Now is the time for action to end human trafficking in our nation’s capital, said DC Council MemberPhil Mendelson, chair of the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary. While I am working within the DC Council to advance legislation, outreach efforts and community awareness about trafficking are imperative to end this brutal crime. Mendelson […]
The bank and financial lobby’s top legislative priority is to kill an Obama administration proposed new consumer protection agency with generous help from Congressional Republicans that would be dedicated solely to protecting consumers’ financial interests from unfair and unethical business practices.
In an extraordinary move, President Obama today presided over a meeting of the U.N. Security Council and turned the U.S. into the world’s number-one anti-nuclear crusader. In an unanimous vote, the Security Council issued a call for global nuclear disarmament. President Obama has acknowledged that this will be a very long term effort, but the […]
An nation-by-nation interactive Pittsburgh G-20 Survival Guide brought to you by Global Post (www.globalpost.com) covering all the issues likely to be covered, who is leading each nation’s delegation, and other pertinent G-20 “insider” information.
Germany should overcome its Puritan ethic and wean its economy off a “destructive addiction” to industrial exports – in the interests both of Germany itself and of the rest of the world – writes Reginald Dale of the CSIS Transatlantic Media Network in the September issue of the magazine Industry Today. But while this is […]
Josh Rogin at The Cable notes that Senators Kerry and Lugar have written to President Obama urging that a USAID administrator be appointed as soon as possible.
The Telegraph reported two days ago an absolutely absurd story about the movie actress Julia Roberts and the shooting of the new film, “Eat, Pray, Love.” Apparently, Roberts managed to prevent villagers from celebrating the religious rites of Navratri by closing a local temple to the public and placing 350 guards in front and inside. […]
Photo Credit: Stan Honda/AFP Today Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, the leader of Libya, delivered to the United Nations General Assembly what might be called a diatribe and can definitely be deemed a rambling and unexpected speech. Speaking for 100 minutes–a huge overshooting of his alloted 15 minutes–he managed to speak truth to power and mix […]
Apologies for the lack in articles over the last two weeks, as I have been on international travel, most of which was to attend and speak at the Aspen Institute’s Cultural Diplomacy Forum in Avilies, Spain. The theme of the conference was: Culture and Security. The Forum featured a combination of keynote addresses, plenary panels, […]
General Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops is, of course, expected. Military commanders are always going to want more resources to utilize, regardless of whether they know how to use them or not (McChrystal’s insistence on a population-centric strategy in rural Afghanistan seems to make little sense). As reported in today’s New York Times, President […]
The annual gathering of world leaders to mark the start of a new session of the U.N. General Assembly provides the U.S. president with an opportunity to clearly define his vision of the U.S. role in the world. Think of it as a State of the Union address, except it’s to the world rather than […]
Kigali is nearing completion of a link to an underseas fiber optic Internet connection, reports the BBC. This is a big development for Rwanda, and the greater region. President Paul Kagame—a leader of the Tutsi rebels that drove the genocidal Hutu militias (and their government sponsors) out of the country—is making an effort to turn […]
Europeans are growing increasingly disillusioned with President Barack Obama’s failure to show international environmental leadership, with fears rising that high-level negotiations on climate change in Copenhagen in December may break down as a result. The European media is full of reports that the United States is once again regarded as the main obstacle to a […]
I mentioned this new film on climate change this past Friday. For more, see this review from my FPA sister blog, Global Film Review. Sean Murphy is bringing a lot of insight to movies important to a better understanding of international affairs.
(UN) A high-level Rwandan rebel indicted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal for his role in the 1994 genocide in the tiny Central African country has been handed over to the court after being arrested in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).Grégoire Ndahimana, a high-level figure in the Forces démocratiques de libération […]