Benjamin Netanyahu subscribes to the George W. Bush school of anti-diplomacy. It’s nice to blow off steam, especially when you are in the right. But does brandishing your sword make an effective foreign policy? Ask Kaiser Wilhelm II, the arch-villain of World War I, whose bluster and belligerence led to the encirclement of Germany, his gravest fear. Ask most Americans after W left […]
Interesting excerpts from what I’ve been reading this past week. It’s a bit of a mixed bag, but there is one theme that I detect: behaviour is integral to the maintenance and promotion health…but it’s hard to predict, hard to control and hard to change: Dan Heath at Fast Company gives us some reasons, and they don’t include lazyness. He explains that […]
The indispensable (to me anyway) “NY Review of Books” has an insightful look at Bill McKibben’s new book, Eaarth. The reviewer is no less a personage than Nicholas Stern. In generally praising “McKibben’s engaging and persuasive book,” Lord Stern gives a particularly succinct summary of the history of the science and present state of the […]
The needs of 195 million children suffering from malnutrition around the world are being shown in a new light through the “Starved for Attention” campaign launched last week by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the VII Photo agency. Between June 2nd and July 19th, the campaign’s website will unveil a series of mini-documentaries […]
This week, the Senate will decide whether to save jobs and services, protect health care for children, fund summer jobs for youth, provide help for unemployed families, and boost the economy. In last minute surprise maneuvers, members of the House of Representatives passed a scaled back jobs bill that dropped key supports for families who […]
This movie is sad and, at times, hard to watch. It is about Tomas Young, a soldier who signed up for the US Army immediately following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Only five days into his deployment in Iraq, Young took a shot in the back, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. […]
Tomorrow marks the opening of Women Deliver 2010, the largest conference on women and maternal health, held June 7-9 in Washington, DC. Speakers will include UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Christiane Amanpour, Helene Gayle, and Melinda Gates, among others. The 2007 conference brought together more than 2000 participants from 115 countries, and brought emphasis to the importance of […]
There is a lot of discussion on the issue of ending gender-based violence in recent media and the topic is far from new and far too widespread for many to see quick solutions and changes. However much has been done to raise awareness on gender-based violence and related issues and how they impact girls, women, and their families. […]
After being married for over a year, my wife and I have finally found the time to go on a honeymoon. So I won’t be posting for the next several weeks. This post’s title should let you know where we’re going. Reading material for the long plane ride is, appropriately, The History of the Decline […]
It hasn’t been a good season for Israel. Even before its ill-advised raid on the Gaza convoy, which could have and might yet cause the Security Council’s agreement on Iran sanctions to come unglued, there was a string of more or less unsavory allegations about the history of its nuclear weapons program. First came the […]
There’s been a lot written about how terrible it would be if the ICC activated its jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. Members of the U.S. Congress, the Heritage Foundation, the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Goldstone, Harold Koh, and the Wall Street Journal have all come out against it. They’re wrong. Read my piece […]
The Danes have a lot to teach us. Samsø is a lab for the rest of the world on how to achieve carbon neutrality. Betsy Kolbert wrote a wonderful piece a couple of years ago: The Island in the Wind. And I’ve written here a few times about “convergence” and how we can have health […]
I’m writing from the Personal Democracy Forum, a big yearly conference on the intersection of politics, governance, technology and activism. Great set of speakers – Eli Pariser of MoveOn, Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia, and even Newt Gingrich. Things got off to an exciting (if technically flawed) start with a conversation between Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon […]
Multilateralism has been a key feature of Barack Obama’s foreign policy vision since he first entered the political arena. The recent National Security Strategy correctly characterizes NATO as “the pre-eminent security alliance in the world today”, and in order to maintain this designation, the Obama Administration states its intention to use NATO’s Strategic Concept Review […]
Karin Grepin, one of the best global health bloggers in my humble opinion, has written a very personal account of the recent birth of her son. Her reflection on her experience deserves a read, in particular the paragraph below: I kept asking myself: what if I lived in a poor country, was a poor woman, and knew […]