When Nazi troops occupied Prague in March 1939, they destroyed the city’s tribute to former United States President Woodrow Wilson. Erected in 1928, the statue commemorated U.S. support and President Wilson’s leadership in shaping the first free Czechoslovakia. After WWII, a plaque served as a placeholder in the statue’s former location until a new one […]
An article in yesterday’s New York Times caught my attention. It concerns the U.S. budget for foreign aid programs and long-time readers will know this is a subject we discuss here from time to time. Most recently I mentioned it in a blog post in August in which I noted public misconceptions about the size […]
Back when the U.S.-India nuke deal was being sussed out, a lot was made of the impact the deal would have on India’s sparse stock of uranium. Specifically, that the U.S.-India 123 agreement would help India – in “Hill Approps-speak” – plus-up their reserve by enabling them to 1) get LEU from the U.S. to […]
On September 30th, Mr. Rasmussen, NATO Secretary General, gave a talk underlining the themes that will be addressed in the Chicago Summit in May 2012. Mr. Rasmussen is facing a considerable challenge on top of the Afghan mission, namely the financial crisis. The crisis is lasting longer than initially thought and forcing members of the […]
Last month, UNICEF announced that the child mortality rate has dropped substantially. The new estimates are published in the 2011 report Levels & Trends in Child Mortality, issued by the UN Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (IGME), which is led by UNICEF and the WHO with participation from the World Bank and the UN […]
October is TransFair USA’s Fair Trade Month, and the 2011 theme is “Every Purchase Matters.” The goal behind this year’s theme is to illustrate how individuals can get involved with fair trade and what impact that can have on farmers and laborers across the globe. The month of October is dedicated to increasing consumer awareness of what fair […]
While perusing the blogosphere and news updates for items to highlight, I came across an interesting little nugget at The Atlantic entitled “Weapons-Grade Confusion: The Danger of Misreading Our Nuclear Adversaries”. The title intrigued me, so I dug further. Patrick Disney (no relation, I don’t think), an M.A. candidate at Yale, authored the piece which […]
As a follow-up to the recent post, Bring an end to cyber bullying, it is appropriate to share the story of one mother’s plea to see that anti-gay bullying is denounced by Congress. Tammy Aaberg is the mother of a gay high school student from Minnesota who committed suicide after being harassed and bullied by […]
Feeding America created an interactive map of food insecurity in the United States in order to assist with its food aid efforts at the local community level. The Mapping the Meal Gap project also serves the general public with a useful illustration of hunger statistics by state and county, including: a piechart of the food […]
The UN High-Level Meeting (HLM) on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) was held last week in New York and resulted in the adoption of a Political Declaration (PDF here). As I feared a few weeks ago, the declaration is weak and does not set hard goals or targets to curb the NCD epidemic, which caused two-thirds of […]
Next month (October 23rd) the people of Tunisia will vote to elect a Constituent Assembly, with the primary task of drafting a new constitution! The National Constituent Assembly (NCA) will be composed of 218 members, and will have to draft a new constitution for Tunisia within a year. Furthermore, the NCS will also elect from […]
The Obama Administration checked another high profile terror suspect off its’ list today. A senior Administration official reports that a U.S. drone strike in Yemen killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. born cleric that allegely sought to inspire “lone – wolf” jihadists in the Western world. Security officials argue that Al-Awlaki was the inspiration behind the […]
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