or graduate student with an interest in international affairs who wants to gain experience in journalism […]
by Lilia Shevtsova Russia continues to drift through the zone of uncertainty. The global financial crisis forced the Russian elite to realize that the Russian petrostate would pose obstacles to economic revival and even stability. This elite understands today that reforms are the only way to stimulate economic growth and prevent the social turmoil. “Renewal […]