Good on ya, Mike! $50 million bucks really means something when it’s being put to good use to phase out coal-fired power plants. As an old Sierra Club activist, I was very gratified to learn that you had written a stupendous check to support one of the most effective Sierra Club campaigns ever: Beyond Coal. […]
The World Food Program (WFP) is calling the situation in the Horn of Africa the “highest global humanitarian priority,” with famine in southern Somalia and refugee camps in Kenya overflowing with those fleeing hunger brought by severe drought conditions. One of the consistent threads throughout the reports of devastation has been the drought’s effect on […]
Inflation continues to rise in China, with pork the latest culprit in increasing already high food prices. Over half of the meat consumption in China is pork, and China produces and consumes more than half of the world’s pigs. This means that when pork prices go up, inflation goes up. According to the UPI, “pork […]
The news continues to worsen in the Horn of Africa, as the United Nations has declared famine in two regions in southern Somalia. What was regarded just recently as a severe humanitarian crisis has now crossed the threshold to famine, defined by the BBC as: More than 30% of children must be suffering from acute […]
The UN Security Council met this week to consider whether or not climate change constituted a threat to international peace and security and, if so, what to do about it. As Deutsche Welle puts it here, “What might appear self-evident to many took days of complicated discussions and negotiations…” If droughts, heat waves, fires, ever-intensifying […]
A couple of days ago, I posted a discourse on the Administration’s return to Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. In it, I expressed pessimism that this would happen before anti-CTBT stalwart Senator Jon Kyl retires at the end of next year. I also opined that it is, in fact, possible to assure […]
Two weeks ago the European Union announced that it intends to provide $14.5 million in emergency food aid to North Korea. According to the statement released by the EU, after visiting North Korea in June, monitors judged the situation to be: “Increasingly desperate and extreme measures are being taken by the hard-hit North Koreans, including […]
For those who have been following the News Corp. scandal over the last few weeks, they have seen it get increasingly complicated. For those who haven’t been following it, they should. News Corp. controls a wide range of media-related ventures, from television to publishing to newspapers. These are entities that generally have a major influence […]
Guns, sex, and cartoons. If you’re a 13 year old boy – scratch that – if you are a male, those words probably gain your attention a bit. And since US foreign policy circles are predominately male, I’m hoping my readership levels will go up with this post. On to the sensationalism…. Guns. As discussed in […]
Good old American know-how. Yankee ingenuity. Can-do spirit. You know the phrases, you know the attitude and values they represent, it’s something deep in the core of the American character. But, is it possible that this American character trait can be lost over time? This question was prompted by two things. First, as you know, […]
Earlier this week I wrote the piece, Caylee’s Law: Is Justice Served?. The article asks the question; As many across the country were outraged at the “not guilty” verdict of Casey Anthony, is the question for justice for Caylee now to be served via increased legislation? Casey Anthony, a young mother from Orlando, Florida, was on trial […]
According to a Memorandum of Understanding document obtained by the National Journal, DOE and NRC are working together to simulate Japan’s Fukushima Daichii nuclear accident in order to validate its computer models for how reactor cores respond to accident conditions. The simulation is meant to inform NRC’s Fukushima lessons learned efforts. According to NJ, the […]
Hilary Clinton is in India right now. Not coincidentally, after a four-year survey of a site in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, the government of India has announced that the Tumalapalli mine there could hold up to 150,000 tons of recoverable uranium. Srikumar Banerjee, secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy, told the […]
You are probably familiar with the ongoing drama surrounding the U.S. debt and efforts in Congress to raise the debt ceiling. This is an important issue, to be sure, one that has profound implications for U.S. domestic policy as well as foreign policy. This op-ed from The Guardian offers a view from “across the pond” […]
Throughout most of the Cold War, the United States maintained some 5,000 so-called tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, including land mines, artillery shells, and bombs on fighter-bombers. The rationale for their presence–let alone their very existence–was always dubious at best. In a daring move of startling vision, former president George H.W. Bush unilaterally withdrew almost […]