Interesting op-ed today in the Huffington Post concerning the new Congress and its plans for USAID. As an excerpt, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FLA), the incoming Republican chairwoman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, made it clear that cuts are coming in foreign aid budgets. She adds, “We must shift our foreign aid focus from […]
An astounding report from ABC news shows how the western diet has led 95% of one Pacific island nation’s population to become overweight. The island of Nauru is in the South Pacific, 400 miles away from the nearest civilization and with a population of nearly 10,000 people. According to the ABC news report, the people […]
Paris will be home to a conference of over 300 of what IFEX characterizes as “media professionals, government officials, policymakers and civil society activists” on Jan. 26 when UNESCO’s headquarters hosts an international symposium on freedom of expression. The event will be one day and will focus on the state of the free press around […]
To the surprise of probably no one, on Tuesday the Navy announced that Captain Owen Honors had been removed from command of the USS Enterprise in the wake of the furor caused by articles in the media over videos he apparently produced and starred in while serving as the Executive Officer in 2006 and 2007. […]
Among the most notable entries to the 2011 Academy Awards is a still-little known film by the name of “The Black Tulip.” The movie, a dramatic story of a middle-class Afghan family terrorized by the Taliban in modern Afghanistan, is an anomaly in many ways. For one, it’s Afghanistan’s official submission for best foreign film […]
The Meeting Lunch food security blog posted an interview with David Lobell, Stanford researcher and coauthor of a study arguing that our modern high-input, high-yielding agricultural system leads to less green house emissions than if we had a low-input, low-yielding agricultural system. The report argues that even though high-yielding agriculture requires the use of fertilizer, […]
Afghanistan will be more food insecure as 2011 dawns, according to international aid organizations working there. Already one of the most food insecure countries in the world, Afghanistan’s population may not receive needed food aid past June because of a funding shortfall to organizations like the World Food Programme. The summer floods in Pakistan have […]
Some Russians want to rehabilitate the great novelist Leo Tolstoy. (Read a NYTimes article on the subject here.) Russia’s post-Soviet regime turned a cold shoulder to the author of Anna Karenina and War and Peace because the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him in 1901 and because he was later exalted by Soviet leaders. In the late 19th century, […]
Yesterday the Associated Press ran an interesting article on President Obama’s plans to increase engagement with Africa in 2011. President Barack Obama is quietly but strategically stepping up his outreach to Africa, using this year to increase his engagement with a continent that is personally meaningful to him and important to U.S. interests. Expectations in […]
A development of interest over the Holidays was the leaking of a series of photographs purportedly taken of the Chengdu J-20, China’s fifth generation fighter aircraft. A competitor to the F-22 Raptor, the J-20 is expected to attain initial operating capability by 2018 as testified by officials of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center. […]
In 2010 as might be expected, justice was brought to some and impunity enjoyed by others. The Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court opened preliminary investigations into possible war crimes involving the March sinking of the South Korean warship, Cheonan, and the November artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island by North Korea; religious […]
The “land grab” of fertile farmland in Ethiopia was the subject of a recent post, but is not the only area of Africa that is being made available for foreign countries to buy up, sometimes with the blessing of the international community. The New York Times recently detailed the scope of land grabs across the […]
Congratulations! Brazil inaugurated its first woman president in history on the first of the year. Read her inaugural speech below. President Rousseff, a close ally of outgoing President Lula since 2000 and his anointed successor, lacks the charisma of her benefactor, but not the resume. Fighting as a Marxist urban guerrilla against Brazil’s military regime in […]
Pretzel contortions are part of the diplomatic game. In the Rising Powers Year in Review (read here), we called North Korea’s violence against the South and advanced uranium enrichment program the biggest surprise of 2010. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s New Year’s message today (see BBC article) has kept up the West’s diplomatic contortions — stand […]
Last night 60 Minutes (a TV news program in the U.S.) had an excellent two-part presentation on Wynton Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) Orchestra. The followed the band’s trips to London and Havana, where they engaged in cultural diplomacy of the highest order. What made the JALC trip to Havana so interesting […]