As food prices continue to skyrocket, necessities such as milk, vegetables and meat never find their way into many families’ homes, placing 500 million children at risk of malnutrition. Thus children’s physical and mental growth will be stunted over the next 15 years, according to a survey by the international charity Save the Children. Eighty percent of […]
One thing history has consistently taught us is that paradigms shift and new eras are born in a repeating cycle that’s as old as hills. One thing history has also taught us is that some shifts are far more epochal than others; some have the capacity to distort the pathway of history and others not. […]
In last evening’s Republican Debate, the issue of Iran’s attempt to develop fissile material for a nuclear weapon was brought up as it has been in most of the previous debates. To be certain, this is neither a Republican nor Democratic issue, but one of national security. One candidate posited that instead of typical American […]
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has announced its partnership with the global children’s rights organization Plan International for a worldwide push to ensure that children, especially those at risk of statelessness, are registered at birth. There are some 12 million stateless people across the world, half of which are children, according to the […]
Both governments and international food aid agencies are shifting their approach to hunger relief by focusing less on simply increasing the supply of food and instead focusing on nutrition, according to a recent article in The Economist. While the Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s attacked the leading problem of its day – an […]
On the heels of the resumption of U.S.-Jordanian 123 talks, the pressure on the Obama Administration to maintain its commitment to the so-called Gold Standard is getting stronger. Indeed, the pressure is coming from across the political spectrum. In a spate of OpEds and Commentaries over the last several weeks, everyone from stalwart nonpro […]
21 February marked the deaths of a prominent foreign journalist and a foreign photographer covering the unrest in Homs, Syria: Marie Colvin of The Sunday Times and French photographer Remi Ochlik. Again, their deaths cast light upon the apparent crimes against humanity that are raging unabated in Syria. Colvin’s and Ochlik’s deaths in Baba Amr, […]
Over the weekend, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin E. Dempsey commented that at this stage the U.S. did not believe Iran had decided to pursue the development of nuclear weapons per se and that it was a “rational” actor. Obviously, this assessment is based on Iran’s past behavior and I tend not […]
I spent the other day watching a couple illuminating shows on the price of gold. The first was on Fort Knox and America’s precious national treasure and the second was a historical documentary on gold mining from pre-gold rush until today. It is well known that gold can come at an incredibly high human and environmental cost, […]
Sixty-six days. At this hour, that is how long Khader Adnan has gone without food to protest his detention without charge by the Israeli government. Unless you follow events in the Middle East closely, it is possible this is the first time you have heard of Adnan, or only heard of his in the last […]
It’s never a dull moment in Pakistan, but various moments filled with dull people. A rally was held on January 28, in the city of Rawalpindi, against the establishment of a place of worship by the Ahmeddia community. The Ahmedi’s are a minority community who consider themselves a sect within Islam, but were declared non-Muslims […]
This week, the WHO upheld its current guidelines in relation to use of hormonal contraception and women living with HIV. President Obama released his administration’s budget request for 2013, with some surprising news for US global heath policy. Finally, polio eradication efforts in Pakistan have been hamstrung by government health care and regulatory incompetency […]
What could prove to be a critical component in the effort to successfully confront the climate crisis was launched today by Hillary Clinton at the State Department in Washington. Secretary Clinton announced the formation of the “Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants.” What are these short-lived climate pollutants? Methane, black carbon […]
The estimable Robert Kagan, senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brooking Institution has a new book, The World America Made (Knopf). Because Kagan is the most formidable of the neoconservative foreign policy intellectuals, and because he reputedly has the attention of both the Obama administration and the Romney campaign, a condensed version of the […]
Iran seems to have found a new and valuable angle to outmaneuver the world community’s – predominantly the West – latest attempt to ‘deal’ with Iran’s gradually progressing nuclear weapons program. The playbook is as follows: If your back is against the wall, it is time to get creative! So, how about targeting the weakest […]