During the Great Depression, international trade contracted by a third, as countries around the world erected barriers to trade, aggravating a sharp decline in output already under way and throwing millions out of work. Thus far, in the Great Recession of 2008-09, the end of which some observers may have called too soon, the major powers have avoided […]
A U.N. fact-finding mission to Israel and Gaza announced today that it has found evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity and violations of international humanitarian law committed by both Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas during the Israeli invasion of Gaza that commenced at the end of last year. “The mission finds that the […]
The Pentagon has announced it will allow those prisoners held by the US military in Afghanistan, including the Bagram military facility, to challenge their detention in a new military review system. The prisoners will be given military officials – not lawyers – to represent them and will be allowed to call witnesses and present a […]
The venerable World Resources Institute has a terrific new source for data and information – EarthTrends. I’ve been using some of their charts in my class on climate change at NYU. Further to my posts from Andalusia and the Algarve on concentrated solar power (here and here), EarthTrends has a terrific graphic on solar radiation […]
I’m always impressed by how much religion permeates the life of Tajikistan, even when it is incorporating trends from abroad. This past week, as Tajikistan celebrated its 18th year of independence, there was a small art festival entitled, “Graffiti is Flight Fantasy.” (sponsored by the Institute for Eurasian Studies). Although most of the panels were […]
I wrote a letter to the “NY Times” in response to Tom Friedman’s column last week, Our One-Party Democracy, in which he says, essentially, that because the Chinese have an autocracy they are better at promoting renewable energy. The “International Herald Tribune” had my letter forwarded from the “NYT” and I had hoped they would […]
I know China’s economic philosophy is different than America’s but was it ever so glaring as a week ago, when it was reported that China “loaned” China National Petroleum Corp. $30 billion for yet more overseas projects? Can you imagine Uncle Sam doing this for Exxon? (Okay, maybe GM, but the terms were a lot […]
Florence Hartmann, former spokeswoman for the prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugosavia, was found in contempt of the tribunal Monday and fined 7,000 Euros – over $10,000 U.S. dollars. She was found in contempt for revealing secret information implicating the Serbian government in massacres in her memoir “Peace and Punishment”. The […]
Norman Borlaug, credited as the “Father of the Green Revolution,” passed away at age 95 on Saturday. Borlaug, a plant pathologist, developed the use of high-yield wheat seeds in the 1960’s, instantly impacting supply of food globally, but particularly in drought-stricken areas such as Mexico and India. Borlaug’s contributions were cited by his many colleagues […]
Kevin Myers, a provocative columnist for the Irish Independent, has stirred up a hornet’s nest in Ireland with a piece slamming the late Senator Edward Kennedy for drunken, “oafish” behavior and calling “Irish-America” infantile and revolting. His piece is entitled Kennedys Were Leaders of the Most Nauseating and Sentimental of any Ethnic Minority in U.S. […]
What’s one got to do with the other? Fair question. I wrote about this relationship in May here. Statoil, the Norwegian oil company, has a big stake in the tar sands, and a number of leading Norwegian politicians and their parties want them out. Many, if not most Norwegians, infinitely to their credit, want to […]
The good folks at “The Economist” went to the North American Biochar Conference 2009 in August. I’ve been bitten by the biochar bug. See my post here, plus the article I wrote for Grist. The virtues of biochar – A new growth industry? has some good insights, many of which were gleaned from the papers […]
The problem for candidates that are elected on these types of knee-jerk reactionary issues, as President Obama is indeed discovering, is that it is nearly impossible to deliver on pledges once made.
Click on the photo to launch the 5 minute audio-photo slide. Testimonies…in their own words. Yesterday I met two Iranian political refugees. Their relatives are at Camp Ashraf, a refugee camp north of Baghdad with around 3500 Iranians. At the end of July, Iraqi security forces entered the camp and beat the residents. Eleven died […]
The political tone of U.S. coverage in the London Financial Times usually falls somewhere between that of The Washington Post and The New York Times – that is to say mainstream Democratic tending to liberal. Most of the analysts the paper quotes are from Democratic or liberal institutions and it often knocks conservative viewpoints. So […]