Not to pick on West Africa this week, but another human rights drama is currently unfolding in Guinea, where the military opened fire with live rounds into a crowd of 50,000 pro-democracy protesters on Monday. While the military government claims that only 57 people were killed, mainly due to trampling, local rights groups are placing […]
Senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer introduced the Senate’s version of climate change and energy legislation today. See this for information on the background of the bill and the working draft itself. I won’t go into an analysis right now. (I’ll be getting on that soon, along with about 5,000 other commentators.) You’ll fershur be […]
The manufacturer that makes the popular—ubiquitous—Kalashnikov rifle is filing for bankruptcy. The problem is that the Soviet Union granted basically any socialist country a license to produce the assault rifle in order to make “freeing the people” easier. After the Soviet Union fell, the licenses were effectively null. Except everybody kept making the guns. Most […]
Pakistan has a lot of problems. (How’s that for an understated opening?) One of the major problems in the country, however, is the lack of credible state institutions. In fact, the only state institution that is universally recognized and respected is the Pakistani Army. So it comes as a bit of good news that the […]
I talked about Australian PM Kevin Rudd’s address at the Foreign Policy Association’s annual World Leadership Forum. Here is a video of this compelling speech. Rudd drew a highly convincing picture of how the world can and should reinvigorate multinational organizations.
The president of the World Bank said that America’s days as an unchallenged economic superpower might be numbered and that the dollar was likely to lose its favored position as the euro and the Chinese renminbi assume bigger roles.
Are the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers listening? It’s pretty plain at this late date that many, many leading companies in manufacturing, mining, finance, insurance and other industries recognize the threat of climate change to their businesses and the opportunities for growth with sustainability. The World Business Council for Sustainable […]
The topic of child labor is sadly one of those that is always at the top of my list. However we have had some significant strides recently, especially regarding the release of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) list of goods produced by forced labor and child labor! The long pending release was nothing less than […]
Mohamed El-Erian, the highly respected chief portfolio manager for the Harvard Endowment, and currently chief investment officer for the global investment manager, PIMCO notes that the momentum for meaningful financial reform is stalling in spite of clear evidence that financial activities have far outpaced the regulatory infrastructure. And some banks are returning to the bad habits that almost destroyed them.
This past weekend communities across the country literally took to the streets to combat child trafficking. The flagship walk in New York City had some 1,284 registered walker with $124,687 in donations raised. New York in true NYC style added their own unique style with the Stiletto Run, which raised over $10,000 and had over […]
In yet another example of its increasingly competitive global strategy, China is shopping aggressively for commodity resources in the Dark Continent. Africa has been a primary beneficiaries of China’s FDI dollars between 2000-08.
In an aspect of parliamentary politics that many Americans simply can’t understand, Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) performed worse in general elections than they did four years ago—but this time, get to form their preferred coalition government. The Free Democratic Party (FDP) bested its 2005 total by nearly fifty percent, jumping to 14.5 percent of […]
The U.S. and European media are focusing heavily on the disastrous defeat of the Social Democrats, and an apparent shift of the electorate to the center-right, in their analyses of the German elections on September 27, which reinstalled Christian Democrat Angela Merkel as Chancellor. Many commentators also use the German results as a peg to […]
The credibility of the African regional human rights system suffered a serious setback last week when President Yahaya Jammeh of The Gambia made comments threatening human rights activists. This is not the first time an African head of state has made disparaging remarks about human rights activists and unfortunately will probably not be the last. […]
The powerful Financial industry lobby and Wall Street and community bankers argue that the proposed agency will restrict financial innovation and otherwise inhibit economic growth. Despite such mendacity, Alan Greenspan, the highly respected economist and former Fed Chair endorsed President Obama’s far-reaching proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA).