A few years ago I brought you the inspiring story of William Kamkwamba, who at the age of 14, used the inquisitive nature of his youth to change the lives of both his family and village. After being forced to drop out of school as his parents had no money,William sought refuge in a tiny […]
There were two important developments today in the Afghan war effort and the debate about the overall strategy. First, President Obama has received an unofficial copy of General McChrystal’s recommendations. I’m a bit confused about how a general’s recommendations can be considered unofficial when given to a president, but that is what the media is […]
What would it be like to live near one of the world’s most treasured natural habitats? Some Ecuadorians who once inhabited the Galapagos can no longer respond to this question. Concerned about negative impact of human settlement, the Ecuadorian government has forced more than one thousand migrants to return to the mainland. Originally, they had […]
The battle over and banning of women’s clothing continues, this time in Egypt. The BBC is reporting that Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, dean of al-Azhar university, has announced that he will issue a religious edict banning the niqab. Egypt is comprised of 90% Muslims, many of whom wear religious head garments in their daily lives. While it […]
And people are still dying there. The fallout from the invasion has definitely not run its entire course yet.
A recent Facebook video has documented prisoner abuse by the Pakistani Army. This, needless to say, will not help Pakistan’s efforts to stem its Taliban insurgency in the Northwest Frontier Province, nor will it help America’s mission in the region. Regardless of the morality of torturing and abusing prisoners of war (and, to put it […]
Think California and its Governator aren’t dead serious about renewables? DOE’s weekly newsletter, “EERE Network News,” has this story: California Accelerates its Pursuit of Clean Energy. A new executive order requires the Golden State’s utilities to get a third of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020. This is in addition to robust energy efficiency […]
Meet the new generation of voters—same as the old generation. A British study has concluded that half of all babies born in wealthy countries will live to be 100 years old. This is certainly a good thing—more of the most fleeting resource humanity has (time) is nothing to play down. But for countries with long […]
JERUSALEM–The past few days in Jerusalem have been uneasy ones. In a city that teeters on the verge of violence on a fairly regular basis, the height of the week long Jewish holiday season of Sukkot added an element of unrest. The holiday draws a large number of Jewish visitors from around the world and […]
Sovereign risk in Turkey was once talked about in the same breath as Brazil’s. Not so anymore. One is going hat in hand to the IMF, likely to get $45 billion in the coming weeks; the other is largely self-financing. What went wrong in Turkey? Always keep your eye on the current account deficit, folks, even when […]
This article by David Axe, Malou Innocent, and Jason Reich at Foreign Policy is pretty much* spot on. The Taliban, either Afghan or Pakistani, are not a security threat to America on their own—they have neither the capacity nor the will to strike at American interests. But al-Qaeda has proven itself capable of accomplishing horrific […]
The Christian Science Monitor posted an interesting story regarding the Annual Meeting of the International Bar Association which is currently going on this week in Madrid. It raises the growing discontent of African states towards the International Criminal Court. At present, all four of the active situations being prosecuted by the court concern African conflicts: […]
Nicholas Thompson responds in this blog post to Andrew Bacevich’s article in The Washington Post about updating the Cold War doctrine of containment for the war on terrorism. He agrees that here is much in George Kennan’s original idea that could be applied to the present conflict with global jihad while suggesting that the effort […]
Recently The Future of Children, which is a collaboration between the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution, published the journal; Preventing Child Maltreatment, The Future of Children, vol. 19, no. 2, Fall 2009. The full journal can be found Here. The report begins with the question; […]
In Washington last week I sat down with a group of bloggers to interview two smart and savvy foreign correspondents. The fact that they were women, representing influential media from the Middle East, made their views interesting on several levels. Nadia Bilbassy is a correspondent with MBC (Middle East Broadcasting Co.) and Joyce Karam is […]