Slumdog Millionaire has been the media buzz again today, but this time the hype isn’t over the film or the portrayal of life in India’s slums, but of allegations of the trafficking of one of the films child stars. At the center of all the hype was 9 year-old, Rubina Ali, as stories flooded across […]
I wrote last week about the difficulties in prosecuting pirates, even high-profile ones, and the increase in pirate attacks after the Navy Seals’ awesome and heroic rescue of the Maersk Alabama. As Eugene Kontorovich notes, the surviving Maersk Alabama pirate will be tried in New York. Other pirates detained by the German navy are suing […]
Joeseph Stiglitz, a highly regarded former chief economist of the World Bank and Nobel laureate in global economics, says the Obama administration’s plan to fix the U.S. banking crisis is destined to fail because the programs have been designed to coddle Wall Street rather than creating a viable 21st century financial system.
“All the ingredients they have so far are weak, and there are several missing ingredients,” Stiglitz said in an interview. The people who designed the plans are “either in the pocket of the banks or they’re incompetent.”
I was skimming the Huffington Post this morning and found this interesting blog post by Kenneth Wollack, president of the National Democratic Institute, promoting a new era of American public diplomacy. In light of my recent post about Web 2.0 efforts in this area, I was struck by this comment: In today’s interdependent world, where […]
It is from here, in this giant glass building in Brussels, with its intricate halls, winding corridors and twenty odd languages that the European Commission is reaffirming its aid commitments to developing countries amid the financial crisis. Heavy machinery is pounding away outside, the subway is under renovation, and those who enter the adjoining International […]
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Tymoshenko, are set to meet on 29 April. The meeting comes nearly four months after disagreements over gas prices led to a standoff between the two nations, leaving a good portion of the continent without gas supplies in the dead of winter. Fortunately, the price […]
The FPA Children’s blog is looking for kids views on today’s human rights issues, such as; peace, war, poverty, education, etc. Every Friday we post a “notable quotes about children” piece in which a quote is posted by a notable activist, politician, historical or literary figure, however we would like If you are a teacher […]
The Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad included the much-publicized American initiative to open up to Cuba. President Obama continued to present his new, more acceptable face of America, put forth with grace since his inauguration in January. He even unleashed his charm offensive against Venezuela’s irascible and mercurial Hugo Chavez, joking and smiling with him […]
Jon Lee Anderson is a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of the “The Fall of Baghdad” and “The Lion’s Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan”. Anderson is an accomplished journalist who has reported on Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran extensively. His most recent work for The New Yorker is entitled Can Iran Change?. I had […]
This weekend US President Barack Obama was the center of attention at the 5th Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Obama even eclipsed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s entrance with, according to the Associated Press, “thundering applause and a few whoops” from the heads of state at the summit. Reviews of […]
I have a very high regard for the reporting at the venerable “Economist.” (Somewhat less so for the editorial writers.) In a perfectly informative, relatively important article recently on water quality and quantity issues worldwide, I thought the writer overstepped the bounds of reason on one particular point. For the record, here is my letter […]
My colleague, Elizabeth Balkan, writing the other day at the FPA blog on Energy, had a good update on the state of affairs on REDD, forestry and climate change: Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Shaping Financing to Prevent Deforestation. She looks particularly at the Waxman-Markey draft and how it embraces this critical aspect of […]
We are happy to inform you that the Foreign Policy Association’s Children’s Rights Writer/Blogger, Cassandra Clifford, will now also be writing on Human Rights for the Examiner. Cassandra will not be leaving the FPA, but working with the Examiner to expand upon the reach and awareness of Human Rights using a unique local perspective. Cassandra […]
As you remember, Dorothy and Toto got blown a little off course. Some coal-fired power plants have had a similar trial. See Coal Plants Blocked here from October 2007 and a follow-up story at Coal Takes Some Lumps from a year ago. It turns out that the company trying so desperately to site its plants […]
A child’s education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born. – Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) American author and poet. It is undoubtedly true that a child’s education begins well before that child is even born, for it is what we leave a child that they will learn from. The lessons of […]