In my daily emails, I often get letters from professionals, both entry level or late career, asking how to break in or make the transition into the international development sector. Although an individual may have international experience, this does not guarantee a lateral move or easy entry into the international development sector. The development sector […]
How well the U.S. can pay our debts has been in the news lately. There’s the government shutdown, which resulted in the delay of death benefits to families of fallen soldiers, and of course, the upcoming vote on raising the U.S. debt-limit. The issue of the death benefits was particularly emotional and struck a nerve […]
The best long form reads and blog posts for the week of October 25. 2013.
Last week, in an apparent fit of inspiration brought on by the government shutdown, Balaji Srinivasan gave a speech on what it would be like if Silicon Valley were to secede from the United States government. Srinivasan, a tech entrepreneur, praised Silicon Valley and the broader high-tech industry it represents for not being responsible for securitized mortgages, […]
How serious is China about “the introduction of a new reserve currency to replace the dominant U.S. dollar,” one of its proposed steps for creating the “de-Americanized world” that the official Xinhua news agency called for in the run-up to the denouement-cum-deferral of the U.S. fiscal crisis? American commentators’ responses have ranged from the […]
Since the first World conference on Women in 1975, the issue of women’s rights was brought to the international stage which led to the General Assembly’s adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). These events also coincided with the international feminist movement of the 1970s. In the […]
The Russia Left Behind By Ellen Barry The New York Times Through a string of narratives about towns and villages stretching between Moscow and St. Petersburg, Barry captures the deterioration of small-town Russia and explores how these towns — while not very far from the Kremlin’s reach — are worryingly far from modernity. The War […]
The politics of the U.S. Congress can be harsh, but we do not usually associate it with the adversarial bargaining of international relations theory, much less with the tactics of “brinkmanship,” as Secretary of State John Foster Dulles used to call it. Times have changed. What we have been seeing in Washington these past few […]
The Syrian conflict has displaced in excess of 6.5 million people over the past two years, and tragically ended the lives of more than 100,000 others. As fighting continues, the international community seems numb to reports of chemical attacks, bomb explosions, and other horrific events that unfold almost daily. However, amidst headlines that highlight the […]
‘We Knew They Were Coming’ By Colum Lynch Foreign Policy Through a detailed account of what information the U.N. held prior to al-Shabab’s June attack on the U.N. in Mogadishu, Lynch examines the importance of better preparation and to what extent future attentiveness could minimize the vulnerabilities that organizations such as the U.N. increasingly face. […]
By Sarwar Kashmeri The three most dangerous issues that confront U.S. national interests in the Middle East, President Obama pointed out in his Sept. 23, 2013, speech at the United Nations, are Syria’s civil war, the nuclear stand-off with Iran, and resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With this week’s agreement to begin direct negotiations […]
The Inside Story Of One Website’s Defense of Assad By Rosie Gray and Jessica Testa Buzzfeed On August 29, Mint Press News broke the story that Syrian rebels were behind chemical attacks and Russia’s foreign minister, Syrian and Iranian state media, all catapulted it to international attention. Gray and Testa explore the murky political ties […]
By Aryeh Neier A little discussed but important element of the Security Council resolution on Syria’s chemical weapons is a provision for “accountability” for those responsible for the August 21 poison gas attack that killed more than a thousand non-combatants. Previously, Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had called for a separate investigation of responsibility for […]
The Iron Pipe of Swedish Neo-Fascism By Daniel Strand Vice Once a political outlier, the Sweden Democrats have elevated themselves to be the third largest party in the country. Yet, given Sweden’s affluence and a lack of a promenant radical right-wing movement in the 20th century, the Sweden Dems xenophonic and nationalist agenda may seem […]
On Sept. 20, 2013, the world watched the gruesome ordeal unfold in Kenya as a platoon of terrorists from the Somali militia group al-Shabab stormed the Westgate Mall in a posh neighborhood in the capital of Nairobi. As of today, nearly 70 people have been confirmed dead in the four-day siege and the death toll is […]