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Did the US get away clean? Almost. As close to it, maybe, as Fate allows. For the past few days, another story, a sidebar to the bigger report, has been gaining steam: one of the Stealth Blackhawks used to invade the bin Laden compound crashed as a result of a ‘hard landing.’ An accident. No matter. It turns out that the Stealth Helicopters used to transport the Navy SEALs are “never-before-seen,” state-of-the-art military technology, composed of carbon fibers that resist standard detection by the enemy. Cutting edge, top-secret, and not available to the world.

Today 14 May is World Fair Trade Day, this years theme is “TRADE FOR PEOPLE – Fair Trade your world”. The theme encompasses the strong belief in the need to put people and the environment at the heart of trade and consumption, Trade for people means trade for sustainable development of local communities. Fair Trade […]

The game theory modeling world can be academically exclusive, full of rivalry, and especially abstract, but I believe it can provide a very real, significant push in moving from war and instability to peace and hope. To put my argument up front, if America wishes to take a real step towards furthering peace, writ large, it […]

I picked up a piece on the IRIN HIV/AIDS network this week that reported on a “cash for contraception” program that’s currently underway in Kenya.  A US-based organization, Project Prevention, is reportedly offering Kenyan women living with HIV $40 (USD) to get intrauterine devices (IUDs), a long-term contraceptive.  The idea behind the program, whose operations […]

For those keeping count, or simply interested, George Perkovich,  vice president for studies and director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also reviewed former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei’s recent tome.  He comes at it from a slightly different angle than Les Gelb in the NYT, providing excerpts of […]

The 30th anniversary of the death of one of the world’s most politically influential musicians was marked around the world yesterday, highlighted by the opening of an exhibition on the reggae singer’s life at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. Music fans and political observers around the world marked the occasion by reflecting on the […]

The dialogue regarding the need to restrict transfers of Enrichment and Reprocessing (ENR) technologies just gained another participant.  In a just-released report published by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, former State Department (and DOE and UNVIE) non-pro guru Fred McGoldrick focuses on multilateral approaches to accomplishing this […]

Political scientists like to say that the U.S. has a special role as the sole remaining superpower to provide a certain level of public goods to the world at large. The word “goods” in this sense doesn’t relate so much to material goods as it relates to a particular role that only a great power […]

While reading one of my favorite foreign policy blogs, The Compass, I came across this interesting story of Iran’s secret training of militant forces in Latin America, specifically Venezuela, by Fausta Wertz. Wertz apparently came across the story in the Arab Times, which states: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is allegedly training a large number of Kuwaitis, […]

US Court rules the three major credit rating agencies may continue to lie, mislead & cheat investors by assigning false ratings, and helping investment firms to structure transactions that gain ‘AAA’ status. The rating agencies ‘opinions’ are protected under First Amendment protections as free speech. This ruling is a set-back to individual investors & ordinary working Americans everywhere.

While my (and much of the world’s) attention focused on the Middle East in recent weeks, the rest of the world has not stood around idly. In Pakistan, as everyone knows of course, Osama bin Laden was killed sixty kilometers north of Islamabad, where he lived in a fairly luxurious mansion, protected by thirteen-foot-high concrete […]

Now that things are settling down a wee bit over in Japan – at least from what my NRC buddies tell me –  I thought it might be useful to focus in on the radiological situation which will determine which areas will be habitable, and when. In that regard, I’ve come across a couple of […]