Former Adviser Criticizes Obama Administration on Innovation
August 19, 2011 2 min. read

Nina Federoff, who served as the science and technology adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton until 2010, takes on the Obama administration in an Op-Ed that appeared in The New York Times titles, “Engineering Food for All.” Now a professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University, Federoff writes that while the Obama administration has […]

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Do Insects Have a Future as a Food Source?
August 19, 2011 2 min. read

Depending how you feel about the subject, reading about eating insects can make one as squeamish as actually eating them.  But in an effort to portray the many dimensions of food security, this post addresses two recent articles that discuss the possibility of insects as a food source. Dana Goodyear’s article in The New Yorker, […]

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U.S. Calls on Assad to Step Down
August 18, 2011 3 min. read
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We seem to have entered into a new era of the U.S. role in the world in which we take it upon ourselves to determine which world leaders are fit to serve and invite those unworthy to step down from power. We did this recently with our formerly good friend Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and […]

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IAEA Tidbits: Iran Responds, the Agency Reports on Its Nuclear Activities for 2010
August 16, 2011 3 min. read
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In advance of the upcoming meetings of the IAEA Board of Governors and General Conference, the Agency has issued two documents for its review which are of note: one quite useful, the other likely to provoke more than a few skeptical chuckles. The first is a compilation of the Agency’s ongoing activities to fulfill its […]

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Violence Against Women – Hindering Development Worldwide
August 15, 2011 4 min. read

Last week I was one of around 300 people who attended the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation’s event on “Violence against women – an obstacle to development”. The audience was a mix of parliamentarians, interested members of the public, and activists and members of civil society organizations from the African Great Lakes region – […]

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Do the Right Thing – Shale Gas Edition
August 15, 2011 3 min. read

(Thanks to ProPublica for this graphic.) Thankfully, we are, slowly but certainly, entering a new ballgame on hydraulic fracturing.  Yes, we need the gas trapped in shale – in the medium term.  Long term:  renewables.  But, for now, as we transition to renewables, we’ve got to reduce the carbon footprint of the electric power, transportation […]

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Safer Birth Practices a Must for Timor-Leste
August 14, 2011 5 min. read

In Timor-Leste women have an average of 7 children, yet in a country with birthrates so high, care for maternal and newborn health and safety is lacking. In a country were babies are far from the rarity, health problems for mother and babies are also far from rare.  Due to the lack of adequate prenatal […]

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What’s Made Europe’s Youth So Angry?
August 13, 2011 3 min. read

International media have been rampantly covering the riots that began brewing in England four weeks ago have many now fearing that it is only the beginning of what may soon scourge across Europe.  Youth in London were the first to hit the city streets in anger and now the riots continue to burn as young […]

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“If I Can’t Have You the Way I Want You, I Quit”
August 12, 2011 4 min. read

While the world’s focus was turned on America’s debt fiasco, over the past few weeks the sun has begun to shine from behind the clouds that have hovered over the Korean peninsula for the last year. On July 29, Special Representative for North Korean Policy, Stephen W. Bosworth, briefed the press on the conclusion of […]

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New budget impacting millions of children finds it’s way to the Congressional floor
August 12, 2011 2 min. read

On Wednesday, 10 August 2011, Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, announced the introduction of a budget outline which is aimed to create obs for some two million people. The “Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act,” as the plan has been titled,  if passed will cost $227 […]

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The use of rape warfare fades from headlines, but not the battlefields
August 10, 2011 4 min. read

First it was the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, then Rwanda…Sudan and the Congo, which seemed to bring this unfathomable crime against humanity to light and then most recently it was Libya that brought the use of rape as weapon of war into the headlines. However while the headlines bringing such atrocities to light seem […]

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