G-8 Leaders — composed of the world’s eight major industrialized countries, as well as representatives of the European Union and heads of state from the ten leading Emerging Nations such as Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa, among others, discussed a wide range of challenges related to financial markets, international trade, development and global peace and stability.
The oil disaster in the Gulf has revived the Obama Administration’s interest in promoting its green technology agenda. President Obama used the occasion of his recent Oval Office address to restate his view that the U.S. is falling behind China in the race to become the world’s green technology hub, with the implication that legions […]
Last week the United States issued their annual worldwide report on human trafficking, the 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report, which for the first time included a ranking of the United States. The 373-page report states that some 12.3 million adults and children are in forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution globally. While the numbers […]
One of the particularly entertaining keynotes at the Social Impact Exchange conference was given by Dan Heath, co-author of Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. He spoke about “finding the bright spots” or looking for what is working instead of what is not working. One of his examples was “positive deviance“, a theory for social […]
Mr. President, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have General Petraeus come in and save your Afghan policy at the same time as you have been associated with MoveOn.org, which called him “General Betray Us” on the pages of the New York Times in 2007. I don’t want to be the guy always criticizing […]
1. Ethiopia’s Election Results and the Myths of African Politics, by MG Zimeta in the latest edition of The Atlantic 2. 50 Years of African Independence: the Music of West Africa in Robert Nolan’s excellent FPA blog, Music and Global Affairs 3. US food aid policies create 561 jobs in Kansas, risk millions of lives […]
Further to my last post below on the Alberta tar sands, here is a hopeful bit of news from Stacy Feldman at the excellent SolveClimate on a hard-hitting letter from Congress to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 50 members of the House, no doubt all with very high LCV ratings, warned the Secretary of the […]
When policymakers think about agriculture in Afghanistan, they tend to think in terms of what is grown (opium, with Afghanistan being, by far the world’s largest supplier) and what should be grown (anything else). In April, Anthony Cordesman and Adam Mausner from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released their analysis of Afghan […]
Just wanted to add a few more thoughts to my earlier blog on General McChrystal before I head out for my daily tasks. Stratfor put out an excellent article on the situation but I disagree with some of the points made. In the article, Stratfor indicated the Rolling Stone article portrayed “McChrystal and his inner […]
Today is my birthday and having just returned home after spending two weeks away dealing with a family emergency, I had hoped to spend a quiet day contemplating personal goals for the next year and ending the day overeating with friends at one of my favorite restaurants. The best laid plans…I kept turning on the […]
Sean Murphy on the Global Film blog recently reviewed Amandla! a documentary about South African music under apartheid. As we turn our gaze to the country for the World Cup, it is good to look back and learn more about the intricacies of apartheid and the mass struggle to overturn the system. South Africa is […]
Insubordination by top military officers to civilian authority is unacceptable in America. As presidential biographer Robert Dallek argued in today’s NYTimes, McChrystal’s defiance of his civilian masters may warrant dismissal. However, there is another important issue here: how hubris on the campaign trail can lead to sub-par policy choices. President Obama’s decision early in his administration […]
The BP Gulf oil spill threatens to undermine the ‘special relationship in trade and global leadership between the U.S. and U.K. With the British press and even some officials increasingly seeing attacks on Britain itself in President Obama and his Administration’s criticisms of BP, PM Cameron has sought to calm the waters. During a visit to Afghanistan two weeks ago, he said the gulf oil spill was just one item in what was described by his spinmeisters as a “routine” phone conversation with President Obama, but he dodged direct questions about any perception of an “anti-British” side to the criticisms of BP.
I have never been one to diminish the chutzpah of folks trying to protect their special interests by embellishing the truth. I’m actually reading a particularly compelling – often horrifying – book right now called Merchants of Doubt. There are all sorts of obfuscation, misinformation, disinformation, lies, and other forms of wrong dealing documented in […]
As international attention focuses on resolving issues on the Korean peninsula, trouble is brewing in a different Asian arena. The South China Sea is one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, an extremely productive fishing area, and is reported to contain vast deposits of oil and natural gas. The Sea is bordered by Brunei, China, […]