India has launched an ambitious military expansion, but some question whether the sum of its parts adds up to a strategic whole.
India has launched an ambitious military expansion, but some question whether the sum of its parts adds up to a strategic whole.
Low-resource countries often carry the heaviest disease burden and maintain the smallest health workforce. The deadly cholera epidemic in Haiti is only the most recent example of how the time for ‘task shifting’ has arrived. By Allyn Gaestel for ISN Insights http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/ISN-Insights/Detail?lng=en&ots627=fce62fe0-528d-4884-9cdf-283c282cf0b2&id=124470&contextid734=124470&contextid735=124469&tabid=124469
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has announced a new project focused on strengthening U.S. global engagement and strategic communications (called “Strengthening America’s Global Engagement – SAGE). Here is what they say about the project: In July 2010, the MacArthur Foundation joined with the Wilson Center to host a dinner that included key Obama […]
I recently published a piece for PlusNews about the Tuberculosis epidemic that has long been endemic in Haiti and could worsen with the living situations of over a million Haitians still living in tents ten months after the January 12 earthquake. As with most issues in post-quake Haiti, the earthquake merely brought to light and […]
Sex workers internationally face incredible stigma, dehumanization and criminalization from politicians, health workers, police officers, the media and the general population. In fact most people seem uncomfortable with the idea of sex work, and struggle to understand how anyone could “do such a thing”. The language regularly used to describe sex work manifests this disregard […]
The topic of Lebanese arms is in the news once again. Externally, the United States has put on hold $100 million in military aid for fear that the weapons may fall into the hands of Hizballah. Internally, Prime Minister Hariri is talking up elevated arms control in the wake of a sectarian altercation in Beirut […]
The IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Director, Mr. Masood Ahmed, offered this public statement yesterday: “The floods which have hit Pakistan in recent weeks and brought suffering to millions of people will also pose a massive economic challenge to the people and government of Pakistan. The scale of the tragedy means that the country’s […]
Looks like it is oil spill season. Even as the news and uproar about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is still fresh, there has been a fresh spill, albeit smaller, off the coast of Mumbai. This one was caused when two Panamanian flagged cargo ships – MSC Chitra and MV Khalijia-111 – […]
There is one piece of breaking news this afternoon that sent both my Twitter and Facebook feeds into a frenzy: Federal Judge Vaughn Walker has ruled that Proposition 8, the bill that amended the Californian Constitution to prohibit granting marriage licenses to same sex couples, is unconstitutional. From the ruling: “Proposition 8 fails […]
President Obama did as good a job as was possible in his short speech to the country on Gen. McChrystal’s dismissal and the placement of Gen. Petraeus as the leader of all foreign military forces in Afghanistan. In his talk, President Obama emphasized that this was a change in military leadership and not one of […]
Mari Carmen Aponte (shown above right) has been down this road before. This time it does not look like she is backing down—yet. Senate Republicans (including Senator Jim DeMint, above left) are blocking approval of the Obama administration’s nomination of Aponte to the post of Ambassador to El Salvador, claiming concern over her past ties […]
*At the White House, President Barack Obama pardoned a turkey named Courage. Yes, even the pardoned turkeys must be inspiring. “Thanks to the interventions of Malia and Sasha—because I was planning to eat this sucker—Courage will also be spared this terrible and delicious fate,” Obama said, regaining his coolness points. *The day after Thanksgiving marks […]
Believe me, I’d be mad like hell if Americans bombed Pakistan and killed innocent civilians. Believe me, America is not targeting Pakistan. The Taliban are attacking Pakistan. Today, Pakistan is facing a very tough challenge of defeating home grown insurgency funded and fueled by the money that is directly coming from the Middle East. And […]
با دوستان هایی از این دشمنان ما نیاز ندارد. The meeting between Pakistan’s ‘super anchors’ and Hillary Clinton was, well, disastrous, not for America or Clinton, but for these talk show hosts. Hillary was calm, controlled, measured and she answered all sorts of questions thoroughly and intelligently. And unlike most of the panel, she was […]
At almost the same time that the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report lamenting the many barriers that women face to accessing health care, the United States Congress threw up another such barrier in the form of the Stupak amendment blocking access to abortion. Fittingly, the WHO report noted that “The obstacles that stand […]