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 […]
The Washington Post recently noted some of the challenges that stand in the way of the Obama Administration’s goals for the upcoming Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review. The Post’s analysis highlights a number of cases that illustrate the deeper, underlying strategic threat to President Obama’s vision for a Nuclear-Free World: the unchanged calculus that membership […]
In today’s CSFB column on China (see below), Dong Tao and Christiaan Tuntono report that PBoC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan commented that China would like greater monetary policy flexibility in order to combat inflation. Not that inflation is so high in China, but the Asian giant’s return to breakneck rates of growth (11.9% growth year-on-year in 1Q10) may push prices higher. […]
In the midst of Israeli accusations that Syria has been sending long-range Scud missiles to Hezbollah, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, testified last week in front of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, pushing for U.S. diplomatic efforts in Syria. In a hearing entitled “Neither Appeasement nor Improvement? […]
An article by Robert Guth in the Wall Street Journal last week highlighted the theory that I posed in last Thursday’s post, that our global health system is designed to be reactionary and emergency-focused: That question goes to the heart of one of the most controversial debates in global health: Is humanity better served by […]
American’s are quite used to shopping and having few issues returning unwanted or defective merchandise for a refund or exchange, it’s in some sense a cultural norm. However what happens when the same logic is applied to a child? Can one adopt a child and then decide this is not what they thought they were […]
After being shut down last month under the pretense of having no valid operating license, Nativity TV is still not back on the air. Nativity TV is the only Christian television station in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and operates out of Bethlehem. Last month, after the TV station was shut down by the PA, an […]
The year was 1996 and I was in the process of learning the ropes at my new job at United States Strategic Command, the keeper of the nation’s strategic nuclear triad (submarines, bombers, and land based ballistic missiles). One day I ran into an acquaintance in the hall that I hadn’t seen for a number […]
I want to return to a theme expressed here a number of times: Carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas with which we need to concern ourselves. The Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD) reiterated this important message yesterday in this press release announcing their “Fast-Action Climate Mitigation Campaign.” What’s the pitch? “The […]
Victor Davis Hanson is very very worried about Obama’s Israel policy. According to Hanson, Obama’s administration “seems as angry at the building of Jewish settlements in Jerusalem as it is intent on reaching out to Iran and Syria, Israel’s mortal enemies.” This is a huge huge problem, Hanson asserts, with potentially immensely destabilizing results. He […]
The Catholic Church is once again making headlines, as yesterday many papers broke the news of German Bishop Walter Mixa’s resignation letter to Pope Benedict XVI. Mixa, has been accused of hitting children and is currently under investigation for misappropriating funds from a children’s home (DerSpiegel). Today Mixa officially resigned from his post. The Catholic […]
The photo above was taken in a U.S. Senate hearing room on April 21, 1970. It shows (left to right), Senator Edmund Muskie (D-ME) and Senator William Proxmire (D-WI) talking with Maryland Governor Marvin Mandel, during a hearing on water pollution. Muskie and Proxmire each became known for their work on pollution regulation. Head over […]
As the Washington Post reported last week, a group of 15 people at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces recently determined that the U.S.’s still fragile economy is the biggest threat to U.S. national security. Sensible. The group’s proposed solutions, though, are strange, as they are primarily geared toward “constrain[ing] entitlements growth,” focusing specifically […]