Antonio Maria Costa, the UN Drug Czar, is a modest man, so when he stands up, as he did on June 23, and tells an audience at Johns Hopkins-SAIS, in Washington, DC, that we have to start thinking about transnational crime in an entirely different way—it’s news. Costa, whose degrees, from UC-Berkeley and the University […]
Shallow piece in the NYTimes today on a modest slowdown in economic growth reported in China for the second quarter, prettily written by non-economists. For a better analysis, not so elegantly written, have a look at the CSFB note from today (below) that explains that growth has slowed due to slackening investment (in Chinese terms […]
This week, the highly controversial issue of genetically modified organisms (or GMO’s for short) was thrown into the limelight, when members of the European Union proposed a new policy meant to broaden the availability of such foods known to many Europeans as “Frankenfoods.” The flexibility of this new policy is aimed at enabling countries like […]
Larry Hagman, forever known as J.R. Ewing from “Dallas” (but better remembered by me as Major Tony Nelson, master of Jeannie the genie) is doing a series of ads for SolarWorld, one of the biggest PV manufacturers. Hagman has the largest solar array of any residence in the US, maybe the world. He has also […]
Apparently there were some unusually rude people posting comments to the Sun Chronicle’s website in Attleboro, MA. The online version of the paper no longer allows just anyone to register a comment. You practically have to give them a map to your where you live. Usually I only comment on this blog about affairs related […]
Ezra Klein recently wrote: Fairly few political commentators know enough to decide which research papers are methodologically convincing and which aren’t. So we often end up touting the papers that sound right, and the papers that sound right are, unsurprisingly, the ones that accord most closely with our view of the world. In response, Daniel […]
Perhaps one of the most interesting and underreported news items of the past year has been the progression of the China-Taiwan Free Trade Agreement (also know by the very Chinese sounding mouth-full of a name Economic Co-operation Framework Agreement or ECFA). It was less than twenty years ago that President Clinton had to send the […]
The Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT) is an information and analysis tool on global climate change developed by the World Resources Institute. It contains a truly impressive array of databases and graphics, excellent for delving deeply into questions of who, what, when, where and why greenhouse gases are being produced. It has data for the […]
The latest in a string of attacks on the media in Rwanda has targeted Agnes Uwimana, editor of Umurabyo, a private newspaper in Rwanda. She was charged with defaming the president and espousing genocide. Uwimana’s arrest and other attacks on the media have captured the attention of press freedom organizations for weeks. The Rwandan government […]
Sean Patrick Murphy just posted a good review of The Stoning of Soraya M. over on the Global Films blog. The film is based on the book of the same name by French-Iranian writer Freidoune Sahebjam which tells the true story of one of Iran’s many stoning victims under Sharia law. More than anything, it […]
Last week David Fedman of the FPA East Asia blog posted a beautifully disturbing and disturbingly beautiful video made by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto. Here it is in case you missed it. Watch and be hypnotized.
Yesterday, July 12, 2010 was the six-month anniversary of the earthquake which devastated the island nation of Haiti, killing more than 220,000 and which left even more Haitians displaced, homeless, or without adequate shelter. The earthquake also took a drastic toll on the country’s education system. In February I reported on the state of the […]
Part of what makes this movie sickening is that it is based on a true story. Set in 1986 Iran in a small village, the story revolves around a woman who refuses to grant her husband a divorce because it would leave her and her children penniless. Seeing no other way around it, the husband, […]
In Haiti, reconstruction grinds Six months after a massive earthquake devastated Haiti relief and reconstruction efforts have stalled as overwhelmed Haitian authorities struggle to assert control and donors fail to deliver promised funding. More than 1.4 million peoples remain without adequate permanent housing. Children’s advocates worry available services are inadequate and the reality many families […]