This is a charming film. Set at the beginning of the current war in Iraq, the movie follows the lives of Palestinians Muna and her teenage son, Fadi. The pair relocate to a small town in Illinois where they encounter obstacles to achieving their dreams. One theme that runs throughout the movie is the question […]
The Marines are onboard with this whole Social Networking thing, following along with guidelines from On High. From Wired’s Danger Room It’s a remarkable about-face. A Marine Corps order last summer described such sites as “a proven haven for malicious actors and content.” And it warned that adversaries were using SNS [social network sites] as an “attack […]
I’d like to follow up on my recent post regarding the new arms control treaty announced last week. As you know, the treaty will have to be approved by the U.S. Senate and given the current environment in Washington, that may prove difficult. This report in The Washington Post notes that the Senate could begin […]
Bloomberg (home to belovedly hard-to-use finance info terminals, as well as actual news) notes that the Taliban systematically destroys the mobile phone infrastructure of the (shrinking?) chunks of Afghanistan they control. Why? Afghanistan, with 29 million people, had as many as 12 million cellular-service subscribers in December, according to the Afghan government. Fifty-two percent of the population […]
… to know which way the wind blows.”* There’s a pretty compelling story in the Old Gray Lady today: Among Weathercasters, Doubt on Warming. TV weather people, it turns out, seem to be having a hard time with the science of climate change. The article cites a study just out from George Mason University’s Center […]
Aid agencies working in Somalia responded to a report alleging that more than half of the aid provided to Somalis through local World Food Programme (WFP) contractors was not reaching the needy. Mark Bowden, the UN’s aid chief in Somalia disputed the report of the UN Monitoring Group in Somalia, saying that the evidence cited […]
My intention was to do a weekly round-up each week, but an electricity outage this weekend destroyed my best intentions. So I’m making up for lost time and am rounding-up last week on Tuesday. Apologies! Here’s just a few snippets of the best stuff I’ve read this week in Global Health. Advocating Health as a […]
The March 1st issue of Newsweek magazine has a good article outlining how climate science has become a bruised, intensely politicized issue that is negatively impacting public support for environmental causes. “The battle between “alarmists” and “deniers” has taken a huge toll, not just on [scientists]. It has also damaged the credibility of climate science […]
After Lula, it looks like it’s the battle between Dull and Duller. Brazil’s presidential election in October is an important one, as the country’s success and new-found leadership role within the BRICs and G-20 make Latin America’s largest economy critical on the world stage. Lula has charisma, but his anointed successor from the PT party, Dilma […]
Along the gradient of power, there’s a possible mix of “soft” and “hard” varieties. The public diplomacy originating at the U.S. State Department is commonly associated with the “soft” power of peaceful persuasion and cultural appeal; the foreign information efforts at the Pentagon are often in the service of some tangible “hard” power goal. The […]
The British media love to announce the end of the “special relationship” between the United States and Britain, and now they have been joined by a UK Parliamentary Committee, which recommends that the phrase, first coined by Winston Churchill, be abandoned. Britain should put its own interests first and stop showing so much deference to […]
I’ve written about the environmentally catastrophic, greenhouse gas intensive, and, of course, hugely profitable Alberta tar sands a number of times. We don’t seem to shine as bright a spotlight on this boondoggle here as they do in Europe. There is a new report out from a coalition of investor groups based in Europe, the […]
The Japanese government has pledged $10 million USD worth of food aid to help improve Mozambique’s food security situation. An agreement for this aid was signed in Maputo this past Friday by Mozambique’s Deputy Foreign Minister Henrique Banze and the Japanese ambassador Susumu Segawa. The aid will buy 600 tons of rice grown in Japan […]
Last week Patrick Vilbert of the FPA Lebanon blog wrote a great post outlining the history and possible future of the UN Security Council-established investigation into the assassination of Rafik Hariri. If any of the likely suspects are implicated, there could be seriously negative effects for the region. Vilbert writes: In 2009, an article in […]