As the Congo is so often thrust into the spotlight, we find ourselves immersed in talks of rape and conflict, but one key that is ofter missing in dialog is that of education. “We cannot talk of peace, economic development and a future for the Democratic Republic of Congo if the government and donors do […]
I’ve received a few requests recently for my data sources, so I thought I’d highlight Eric Green’s latest post at Change.org. Here, he has compiled an excellent list of data sources for global health. In particular, he highlights the open data initiative at the World Bank, which was launched last Tuesday, compiling more than 2,000 […]
Speculation over the likely fraudulent results of Sudan’s April 11-15 elections continues, with a particular focus on what the re-election of incumbent President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir will mean for southern Sudan’s upcoming referendum on independence. Sudan’s 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that mandated these elections also includes the condition that in January 2011, southern Sudan […]
Finally! See this from Juliet Eilperin at the WaPo and this from the “Boston Globe.” Plus, here’s the press release from the Department of the Interior. Interior Secretary Salazar said: “With this decision we are beginning a new direction in our Nation’s energy future, ushering in America’s first offshore wind energy facility and opening a […]
I’ve been pondering the similarities between the Arizona immigration law and the new Israeli policy of forcefully removing from the West Bank Palestinians who lack appropriate documentation. Apparently, so has Juan Cole. He wrote earlier this week: The Israeli law resembles the one recently enacted in Arizona in one respect. Recently-arrived European Jews are demanding […]
The Washington Diplomat gets D.C.-based foreign diplomats to talk in a surprising amount of detail about how Facebook and Twitter fit into their public diplomacy strategies here.
Foreign Policy Magazine offers two unique views of global food in its latest issue. In a feature called “The List”, FP‘s Annie Lowrey highlights five global “Food Fights” or disputes linked to food production, trade, safety or national pride. In a photo essay titled, “An Ode to Farming”, FP presents 27 “images of agriculture [from] […]
Yesterday I participated in a conference on Turkish foreign policy held at the State University of New York’s Levin Institute for International Relations and Commerce in New York City. The event was co-sponsored by SUNY’s Office of International Programs (the office that also operates the innovative and wildly successful dual diploma program between SUNY and […]
My head is spinning from the latest developments in the long-running soap opera of climate and energy legislation in the US Senate. Plus, I am finally reading How Democratic Is the American Constitution? and I’m even more depressed now than when I wrote this post, SPQR. Basically, we can never be a real democracy – you […]
An article in today’s New York Times describes the electricity woes of Pakistanis, who are becoming increasingly frustrated with frequent power outages and restrictive new energy-saving measures. Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has assured Pakistan that the United States “will continue to [put more emphasis on energy issues] up to absolute limits […]
Government debt is mounting all across the developed world. While Emerging Market countries such as China have low debt levels, and Brazil and India are beginning to grow out of their debts, the next crisis (or even the second half of this one) could be a fiscal shock — perhaps even a government bond default — in the industrialized […]
On April 15, 2010 Oxfam released a new report, “Now, The World Is Without Me”: An investigation of sexual violence in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The report, which was commissioned by Oxfam and conducted by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, is an extensive study of rape victims in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The […]
Silence = Death That anti-AIDS slogan should be heeded worldwide but perhaps even moreso in Malawi. The singer Madonna traveled to the country, one of the world’s poorest, in 2006 and wrote and produced this documentary. It is about children growing up without parents who have died from AIDS and who have AIDS themselves. Out […]
Veteran advisor on Arab-Israeli negotiations, Aaron David Miller, details in a Foreign Policy article why he has lost his once-steadfast faith in America’s ability to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Comparing the peace process to a “false religion,” Miller reflects on the fact that each U.S. president since the October 1973 war – most recently President […]
Bill Maher gave some sound advice to the Tea Partiers over the weekend. If you really care about the deficit, he said to them, you’ll start talking about cutting our country’s largest jobs program: defense spending. This advice should also have been considered by the group from the Industrial College for the Armed Forces that […]