Jochen Flasbarth, President of Umwelt Bundes Amt (UBA – Germany’s central federal authority on environmental matters), was in New York last week, where he discussed, among other things, Germany’s efforts to create a national electric supply that relies completely on renewable energy. Germany’s goal is to reduce its overall greenhouse gas emissions by 80-90% by the […]
Nuclear negotiations with Iran having been punted forward six weeks to a day in May, a positive development in principle, attention is focusing on whether Iran can be trusted at all and on who’s really in charge. The consensus of close observers seems to be that the country’s eminence grise Ayatollah Ali Khameini has tightened […]
When it comes to the Vatican, all eyes recently have been on Pope Benedict XVI’s tour to Mexico and Cuba, and the adulation that followed. In his Easter vigil mass he noted that “Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible…With regard to material things, […]
U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) data – analyzed by AP – show that coal exports topped 107 million tons of fuel worth almost $16 billion in 2011 due to stronger overseas demand especially from Asia, Bloomberg reported recently. This is the highest level in 21 years and more than double the export volume from 2006. […]
At a TEDxChange webcast event last week, Melinda Gates announced that she would dedicate the next 30 years of her life to advocate for and support family planning. Asserting that birth control should not be a controversial issue, Gates discussed the implications of the dearth of family planning programs and services in the developing world–particularly […]
I had the opportunity to go to a real stimulating talk the other day. Jochen Flasbarth, the President of the Federal Environment Agency of Germany, had just been to the big do at the NY Times, the “Energy for Tomorrow” conference. Flasbarth was on a panel, moderated by Tom Friedman, with worthies such as Carol […]
Thousands of Uzbek women secretly sterilized Evidence gathered by the BBC shows that, for at least the past two years, the government of Uzbekistan has been ordering physicians to secretly sterilize tens of thousands of women, often without their knowledge. “Every year we are presented with a plan. Every doctor is told how many women […]
Time for reform: 1200 pages – an application to the Global Fund As I wrote last week, the recent appointment of Gabriel Jaramillo as General Manager to The Global Fund signals the international community’s conclusion that the Fund is “too big to fail”. A former banker, Jaramillo has wasted no time in making promised changes to […]
Children under the age of 18 years-old comprise almost a third of the global population, however they are often left unconsidered in the creation of business practices and corporate social responsibility. Nonetheless rights of millions of children across the globe are violated on a daily basis, most of which have a direct correlation to business practices. The […]
The Government of Bahrain and opposition movement are at a stalemate. Last November, the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), comprising of individuals selected for their human rights expertise released a damning report outlining the many abuses committed by Bahrain’s government during the February 2011 crisis. While the government has made progress in implementing the […]
With the expected launch of a long-range Unha-3 rocket by North Korea in the next couple of days, speculation has turned to whether or not the exercise is a cover for a new ballistic missile test. Space Development Department Deputy Director Ryu Kum Chol explained that “The launch of the Kwangmyongsong 3 satellite is […]
The Maldives is a tiny country in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Sri Lanka. It is made up of about 1,200 islands, with a population of almost 400,000. As with many tropical island nations, there are two sides of the Maldives: one seen by tourists at luxurious seaside resorts which constitutes the islands’ […]
Without commenting on Israel’s decision today to declare Guenter Grass persona not grata, Grass’s peculiar decision to publish what is really a short op-ed piece in the form of a poem, his decision to publish the piece at all given the embarrassment he suffered when his S.S. membership became known, the literary qualities of the […]
Earlier this year, the global health community watched with bated breath as The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria stood at a precipice. The chain of events was like a series of dominoes falling. Earlier, in October 2011, cash-strapped donor countries with austerity budgets said “no” when the Fund asked for $20 billion in replenishment […]
For the past year, far from the front pages of Western newspapers, the southern African country of Malawi has faced increasing political and economic turmoil, mainly at the increasingly oppressive hand of President Bingu wa Mutharika. So when news hit Twitter yesterday that the septuagenarian president had collapsed from a massive heart attack, it was […]