After prolonged controversy, Science magazine has published in its current issue the second of the bird flu papers detailing how a human-transmissible virus could spontaneously arise in nature. This one, by a team lead by Ron Fouchier in Rotterdam (see photo), identified five mutations in the H5N1 virus itself that could render it transmissible through […]
Global Food Security blog contributor Christiaan Perez interviewed Claudia Ringler, Deputy Division Director for Environment and Technology Production at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) about the food security issues under discussion at the Rio+20 Conference, which took place this week. Q1. The original mission of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) […]
I am pleased to announce that this week in Washington, D.C., Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton officially released the 12th annual Trafficking in Person’s (TIP) report. The report was openly released on June 19th in the Benjamin Franklin Room at the Department of State. The event was open by invite to key government officials, leading anti-trafficking leaders and […]
The international relations history buffs among you probably know the story of former Chinese premier Zhou Enlai’s quip about the French Revolution: when someone asked him about the revolution on one of President Nixon’s trips to China in the early 1970s, he said that it was “too soon to say.” Last year, a former foreign […]
On May 18th, the House of Representatives voted on the National Defense Authorization Bill (NDAA), or H.R. 4310. The bill passed 299-120. The NDAA contains language which would seriously damage the Administration’s ability to continue to negotiate reductions in its and Russia’s nuclear arsenals. It would also impinge upon the Administration’s ability to implement the […]
UNICEF has released their 2011 Annual Report. The report gives a global overview of the previous year’s achievements and highlights a number of various international, regional, and national collaborations. The report highlights UNICEF’s contributions to achieving the 2015 Millennium Development Goals by providing increased assistance to children in need around the globe. The report highlights […]
Following up on the controversial Guenther Grass poem discussed in a previous post, Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine published last week a very long article addressing the question of whether the six sophisticated submarines Germany supplied Israel are being equipped with nuclear weapons. Co-reported and co-written by eight people, the very long article contains a lot […]
Posted by contributor Andres Santamaria. The Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, which starts this week from June 20th -22nd, is not only the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development that took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but falls during the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable […]
Fatou Bensouda, newly sworn in as prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, is getting a lot of advice. Much of it is well-meaning. As the first African and the first woman to hold the post, Bensouda has rightly inspired much good feeling. For those who disagreed with her predecessor, one of her assets is, apparently, […]
Posted by contributor Andres Santamaria. As the 20th anniversary of the Rio conference approaches, many countries are waiting to be affected by decisions made at this event. Case and point: Bangladesh. In this New York Times Green Blog post, a Q&A held with Thomas Rath, the country program manager for the United Nations International Fund […]
When the International Criminal Court finally came into existence in 2002, it was lauded as a serious step towards universal justice and accountability for the worst international crimes. Ten years later, some of that excitement has worn off. Nowhere has that been more the case than Africa, the continent that has so far been the […]
Media reports on the disappearance of Jordanian Al Arabiya TV journalist Baker Atyani and his two local crew members in the Philippines have published conflicting information in the last two days. According to the most recent reports, the crew was possibly kidnapped while working in the southern Philippines. The Philippine Star says of the case: […]
I came across this quote this morning, and it summed up everything one should say on a day like Father’s Day. A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty (Author Unknown). Today, many fathers awoke to smiling children excited to give them special gifts–many handcrafted with […]
I’ve focused much attention this year on the rise of drug-resistant strains of diseases. There’s been a lot of panic in the U.S., for example, around MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and new discussions about how to combat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. As I’ve written before, I believe drug resistance is going to be one of our greatest global […]
How things have changed! Thirty years ago, on June 12, 1982, one million people gathered in New York City’s Central Park to rally in favor of nuclear disarmament and an end to the Cold War. As the largest peace demonstration in U.S. history, it was the culmination of a movement that had gathered improbably around […]