The Charms of Russia’s Wild East, Without the Grunt-Work
November 8, 2011 2 min. read

Russia. It’s not all doom and gloom (we’re not Greece, you know!). Sure, in their latest dispatches from Vladivostok and Lake Baikal, the BBC’s Reggie Nadelson and the Atlantic’s Nicholas Schmidle didn’t ask the hard questions. Like, where’s all that money earmarked for preparing for the APEC Summit really going? Or, what about the Baikal […]

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Haiti: Former President Carter in Haiti to Help Eradicate Filariasis by 2020
November 8, 2011 3 min. read

Accompanied by wife Rosalynn, US Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten and Haiti’s Public Health Minister Florence Duperval Guillaune, Former US President Jimmy Carter launched National Initiative to Eliminate Filariasis on Sunday Nov. 7, 2011, a massive $1.5 million medication distribution campaign to help eradicate Lymphatic Filariasis in Haiti. Also known as elephantiasis, lymphatic Filariasis infected […]

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Regional Relations Matter
November 7, 2011 2 min. read

Almost immediately following the release of Gilad Shalit rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza resumed.  Over the last couple of weeks, it has begun to feel like a major scuffle between Israel, Hamas, and the Islamic Jihad is on the horizon.  Sunday night at the Jewish General Assembly in Denver, Colorado, I had the opportunity […]

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President Obama and Norwegian Prime Minister Stoltenberg meet in DC
November 7, 2011 5 min. read

On October 20, President Barack Obama and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg met at the White House in Washington, D.C. They discussed issues such as Norway’s involvement in the campaigns in Libya and Afghanistan, and the domestic terrorist attacks in July. One other issue they also discussed was the High North. In their joint remarks […]

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Yemen: Where Journalism Rhymes with Danger
November 5, 2011 4 min. read

As in other countries swept up by the “Arab Spring” movement which was initially born in Tunisia following the immolation of Mohamed Bou’azizi, a simple fruit seller driven to despair by the repressive and corrupt Tunisian regime; the Media has been playing an important role in the coverage of Yemen’s very own uprising. Used by […]

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Anti-Iranian Hate Poster Provokes Response from Iranian-American Community
November 4, 2011 2 min. read

The following is a statement by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) in Washington D.C. Washington, DC – NIAC deplores the racist and violent depiction of what is supposed to be a group of cowboys donning “Iranians Suck” t-shirts while lynching an Iranian on a poster at a restaurant in Katy, Texas. In response to […]

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Haiti: Legislator’s Controversial Arrest Sparked Human Rights Abuse Debate
November 4, 2011 5 min. read

The apprehension and brief detention of a sitting legislator last Thursday was a prelude to looming political paralysis that also served as a catalyst for change, engaging citizens in substantive debates about institutional corruption decaying Haiti’s political and judicial systems. The national consciousness came to life after government Commissioner Felix Leger ordered the national police […]

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An International Seat, Frozen Assets and a Million Dollar Bounty
November 4, 2011 4 min. read

After many long and tense months (years? decades?) the “situation” from the UN is starting to “resolve” itself. The US threatened a veto should they not be able to find the votes to keep the Palestinians from passing their resolution in the Security Council aimed at fully recognized statehood in the UN. The Palestinians went […]

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Cuba’s New Rules Governing the Purchase of Private Property
November 4, 2011 3 min. read

This week Raul Castro’s government took to expanding on its opening of the Cuban economy. After September’s announcement allowing Cubans to freely sell and purchase automobiles for the first time legally since the Cuban Revolution, today it was announced that Cubans could now sell and purchase private property without restrictions or licensing from the government. […]

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A New Manufacturing Investment Calculus
November 3, 2011 2 min. read

In my last post I discussed why multinational investment has started to split between China and other destinations, including Mexico, in recent years. But wages are a shrinking fraction of overall production cost—across many manufacturing sectors wages are a tenth to a quarter of overall production costs. Why? Automation makes wages less of an issue, […]

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The Alaskan Bowhead Whale Hunt
November 3, 2011 2 min. read

  Last month, the New York Times published an article illustrating the start of the traditional whale hunting season in Barrow, Alaska. The hunt is allowed despite an international moratorium on whale hunting because it is carried out for subsistence purposes. Indeed, the whale hunters, after killing a massive bowhead whale, distributed the muktuk (whale meat) […]

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Russia: Still Number One
November 3, 2011 2 min. read

After a week of Oligarch wars, Medvedev-Luzhkov sniping, spy-plagiarism and a Victor Bout guilty verdict, it’s good to know we can still lead the world, even if it is in the corruption stakes. It’s unclear how much the Kremlin paid Transparency International to take China’s crown (or whether it was more or less than the […]

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