A distinct sense of déjà vu has gripped the Korean peninsula, as Pyongyang now threatens to conduct a nuclear test in the forthcoming weeks, smarting from the embarrassment of its failed satellite launch to mark Kim Il-sung’s birthday in mid-April. The current sequence of events is almost a carbon copy of those that led up […]
This week, I discuss the U.S. domestic reaction to the Chen Guangcheng case. In this post, I also have the pleasure of featuring guest analysis by Atlantic fellow Helen Gao, an emerging voice on U.S.-China relations (see Gao’s story archive here). Last week, I wrote about new polling on Americans’ foreign policy views; next week, […]
Here’s a look at how the Arctic has been melting. (Click on the image to go to NASA for a full explanation of what you’re seeing here.) What we’re seeing all over the world is an accelerating rate of the thawing of permafrost, and the melting of sea ice and glaciers. I’ve written about this […]
In my first article I wrote about the historic election in Myanmar in which the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, gained seats in parliament for the first time ever. Last week NLD’s elected members took their oaths of office to officially begin serving in parliament (though […]
The European Nabucco pipeline project was first discussed in 2002 as a means of bringing the energy riches from the Caspian Sea Basin region and possibly the Middle East to the heart of Europe via a new southern corridor (via Turkey) that would bypass Russia. The opera this project was named after tells the biblical […]
Last week, I wrote about new findings on the precarious well-being of adolescents worldwide. The studies in The Lancet and UNICEF’s “report card” were released in advance of last week’s United Nations Committee on Population and Development (CPD) session, which focused on adolescents this year. On Friday, the CPD adopted a resolution affirming the sexual and […]
After much delay and intense global controversy, Britain’s Nature magazine has published online the first of two papers describing how the bird flu virus could be modified to be more transmissible from mammal to mammal through the air. The paper, “Experimental adaptation of an influenza H5 HA confers respiratory droplet transmission to a reassortant H5 […]
For the first time since 1970, not a single electron on the Japanese power grid comes from fission reactors. On Saturday, May 5, 2012, engineers began inserting control rods to bring the fission process to an end at the third and final Tomari reactor. Until last year’s earthquake, tsunami and reactor meltdown, Japan got 30% […]
In Part I of this blog I set the scene for the challenges ahead as societies continue to travel along the demographic highway. In this second installment I look at the novel solutions trying to add color to a greying democracy. In a letter to the The Economist in January 2011, Reiko Aoki, Director of […]
On April 20th, the Global Health Council created shockwaves in the global health community by announcing that it will close its doors in “the coming months”. This was only 1 week after announcing the cancellation of its flagship conference. As I read the reports, I kept asking myself, is this yet another casualty of recent funding […]
The US-South Africa bilateral relationship over the past eighteen months has been a diplomatic minefield. Issues include everything from military equipment and nuclear energy/weapons to oil, communication companies and the global north versus the global south. The most recent, and the most serious issue regarding US-SA relations is Iran. According to a press release sent […]
“Starvation is a brutal but little-discussed reality in India” is the summary offered to describe the impetus behind the six-part series from The Wall Street Journal’s India Real Time blog, called “Starving in India.” The series, based on research conducted by journalist Ashwin Parulkar and a colleague from the Centre for Equity Studies, profiles cases […]
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