It’s not a good sign when you can no longer differentiate between lunacy or rationality in Iranian foreign policy. The real question, though, is who is to blame. Thus is the case when we examine two foreign policy developments in Iran, both dealing with purported espionage. In the first, we saw that an Iranian court convicted Shane […]
About 30 journalists are being held captive in the Rixos Hotel in Libya’s capital of Tripoli. According to Twitter feeds of journalists inside the hotel, notably CNN’s Matthew Chance and AP’s Dario Lopez-Mills. Sky News’ Mark Stone describes where the Rixos is situated and why so many foreign correspondents are trapped there: Sky News
Readers of my blog will know that I have written several times about proliferation concerns related to using lasers to enrich uranium. Its my hobbyhorse because I think it is the very kind of crucible test which will indicate if we are serious about nonproliferation or not. The Cliff Notes version is that such a […]
Now that the Administration has begun to re-fulminate over the possibility of getting the CTBT ratified, Arms Control Wonk contributor Page Van Der Linden has begun posting a multi-part series on the subject. Her aim, in her words, is to present “the treaty from the points of view of people who were around the last […]
Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s national train operator, currently gets about 20% of its power from wind, hydro and solar generation. It has just announced its intention to raise that to 28% in 2014 and to be carbon free by 2050. Nuclear had been the favored source of electricity in the train operators plans, but the decision […]
Each year, more than 3 million child abuse reports (reports often contain the abuse of more than one child) are made in the United States alone. Furthermore, it is estimated that in 2009, 3.3 million child abuse reports and allegations were made, involving an estimated 6 million children (Child Help). Nonetheless, the reports of such […]
As the civil war in Libya dominates news headlines this week, the State Department reminds us that U.S. efforts to fight famine in the Horn of Africa continue even as the media focus has shifted away. How is the U.S. responding to the famine crisis? Secretary Clinton explained the U.S. response in remarks to the […]
On Monday, August 22, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, appealed for the safety of refugees in Libya. He appealed for all parties involved in the conflict to ensure that the thousands of refugees currently trapped in Tripoli and other areas are “properly protected from harm,” according to a press release from the […]
The advance of Libyan rebels into Tripoli, as arduous as it was, is only the beginning. The real test for Libyan independence will be in the steps it takes to secure the state. Foremost will be steps to incorporate all Libyans into not only a political future, but also an economic one. As the minutes […]
“The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel One hundred years hence, when historians study the factors that led to the economic decline of the United States, it is likely that they will mark the first week of August, 2011 as a crisp break in […]
Just in time for National Women’s Day in South Africa, Human Rights Watch published a report last week on failing maternal care in the country. South Africa has seen its maternal mortality ratio quadruple in the last ten years. The report focuses on the Eastern Cape, one of the least developed provinces in the country, […]
Nina Federoff, who served as the science and technology adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton until 2010, takes on the Obama administration in an Op-Ed that appeared in The New York Times titles, “Engineering Food for All.” Now a professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University, Federoff writes that while the Obama administration has […]
Depending how you feel about the subject, reading about eating insects can make one as squeamish as actually eating them. But in an effort to portray the many dimensions of food security, this post addresses two recent articles that discuss the possibility of insects as a food source. Dana Goodyear’s article in The New Yorker, […]
We seem to have entered into a new era of the U.S. role in the world in which we take it upon ourselves to determine which world leaders are fit to serve and invite those unworthy to step down from power. We did this recently with our formerly good friend Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and […]
In advance of the upcoming meetings of the IAEA Board of Governors and General Conference, the Agency has issued two documents for its review which are of note: one quite useful, the other likely to provoke more than a few skeptical chuckles. The first is a compilation of the Agency’s ongoing activities to fulfill its […]