This past week was not a good one for human rights lawyers. As reported on this blog earlier this week, on Monday the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) suspended an Arab human rights group at the request of Algeria for hosting a “known terrorist” at a speaking event last year. The “known terrorist” here […]
A major human rights group is urging US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take a tough stance on human rights and the rule of law during her seven nation trip to Africa next week. Her itinerary includes Kenya, where she will meet with representatives from both the Kenyan and Somali governments, and the Democratic […]
“The greatest inspiration is often born of desperation.” -Comer Cotrell, American Entrepreneur (1931- ) In the face of hardship and disaster, one most often finds the most inspiring people you will ever come across. For many when we reach the point of desperation we find ourselves over whelmed and wanting to give up, but lucky […]
United States and China to Cooperate on Climate Change and Energy is the word from the excellent weekly, “EERE Network News,” put out by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). As I noted recently here, DOE Secretary Steven Chu was in China recently and the pressure is building on the Chinese to […]
We build memorials to remember the dead. Those that died in wars, in natural disasters, on the front line or the victims of stubborn and vision-less politicians. We do so for a number of reasons, to not forgot, for some to realize the absurdity of war, for others as a symbol of pride for a […]
You see their faces plastered across newspapers and even catch a glimpse on the evening news, but you never really get a clear picture of what a day in the life of a refugee is like, and now you can thanks to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), where you can take a virtual tour […]
Africa’s largest economy, with US$276 billion in GDP, is the continent’s rising power. With 48 million people, it is not the continent’s most populous, with a lower population than oil-rich Nigeria (155 million) and Egypt (80 million), the world’s most populous Arab nation. But South Africa is richer than these countries, in spite of its more skewed […]
BUT now these companies, solely in the name of corporate profitability, reciprocate neither their loyalty, nor duty to Americans to be good corporate citizens. Here we have a case in point about GE methodically shipping their entire energy efficient lighting manufacturing operation out of Ohio to China with the primary reason being given as lower labor costs.
Honduras is just having problems these days. First its president wants to throw selected parts of the constitution out the window. Then the military throws the president out of the country. And now after a month of international diplomatic drama with the interim government, a major collection of human rights groups is accusing it of […]
Yesterday we posted that Iran was releasing some prisoners who were detained for protesting last month’s presidential election. It has now come out that Shadi Sadr, a major women’s rights lawyer in Iran, was released from Evin Prison. Her arrest, which we detailed here, brought Iran’s current detention policies following last month’s disputed election back […]
Serbian authorities declared this week that top war criminal fugitive, Ratko Mladic, has his days numbered. Mladic was the general in charge of the Serbian military at the massacre in Srebrenica in which 7,000 Muslims were killed. He was also the officer responsible for ordering the shelling of civilians in Sarajevo in the early 1990s […]
In the first official meeting of the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue this week, which puts the Democratic stamp on the brainchild of Hank Paulson, Bush’s Treasury Secretary, Chinese Finance Minister Xie Xuren called on the U.S. to reduce its widening fiscal deficit. In response, U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner assured the Chinese that, once growth resumed, the Obama administration would do just that. See […]
This film is truly bleak. Set in 1987 Romania, it is a study of unhappiness and desperation. It shows a young woman who wants an abortion. Abortion is illegal in the country under the rule of dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu. She and her college roommate solicit the help of a black market doctor who will perform […]
A recent article in the “LA Times” about the projected boom in hydropower caught my eye this morning because one of my students asked last night about the growth of hydro in the US. I told her that it was my perception that hydroelectric use was not growing. That has certainly been the trend in […]
Italy has become the butt end of all jokes in Europe. Few take President Silvio Berlusconi seriously and instead, cringe with delight whenever he opens his mouth and speaks his mind. An article in the Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, even goes so far to claim conspiracy against Italians (by Beppe Severgnini – can’t find […]