If you are going to be anywhere near Athens, Ohio and the beautiful campus of Ohio University this weekend I strongly encourage you to attend this conference (I’m not certain if it is an enticement to say that I am on the program, but I am, in fact, on the program).
By Anne Bilala, Anna Maria Barcikowska, Jordan Becker, Benjamin Bilski, Benedetta Berti, Dustin Dehez, Hristiana Grozdanova, Francisco Galamas, Dominik P. Jankowski, Gonca Noyan, Jelena Petrovic and Timothy Stafford Over the past six weeks, a group of young leaders from all over the world has been actively involved in discussing the future of transatlantic relations through […]
[Mackie Sall, BBC Africa] It has been a few days since the dust cleared in Senegal. The recent presidential election was quite remarkable. After a first ballot could not establish a majority candidate the two finalists, sitting President Abdoulaye Wade (who ran for another term despite constitutional prohibitions against doing so) and former Wade protege […]
Investors will be interested in purchasing Bolivian government bonds when they are issued, if for nothing more than diversification purposes. The planet is awash in liquidity. Furthermore, developed market fiscal crises (read: in Europe and the U.S.), coupled with high commodity prices and huge concentrations in bellwether emerging markets such as Brazil and Mexico, are […]
The recent FPA conference, Africa Emerging (see this link), touched on a number of important themes related to Africa’s improving economic performance and the formidable challenges that lie ahead. One theme echoed louder than all the rest — the necessity for investment in human capital — in education and health care. As in most discussions about […]
As the geopolitics and technology of natural gas continue to change rapidly—with such developments as shale gas production and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) transport—the European community would do well to consider the strategic value of supply diversification. Crises in 2006 and 2009, both the result of intentional supply decreases from Russia, highlight the risks of overdependence on any one source for this vital commodity. But overreliance on Russia is not the only possible source of distress for the European market: from environmental concerns to instability in other potential supplier nations, every natural gas supply comes with its own set of challenges and risks. For this reason, an “all sources” strategy for natural gas production (one that spreads the risk and minimizes the impact of a reduction in any one source of supply) should characterize the European approach in years to come.
The following is a guest post by Ansis Spridzāns and Valentina Gevorgyan. In 2008, Latvia, as a result of deteriorating economic conditions in the world and an international financial crisis that led to the collapse of the world’s second largest bank, faced an economic crisis. Although the reasons and the scale of events were different, we […]
Andrew J. Shapiro, the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, has been making the rounds lately, speaking on the subject of pirates (not the intellectual-property kind, the old-fashioned kind). Addressing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce one week and the Center for American Progress the next, he adjusts his emphasis just a tad (a […]
President Obama’s recent open-mic gaffe while speaking with Russian President Medvedev prompted Republican Presidential contender Mitt Romney to declare, “It is always Russia, typically with China alongside, and so in terms of a geopolitical foe, a nation that’s on the Security Council, that has the heft of the Security Council, and is of course a […]
Despite many promises from the international community that the “Friends of Yemen” would help this poorest country of the Arabic Peninsula to jump start its battered economy after having endured a catastrophic years in terms of the meltdown of its financial institutions, its industry sector, its currency and its dire humanitarian situation. With a chronic […]
Wide speculations about the possibility of military confrontation with Iran and Israel’s military intentions seem to be the order of the day. The debate on Iran has now found its way from mainstream media to leading academic institutions. Earlier this week at the University of Toronto a panel of experts discussed the increasing tensions between […]
The world has found a way to strike back at Syrian President Bashar Assad: they have slapped travel sanctions on his London-born wife, Asma, to thwart her addiction to luxury shopping. One year into Assad’s churning assault against various opposition groups, stopping his wife from shoping in Europe is one of the few things the […]
Last Friday, March 23rd, I attended a special event titled “Water: The Global Challenge For Our Future” at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs on the occasion of World Water Day 2012, held annually on March 22nd. This year’s theme intended to draw attention to the relationship between water and food security. As the Food and […]
The rising tensions over the Iranian nuclear program presents an opportunity to review just what the program’s status is. There has been controversy over assessments of the program for years, with the U.S. intelligence community arguing (since the National Intelligence Estimate published in late 2007) that Iran worked on developing a nuclear weapon prior to […]
In 2011 Jack Layton, the left of center leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, changed the political landscape of Canada by campaigning for his party’s position as the third party in the Canadian political system. The New Democrats, known as the NDP, always was Canada’s third party behind the Conservative Party and Canada’s natural governing […]