A few months ago, few Americans had heard of Pussy Riot, the feminist punk band turned latest icon of the anti-Putin opposition. That’s because the band was known under a different name in the US press: ‘P***y Riot’. In an amusing and predictable turn of events, the same American newspapers have got busy accusing Putin […]
The International AIDS Conference was held last week in Washington, D.C. This was the first time the conference was hosted by an American city in more than 20 years, a nod to President Obama’s 2009 lifting of the ban on people living with HIV from entering the United States. Although there is way too much […]
Just what is Bill Browder really playing at? After the high-flying American investment banker was ousted from Russia in 2005, his lawyer Sergey Magnitsky was killed in police custody four years later. It is said that Magnitsky earned his Steve Biko-like death after the lawyer, investigating the authorities’ dismantling of Browder’s Hermitage hedge fund in […]
The International AIDS Conference is underway this week in Washington, DC. It is a historic occasion as this is the first time in 22 years the conference has taken place in the United States. Protests dominated the last U.S.-based conference in San Francisco in 1990 because a law enacted in 1987 by Republican Senator Jesse Helms […]
The recent tightening of the sanctions regime against the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) as a way to deter the country’s nuclear program continues to be among news headlines. Yet, the US sanction regime against Iran is nothing new and is more than three decades old. In addition to the US sanction regime, there have […]
I went back to Haiti, where I lived last year, to reconnect with a country I love and report on how things were progressing. It was amazing to see some of the public parks open instead of covered with tents. But as I followed people moving out of those camps, and met the people still […]
Family planning is a controversial frontier in the maternal health field. Almost everyone can get behind saving mothers and babies from preventable death–be it from hemorrhages, anemia, preeclampsia, or logistical barriers to doctors and health care. But granting women control of their reproductive choices is as controversial in the developing world as in the US. […]
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 […]
By Majid Rafizadeh The world may have been able to pretend that it was not aware of the genocides taking place in Germany or in Rwanda in the 1990s. However, considering all the communication technology that exists today–international news outlets, social media, YouTube, etc.–in the future we won’t be able to claim that we didn’t […]
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 […]
Syrian refugees sit outside their tents at Reyhanli refugee camp in Hatay province on the Turkish-Syrian border in April. Turkey’s prime minister recently warned that ‘Syria must be aware that in the event of a repetition of border violations, Turkey’s stance will not be the same.’ A fifth of Turkish military’s top brass is under […]
Mariela Castro’s U.S. tour continued this week with a visit to the United Nations, a meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, and a public presentation at the New York Public Library. The East Coast stopover followed a busy agenda in San Francisco last week, and has upset those who say that […]
At the beginning of May, I analyzed the unfolding Chen Guangcheng diplomatic controversy with the valuable input of guest contributor and Atlantic fellow Helen Gao. Today, I look ahead to what Mr. Chen’s future may hold. A little over a month ago, dissident Chen Guangcheng was living under house arrest in a farming village in […]
Last night, 4, 200 boxes of beautiful flowers took flight on a plane from Bogotá, Colombia to Miami, Florida. They arrived early this morning to US shores and represent the first product to enter the US under the Colombia-United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The agreement went into effect today. The flowers are […]
The following is a guest post by By Zeljko Jovanovic, director of Roma Initiatives at the Open Society Foundations. The United States announced earlier this year that it would become an official observer to the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015. This is an international initiative that gathers governments and international and nongovernmental organizations into a […]