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Amidst the protests, loss of life, and apparent lack of progress in the uncoordinated Arab Spring, a glaring issue has arisen in each state affected by the wave of tumult: there is an absence of charismatic leadership in support of the revolution. Use of violence to consolidate the revolution and move beyond the narrative of […]

I don’t generally write on chemical or biological weapons here, but I thought I would do so today to remember a friend, colleague and world-class expert on such topics. Dr. Jonathan B. Tucker, until his very untimely passing at the end of July, was the Biosecurity Education Manager at the Federation of Scientists. Jonathan passed […]

The Whistleblower opens this Friday in selected cities and then to a broader audience on August 12. Here’s my review of the movie, which is worth watching: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephenie-foster/whistleblower-film_b_914881.html

After several weeks of wrangling, the Kenyan government has finally allowed the opening of a new refugee camp near the Somali border on July 25th.  Called Ifo II or the Ifo Extension, the camp has a designed capacity of 40,000 people, has brick houses, clean running water and even school buildings. Just up the road […]

The U.S. Senate passed the debt deal compromise today, ending this period of uncertainty about the fiscal future of America. If you are wondering what the rest of the world is making of this spectacle, this report in The New York Times offers some perspective from Europe and Asia: Political brinkmanship in Washington, pushing the […]

The high price of food has been attributed as one of the underlying causes of unrest that launched the reform movements of the Arab Spring. As the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins and unrest continues in much of the Middle East and North Africa, the price of food may figure into the campaigns for […]

The folks at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) continue their quest to educate with a primer on the global nonproliferation landscape. In a two-part video, Leonard “Sandy” Spector, deputy director of Center, and director of the DC office does a great job of reviewing not only the formal, enduring nonproliferation instruments but […]

They may no longer be on the opposites side of the Cold War, but Russians and Americans still see the world in opposite ways. While even most blue collar Americans believe they are middle class, 45% of Russians consider themselves to be poor, according to Svetlana Kononova’s piece in Russia Profile, which relies on new […]

The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) has  recently released their 2010 annual report, “building a just world for workers”.   The ILRF seeks to achieve just and humane treatment for workers worldwide, from campaigns working to end the use of child labor in cocoa and cotton, to our urgent action efforts aimed at defending the right […]

For followers of Islam, Ramadan is the holy month that marks the revelation of the first verses of the Koran to the Prophet Mohammad and is a time of fasting, contemplation, and charity. As the Arab Spring continues to progress through 2011, many wondered what effect Ramadan would have on the protests. On the one […]

In a June 30th post, I wrote about the long-time coming changes to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) rules on enrichment and reprocessing technologies. Now Mark Hibbs at Carnegie has written a good synopsis of the evolution of the so-called “clean text”, the ultimately agreed-upon changes, and their implications. Hibbs points out, for example, that […]

Well, some think so. The question has generated quite a bit of controversy; here’s my blog post on the topic: http://stepheniefoster.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=319&Itemid=54