UGANDA: Children eke out a living on the streets The streets in Gulu have more children like Kibwola, their stories often similar. The majority are also orphans, who lost their parents in the two-decade long war in the north that pitted government forces against LRA rebels. Hawking is not the only trade for this these […]
Randy Cohen, American writer and humorist once said, “There is a kind of virtue that lies not in extraordinary actions, not in saving poor orphans from burning buildings, but in steadfastly working for a world where orphans are not poor and buildings comply with decent fire codes.”, and it is that reason alone for which […]
The US Agency for International Development is advancing Bush's conservative pro-life stand. Tens of thousands of Africa's poorest will no longer receive any US funded aid nor counseling on contraception. Six African nations have been ordered to stop distributing US funded contraceptives. Marie Stopes International (MSI), a UK charity organization with clinics in 40 countries […]
I went to an interesting confabulation yesterday up at the Earth Institute. Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute, and Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UNFCC, kicked around the relative merits of the financial architecture of the Kyoto Protocol. In a nutshell, Sachs thought the way we've been doing business in terms of […]
From the Pew Global Attitudes Project: “Trickle-Down Global Economics: World Already Saw U.S. Influence as Negative Around the globe, people are anxiously following the U.S. financial crisis as it evolves into a worldwide meltdown. People nearly everywhere realize that what happens in the American economy can have a big impact on them. But even before […]
“I have come to realize more and more that the greatest disease and the greatest suffering is to be unwanted, unloved, uncared for, to be shunned by everybody, to be just nobody (to no one).” -Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997) To think of any child being unwanted or unloved is heartbreaking, but a sad reality […]
At the beginning of October, Al Jazeera reported on the fascinating developments surrounding the Dalai Lama's ban on the worship of Dorje Shugden , a "500-year-old Deity." The news centered on the tension among Tibetans in India over the issue – and also how the Tibetan exile government says that Shugden worshippers are terrorists linked […]
The U.S. is selling billions of dollars worth of arms to Taiwan and China is not happy about it. Why is the U.S. endangering an important trade and diplomatic relationship with one of the emerging great powers of the 21st Century? The answers date back to the Chinese civil war and the passions of the […]
I’ll be away for a while – collecting my thoughts in the Pacific – but wanted to leave the blog on a happier note than the economy and financial markets. Social Edge (a program of the Skoll Foundation – and one of my favorite emails to receive) has added four brief case studies from Tactics […]
Remember that study linking Barack Obama and actor Brad Pitt as distant cousins? By the same token, Pitt's partner Angelina Jolie was related to Hillary Clinton. I clearly remember that overly fawning interview with the ladies from The View when this critical campaign issue was addressed. The fact was used as supporting evidence to promote Obama's star-like charisma and […]
As I followed the news over the past several days, I was struck by a fairly distressing thought. Is the current violence and upheaval in Pakistan the best-case scenario for Iraq? Let's examine what has happened over the past several days in Pakistan: A (presumed) suicide attack at an Islamabad counter-terrorism center, a roadside bombing […]
United States Embassy in London, England (Alastair Grant/AP) The State Department announced last week that it will move its Embassy in London from its charming location on Grovesnor Square across the Thames to a more secure location. The International Herald Tribune reports that: “The demand for more space, greater security and better energy efficiency have […]
The AP is reporting that internal documents show former detainee Yaser Hamdi, released in 2004, was undergoing psychological problems as a result of his confinement in Charleston, South Carolina's consolidated naval brig where U.S. citizens designated “enemy combatants” are detained. Hamdi was eventually released and deported to Saudi Arabia on the condition he give up […]
So what did you think of the Presidential Town Hall debate? I was pleased that there was a good bit of time devoted to foreign policy questions. I’d like to repeat my experiment with the debate transcript, again using the comments to break out the answers from each candidate. Reviewing the issues like this […]
In the past few weeks some 40,000 residents of Mogadishu have fled a violence that has continued unabated since the removal of Somali leader Siad Barre in 1991. The origins of this conflict like so many on the continent are remnants of a civil society torn apart by colonialism and then again by US/Soviet proxy […]