Sri Lankan officials Monday claimed defeat over the Tamil Tigers guerrilla organization amid reports its leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was killed in the latest raids. The victory puts an end to nearly a quater century of violent conflict in Sri Lanka, though the reconciliation campaign may take even longer. European Union nations called Monday for an […]
That’s how I’d paraphrase the old Bill Clinton internal campaign motto in the context of the present-day campaign to get an American law into place to combat GHGs. I’ve written about cap-and-trade and the Carbon Markets dozens of times here, including on the cap-and-trade vs. carbon tax debate. For an interesting look at the history […]
A lot is going on in the Rising Powers at the moment, so why not begin the week with a survey of key developments and important news articles?
Interesting article by noted economic historian Niall Ferguson from the New York Times magazine, Sun 17 May 2009.
Elizabeth Warren of the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) and Arianna Huffington, Founder of HuffPo share uncanny, common sense clarity and insight on financial markets crisis. They get it.
China is to have its first-ever sex theme park, to be called “Love Land”. For a traditional country, the development seems quite radical. The purpose of the park, located in Chongquing province, is to educate people about sex. The park’s manager explains: “We are building the park for the good of the public… to help […]
It’s with hindsight that we can also analyze how war shapes images and content. For journalists working in Iraq during the height of the conflict, it became a profession of high risk and danger. The following entry looks back at some of the Iraqi journalists who risked their lives – some murdered – to write […]
Further evidence that President Obama is prepared to take some political heat at home in order to improve America’s standing abroad comes in the form of his decision on torture photos. Obama said on Wednesday that publishing additional pictures, taken by U.S. servicemen in Iraq, similar to those previously published from the Abu Ghraib prison, […]
FDIC Chairperson Sheila Bair indicated today (May 15, 2009) in a Bloomberg TV interview that mismanagement by bank executives and their boards of directors will come under the scrutiny of bank regulators as they try to repair the U.S. financial system.
This interesting documentary chronicles the life of Robert McNamara, who served as Secretary of Defense during the Cuban missile crisis and the Vietnam War. At 85 years old, McNamara comes off as a much younger person because of his energy and sharp observations. The segment dealing with the Cuban missile crisis is absolutely bone chilling […]
U.S. President Barack Obama reversed a significant decision this past week. He decided to go back on his promise to release photographs of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan that were taken a few years ago. The popular sentiment among the more conservative-minded might be that Obama is well within his right as Commander-in-Chief to do […]
The New York Times features an article today by Andrew E. Kramer concerning Russia’s gas worries. Kramer explains that as gas prices (not to be confused with oil prices) fall, Russia’s state-run gas company Gazprom will suffer. The main reason is because Gazprom is contractually obligated to purchase gas from its Central Asian former-soviet neighbors […]
Paul Krugman, columnist for the New York Times, wrote an op-ed this week arguing that China, the empire of carbon, “cannot continue along its current path because the planet can’t handle the strain.” China is the world’s leading producer of carbon dioxide and the country’s “emissions, which come largely from its coal-burning electricity plants, doubled […]
“Over the past several years, we have seen cyberattacks against critical infrastructures abroad, and many of our own infrastructures are as vulnerable as their foreign counterparts,” warned Dennis Blair, the United States Director of National Intelligence. “A number of nations, including Russia and China, can disrupt elements of the US information infrastructure.” Several commentators and […]
The International Energy Agency is now wondering what we had discussed earlier in the week: OPEC’s discipline is fraying. The Agency believes that OPEC members are beginning to cheat because oil prices have risen from $32 earlier this year in part due to OPEC’s coordinated cuts. However, when prices are $60 a barrel, discipline is […]