Last week, President Koroma of Sierra Leone launched an initiative which promised free health care for pregnant and lactating women in the country. This week, the numbers of women presenting at hospitals have increased ten-fold, stretching the capacity of the health system to provide care. With infant mortality rates that rank the worst in the […]
The 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons begins in New York today. All of the statements given will be published on the official website. Iran’s President Ahmadinejad was notably not invited to President Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit last month, but he will be attending this conference, […]
I would be remiss if I didn’t point you in the direction of this thoughtful and impassioned column today by Paul Krugman: Drilling, Disaster, Denial. Krugman is eloquent about our complacency. He attributes this, in part, to our many successes in fighting the visible manifestations of pollution: smog-enveloped cities, burning rivers, garbage barges, etc. He […]
As a follow-up to my previous post about the Armenian Genocide, I’ll add that Julian Ku of Opinio Juris wrote last week about the broken campaign promise aspect of the issue. As Ku notes, Obama’s campaign website states: The facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical facts is […]
I hope that you have been enjoying our On Our Bookshelves musings. In the spirit of springtime cleaning and sharing, I am giving away two of the books I’ve reviewed. It’s a Julia extravaganza. For the foodies, there’s Julia Child’s My Life in France. And for those seeking a passage to India, there’s Julia Gregson’s […]
Here are a few articles that have caught my attention this week, focusing on some emerging analysis about the implications for President Obama’s re-vamp of PEPFAR and reduced commitments to the Global Fund: · A Boston Globe story from early April, which highlighted fears from HIV/AIDS treatment advocates that funding under Obama’s recent re-authorization and […]
By Cordelia Rizzo The recent deaths of two graduate students from the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (the “Tec”), caught in a fight between the Mexican armed forces and a drug cartel gang, challenged the traditional view of the human toll of the country’s war against drugs. They showcased a singular feeling […]
For the love of the FSM this kind of language annoys me. Rockefeller pledges to work with tech leaders to avert “cyber 9/11, cyber Katrina” Can we be realistic about the very serious threats that the Internet poses without going off into hysterical language? Yes, I’m looking at you, Ms. Bachmann. After I stopped choking […]
April 24 is the date traditionally used to commemorate the Armenian genocide, as it was that day in 1915 that Ottoman officials arrested over 200 Armenians in Constantinople, jump-starting a cascade of atrocities that resulted in countless deaths. However, it wasn’t until last night that I was able to check out the exhibit, “The Armenian […]
Last week I served on the national selection panel for the Boren Fellowships of the National Security Education Program (NSEP). The fellowships are for graduate students (in rare cases for recent undergrads). NSEP also runs a scholarship program for undergrads (I know less about this). Both are administered by the Institute for International Education. Information […]
Last week Arizona’s governor, Jan Brewer, signed into law what are now the country’s harshest measures for responding to irregular (often referred to as illegal) immigration. The state has 90 days to put the law into effect. In summary, it has four main provisions: – it is a crime to be in the state without […]
Food crisis displaces masses in Niger Food shortages in Niger have forced hungry country-dwellers to beg for sustenance in the capital, Niamey. Some 7.8 million West Africans will face food shortages in the coming year, and some say aid organizations are not yet doing enough. Aid is not reaching all displaced Haitians The struggle that […]
China’s ratcheting up their state secrets laws. That’s never a good sign. NYT article. There is an amusingly awful definition of state secrets being promulgated: they are “information that, if disclosed, would damage China’s security or interests in political, economic, defense and other realms.” Presumably the story that the Chinese had 14 year olds on their […]
Countries with divided democratic government that have to pay off constituencies to hold together coalitions often run up government debt and put at risk not only sovereign creditworthiness, but also economic performance. I have in mind Italy, Japan, Israel and Brazil. India, alas, is the posterchild of this phenomenon. By contrast, governments which alternate between parties or at […]
In some countries, political will is not enough. This is because they don’t have the institutions to implement whatever anti-corruption political will there might be. Fighting corruption requires investigations, arrests, prosecutions, and incarceration in a prison with guards that can’t be paid off. Some countries lack some or all of these things. Guatemala poses an […]