Al-Jazeera's English website featured a report over the weekend that suggests political divisions within the Palestinian cause are exacerbating a deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip. The report comes on the first anniversary of Hamas's takeover of Gaza, and claims that many within the Palestinian press have voiced their frustration with the current situation. A […]
Okay, so a lot of scientists and engineers are working on CCS. That's clear. The question is: Will their hard work and expertise translate into a viable, affordable mechanism for eliminating, or even curtailing the massive, climate-altering impact of the carbon dioxide that spews inexorably, interminably from the world's thousands of coal-fired power plants? Remember, […]
Today, the Supreme Court denied certiorari over a mandamus action filed by Syrian Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak Al Ginco. While this was the first detainee challenge to be acted on since last week's Boumediene decision, it was a mandamus action rather than a habeas action and so Boumediene probably did not affect the justices’ deliberations. […]
On June 11, Tom Baldwin and Gerard Baker of The Times of London reported on an exclusive interview ("President Bush regrets his legacy as man who wanted war') with President George Bush at a U.S.-EU summit meeting in Slovenia, in which Bush expressed regret about what The Times called his "gun-slinging rhetoric" in the build-up […]
Below is a chart from the Pew Global Attitudes Project's recently-released global poll. Note that majorities in eleven countries publics feel that Senator Obama, if President, will “do the right thing”when it comes to US foreign policy. Majorities in no country feel that way about Senator McCain. Also note that in eleven countries most people to not think that […]
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government. – Thomas Jefferson The Supreme Court ruling granting the writ of habeas corpus to the 260 Guantanamo detainees is perhaps one of the most important human rights victories in recent years. Six and half years […]
Career Foreign Service Officer James DeHart discusses whether the diplomatic corps have become too militarized in an op-ed in the Washington Posttoday. Noting the large numbers of diplomats who have volunteered for war-zone appointments in Afghanistan and Iraq, DeHart says: “This surge in war-zone assignments is an extension of the “transformational diplomacy” for which Secretary […]
"They torched our house, they burnt our livestock, I have nothing left and don't know where to start.", said 22 year old Precious, a mother of a six-month-old baby (Telegraph). According to UNICEF the continued violence is damaging Zimbabwe's children and the grip it has on the countries children fears to only be tightening. Just […]
United Nations officials, government leaders and education experts are gathering in Kathmandu, Nepal, June 11 for the start of a two-day conference examining how to improve gender equality in schools across the Asia-Pacific region. The meeting has been set up by the Global Advisory Committee of the UN Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI) to measure the […]
Syria's state-run SANA news agency has dedicated a new section of its website to President Bashar al-Assad's planned visit to India this coming week. The site's English language section has also featured coverage of the visit. So far, the articles featured in this section have included commentary discussing the overall agenda and goals of al-Assad's […]
I wrote a couple of weeks ago here on clean coal technology. First of all, let me explain that I am not rooting against the possibility of finding some way to capture and sequester carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and other sources. It's just that there is so much reliance on coal now, and […]
Yesterday evening the Foreign Policy Association hosted a lecture by Ambassador Ronald Neumann (retired), current President of the American Academy of Diplomacy. As the former US Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2004 , 2007, Mr. Neumann has intimate knowledge of what happened there and also with the current situation. Streaming video of his lecture can be seen […]
Ethiopia's famine conjures up the horrors of starvation. The image of a 3-year-old child dying captured by cameraman Mohammed Amin and reporter Michael Buerk was witnessed by 470 million people around the world. This was in 1984. The inconsolable image of Africa was forever changed and made indelible by an emaciated boy. For at least […]
(Obama in Kenya, courtesy of the New York Times) Barack Obama likes to highlight that his internatinal exposure distinguishes him from his Republican opponent. His birth in Hawaii, travels to his father's native Kenya, four years spent in Indonesia, and even a college trek through Pakistan and India, have given him quite the international worldview. Now that he is […]
“Come, let us put our minds together to see what kind of lives we can create for our children.” -Chief Sitting Bull (Lakota Indian Chief) The future of the worlds children is in all our hands, it is not for one alone to strive to see that the children of today and tomorrow are given […]