There is an important series well underway at the Vancouver Observer: “The Big Grab.” It’s about how the tar sands industry is forcing choices on Canadians that they would not otherwise have to make in the absence of all the activity in Alberta. What’s particularly important about this series, it seems to me, is that […]
Southeast Asia is a hub for human trafficking. Too often, young girls are lured by traffickers through promises of well paying jobs in the cities. If you have read Half the Sky, by Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl Wudunn, you will already be aware of the horrors endured by women and girls caught in the web of modern […]
As Easter weekend arrives, the World Food Programme (WFP) reminded the public of the effect of hunger on children. Citing how 20 million children worldwide could be fed for two years by the $2.3 billion spent on the annual Easter candy sales in the U.S. and UK, WFP urged people to donate the amount of […]
As I’ve written of Passover and Chanukah, Easter too is, ultimately, a story about the oppressed becoming the oppressors. One can interpret the Gospels to mean that Jesus advocated violence. After all, he did say “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34), though many disagree on the meaning of the […]
President Yoweri Museveni’s government in Uganda has cracked down on the latest “Walk to Work” day organized by his political rivals. This campaign is designed to protest rising fuel and food prices, putting food purchases out of reach of many of Uganda’s urban poor. Drought conditions in eastern Africa have driven up food prices and […]
The state-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Company [MOGC] is going to sign deals with firms from China, Singapore and South Korea to explore three new areas for energy, according to the state-run media. Reuters reported that a deal is in the works with “North Petro-Chem Corporation Limited of China for exploration and production of oil […]
To ameliorate the coordination of food security during humanitarian crises, food security organizations and humanitarian aid NGOs have created the global Food Security Cluster (gFSC). Led by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), World Food Program (WFP) and the International Committee for the Red Cross, gFSC is intended to be “‘…a powerful tool to […]
Greetings from Brodnica, Poland. A quick thanks to my partner in blog, Jackie Miller, who is helping keep the flame alive while I attempt to have a bit of a holiday. I managed to pick up a signal from the Polish countryside and reviewed the latest goings-on in the world. Here, with thanks to Jon […]
We have a global health worker shortage of 4.5 million, and unsurprisingly, the shortage is most acute in low- and middle-income countries. Sub-Saharan Africa has 11% of the world’s population, 24% of its disease burden and 3% of its health workers (PDF). If you want a good visual of this, head back to Cynthia’s post […]
Today April 22, 2011 is Earth Day, this year’s theme is themed after A Billion Acts of Green: our people-powered campaign to generate a billion acts of environmental service and advocacy. Today is not only a day to remember to recycle and take a day off from the car, but it is also a day […]
Children face a number of battles growing-up, however all of the hurdles and challenges of a normal childhood are increasingly compounded by conflict. The children of Yemen are no strangers to adversity, however the challenges of childhood seem are growing more drastic as the the county’s conflict grows more deadly. Recent anti-government demonstrations have turned deadly as government […]
On February 9th, I participated in a Department of Defense Bloggers Roundtable with Dr. Jack Kem, who is the Deputy to the Commander, NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan (NTM-A) and Commander, Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan. As was the case with my blog last week I had intended to put this out during Women’s […]
Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal published this fascinating piece on the rising, so far just cold, conflict between Sunni-led Saudi Arabia and Shia-led Iran. Now these two regional powers have been in competition since the fall of the Shah in Iran in 1979, but as the article by Bill Spindle and Margaret Coker […]
Today has been a difficult day. In the world of human rights, we often talk of the need to bear witness. This is why organizations like the UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and others send investigators and analysts to distant lands to record and document possible abuses that may be occurring there. However many […]
The following is an excerpt from an Associated Press article by Ben Hubbard: “Oscar-nominated film director Tim Hetherington was killed Wednesday in the besieged city of Misrata while covering battles between rebels and Libyan government forces. “British-born Hetherington, co-director of the documentary Restrepo about U.S. soldiers on an outpost in Afghanistan, was killed inside the […]