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Thomson Reuters Point Carbon is reporting this morning that China is going to launch carbon-trading schemes in six regions before 2013. If all goes well, that will then lead to a nationwide carbon trading platform by 2015. According to the report (which is sitting behind a pay-wall or I would link to it), the areas […]

Here is something timely for you: a CNN special report on chocolate and where it comes from.  It’s very interesting.  Let me know what you think! http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/06/the-dark-side-of-chocolate/?hpt=C2 From CNN’s website: “CNN’s Richard Quest talks to filmmaker U. Roberto Romano, whose documentary “The Dark Side of Chocolate” investigates child labor and cocoa fields in the Ivory […]

After yesterday’s 7.1 magnitude aftershock in Japan I thought it might be good to check in and see how U.S. aid efforts were progressing. According to this report in the Washington Post, the U.S. continues to assist Japan with the search for victims of the earthquakes and tsunami: About 22,000 Japanese troops, along with 110 […]

Last month the RFK Center for Justice & Human Rights and the California International Law Center at UC Davis School of Law released a new report on the conflict in Sudan.  The report analyzes the key transitional justice issues that Darfuris will be faced with once the conflict and violence ends. On March 23, the […]

One of the many hats I wear is that of co-founder of an informal group of arms control and non-pro types, generously funded by the AAAS, who meet periodically to hear from experts in the field about topics of interest to the community.  On the heels of a speech made by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon […]

A funky little site called “Motherboard” recently posted an interview with a guy named John Coster-Mullen. Apparently, Mr. Coster-Mullen, a former truck driver with no college education taught himself how to reverse-engineer the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With jaw-dropping accuracy. So much so that Dr. Robert Norris, the highly regarded nuclear weapons […]

Globalization has had a profound effect on the world over the course of the past three decades. We are experiencing a technological revolution; it’s far from over.  Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina began saying in 2004 that we were “at the end of the beginning” of the information age and that the last 25 years […]

As I write this blog, if Congress cannot agree on a budget in a few hours the U.S. government will be forced to shutdown.  Thought I’d weigh in on what this will mean to the 1.6 men and woman currently serving on active duty.  As someone who was on active duty in the military the […]

I have written on a number of occasions here about the Alberta tar sands.  Like many environmentalists, I find the idea of ripping tar out of the ground with excavators the size of aircraft carriers – or sucking it up after spending months softening it with injected steam – repellent.  The greenhouse gas implications are […]

Since the the unrest and protests in Moldova and Iran in 2009, everyone’s been talking about a “Twitter Revolution.”  Breathless media reports have cited Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms as the great democratizers of the 21st Century.  After the earthquake in Haiti in January 2010, the Red Cross raised $24 million in five […]

“There are more than 190 countries in the world, and virtually all of them enslave children, women and men within, or across, their borders.” * Last night I had the honor to attend a screening at Georgetown University in Washington DC of the film, Not My Life,  which is to be released in June 2011, […]

Eric Holder’s announcement earlier this week that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and several other 9/11 plotters will be tried in military tribunals represents another step in Obama’s ‘close Guantanamo’ saga. The saga began in Obama’s first week as president, when he signed the infamous Close Guantanamo executive order (you can read the executive order here).  […]