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It happens all too often. Having established clear patterns over the years — the Black police officer turns out always to be the victim of “friendly fire” — such incidents can no longer be dismessed away as “tragic” incidents. It must stop, now. The latest victim was heroic NYC police officer Omar J. Edwards of Brooklyn, NY, shot and killed by a fellow white NYC police officer Andrew Dunton, in a case where Officer Edwards, dressed in plain clothes, was mistaken as a criminal when he was actually in the act of preventing a crime.

Who should be included in the group of the world’s biggest emerging markets? Sure, the grouping could be the BRIC, BIC or even IC, but maybe it should be the iBRIC. According to a report in Bloomberg News, Morgan Stanley believes Indonesia should be included in the so-called BRIC countries along with Brazil, Russia, India […]

President Obama held a news conference this morning in which he used some of his strongest language yet to criticize the recent Iranian election: The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days. I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I […]

House Floor Vote – The word from Capitol Hill is that the crucial vote on the Waxman-Markey package of energy and climate change titles is going to happen this week.  The timing as Steny Hoyer indicated previously was to be sometime on either side of the July 4th recess.  The word yesterday was that it […]

This cartoon, from Alex Gregory at “The New Yorker” (May 11, 2009), is a pause for fresh air.

Mustafa Abul-Yazeed, al-Qaeda’s leader in Afghanistan, threatened the United States in recent days, claiming that if the terrorist organization were to acquire Pakistani nuclear devices, they would immediately be used against American targets.

Last week, Nestlé announced a voluntary recall of its Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough (frozen and refrigerated) after it was suspected to be the source of an outbreak of E. coli 0157.  With over 70 people falling ill to this strain of E. coli since March, the FDA is investigating the link between the […]

The freedom of expression and press has long been a contentious issue in Georgia where journalists, both Georgian and foreign, are facing intimidation, threats, and beatings.  Reporters without Borders ranks Georgia 120 on the press freedom index scale, worse than Sierra Leone and only one up from Algeria. And Saakashvili’s government is fully aware of it.  […]

On June 16, 2009, the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons within the U.S. Department of State released the Trafficking in Persons Report 2009, which describes foreign governments’ efforts to eliminate human trafficking. You can download the report from the following here. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, alongside leaders in Congress, announced […]

Is the global balance of power shifting from West to East? Minxin Pei, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues in the latest issue of Foreign Policy that the hype about America’s decline and Asia’s rise is premature. Think Again: Asia’s Rise challenges the basic assumptions made about Asia’s emergence as a […]

I wrote here recently about some developments in concentrated solar power (CSP). The “NY Times” had a really interesting read the other day on the confluence of American labor – in the shape of California Unions for Reliable Energy (CURE) – and the exploding solar power industry. The article wraps up with, to my mind, […]

Update – Five men in ski masks entered Norwegian journalist’s Ragnar Skre‘s apartment at around 22:00 last night in Tbilisi.  According to my contact, a police officer who arrived at the scene said it was just a robbery while another police officer said it was because he was a journalist.  After the beating, the five […]

I received a disturbing email from a human rights activist contact inside Georgia.  He forwarded the following email from freelance Norwegian journalist Ragnar Skre: I was attacked – two hours after I sent this. Masked men with guns. How can I contact you? I called your mobile, talked to probably your son, now there is no […]

The World Food Program (WFP) has recently launched a video blog called On the Road – with the first series set in Tanzania looking at nutrition centers, giving the viewer a taste of Masai goat and follows school kids as they walk six kilometers to get water to cook their lunch. The WFP is the United […]

“How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child’s board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.”  – Sir Walter Scott quotes (Scottish Novelist, Poet, Historian and Biographer, 1771-1832)