How can we best ensure that development assistance reaches those who need it most? Here are six building blocks.
How can we best ensure that development assistance reaches those who need it most? Here are six building blocks.
Standard & Poor’s (S&P), one of the big three global ratings agency, on Monday followed the data, too, by downgrading its credit outlook from ‘stable,’ to ‘negative’ for United States sovereign debt – better known as US Treasury notes. The decision by S&P’s sovereign debt analyst, Nicola Swann – known cynically by some traders as the new ‘Black Swann’ – to downgrade US sovereign debt outlook roiled Global Markets, underscoring the growing view that America is a superpower in decline.
Earlier this month the president of Cornell University, David Skorton, published an excellent essay in the Huffington Post on the role that higher education can – and should – play in public diplomacy (full essay is here). I have written about how higher education is often overlooked in current analyses of public diplomacy (the focus […]
Earlier this week Stephen Walt drew the wrong lesson from the Arab uprisings: So let me get this straight: one former dictator ultimately decides not to unleash massive force against anti-government demonstrators, and eventually leaves power more-or-less peacefully, if not exactly voluntarily. His reward? He winds up in jail (maybe deservedly). Another dictator responds by […]
The situation in Lybia appears to be slowly shifting for some as it seems Gaddafi’s grip on the contry and it’s people may be loosing strength following weeks of internal conflict and air strikes by Western forces. However lost in the shaddows chaios of conflict and the media blitz that often follows is the plight of the […]
By Christina Lamb AMONG the many dictators who must be watching the uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa with dismay is Robert Mugabe. The Zimbabwean President has been in power 31 years and despite recently turning 87 is pushing for another five year term. While other despots have responded to the revolutionary mood […]
Hearts and minds. That’s what narrator Peter Coyote says coalition forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan need to win over in this National Geographic offering. Talibanistan is the nickname given to the treacherous mountainous area straddling Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is called that because of the Taliban forces entrenched there. This hour long documentary shows firsthand […]
Governments have attacked and killed civilian protesters across the Middle East. These attacks have resulted in action by the International Criminal Court and international military forces against Libya but inaction against similar atrocities in other Middle Eastern states. This discrepancy in response by the I.C.C., international community, and the U.S., have drawn cries of hypocrisy. […]
“The radicals are the people who are fundamentally altering the composition of the atmosphere.” That’s the voice of Bill McKibben at this year’s annual Power Shift conference in Washington. Power Shift brought ten thousand young leaders to hear about how to transition from the fuel-based energy economy – and the money-driven politics of the special […]
The American University in Cairo’s School of Global Affairs and Public policy is coming out with an impressive – and timely – new journal, The Cairo Review of Global Affairs. Here is what they say about the journal’s mission and focus: Its primary aim is to be a focal point for policymakers, officials, academics, experts, […]
The UN Security Council should not have referred the Libya situation to the ICC, claim many on the Right, because now Qaddafi has no incentive to step down. If potential prosecution awaits after his ouster, they say, he has every incentive to hold his ground. The ICC referral, the argument goes, is a barrier to […]
“At the State Department, we recognize that stand-alone government-to-government diplomacy is no longer enough. From Secretary Clinton down, we are embracing new media and new technologies as vital tools for what we call 21st Century Statecraft.” Judith A. McHale, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Throughout the Middle East, and around the world, […]
10-year-old nets $180K for anti-malaria effort The United Nation Foundation’s Nothing But Nets campaign to provide mosquito netting in developing areas to prevent the deadly spread of malaria is inspiring donors and efforts at all levels, including among the young. Volunteer Katherine Commale, a Pennsylvania fourth-grader, has been raising funds for nets since she was […]
Amman is a vast, sprawling metropolis, but not very exciting. A map of the city looks like the cross section of an enormous anthill, with curving roads criss-crossing each other and leading nowhere in particular. It was an epic hassle to get to our hotel – do no Jordanian taxi drivers know how to read […]
In the post below, I wrote about the recent and instantly controversial study from Cornell that calls into question the greenhouse gas advantage that natural gas was assumed to have over coal and oil. This BBC article, for instance, points out what may seem like the obvious: As one very involved British geologist says “By […]