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Earlier this week I reported on the devastating cholera epidemic currently racing through the Haitian countryside for The Atlantic. The numbers have now climbed to 442 registered deaths and 6,742 hospitalizations, but my reporting from the Artibonite and Central plateau regions is still timely. “Cholera arrived in Haiti this month with a vengeance. Since the […]

China’s military expenditure in 2010 was officially reported at 162 Billion USD, roughly 30% of the current U.S. defense budget. That budget is expected to grow a whopping 85% to 300 Billion USD by 2018. With China surging ahead to achieve parity with U.S. defense spending, other Asian nations are making significant increasing to their […]

Global Markets were shorting US futures after the results of US national elections, where the Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives, and made gains in the Senate – though Democrats are still in control. The Markets are looking ahead to Fed QE policy and the G-20 meeting in South Korea later this week.

Further to my post immediately below, Californians yesterday showed the world that they, living in the most-populous US state, and the eighth largest economy in the world, care enough about their public health, environment, jobs and the state of the world’s climate system to categorically reject the attempt to roll back their GHG regulations. With […]

Today (Tuesday, November 2) is Election Day in the United States.  While it is an off-year for presidential elections, in my home state of New York the entire state legislature is up for election, governor, attorney general, comptroller, both US Senators (rare as they are usually staggered , but one is running for Hillary Clinton’s […]

I’m now responding somewhat belatedly to the contentious debate that occurred a couple Saturdays ago between Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare and Mary Ellen O’Connell of Notre Dame law school.   In the debate, O’Connell argues that most of the Obama administration’s drone strikes in Pakistan have been unlawful while Wittes argues the opposite.  Wittes posted […]

I’ve been sitting in yesterday afternoon and this morning on some fascinating discussions on the state of play of GHG regulation, how US politics is influencing our work on climate and energy, and what the world is going to look like tomorrow after the mid-term elections here.  (More on that later.) For the moment, the […]

Israel’s Military Intelligence chief testified today before the Knesset, stating that proliferation of the S-300 air defense system could send the Israeli Defense Force’s capabilities “back to their status in the 1970s Suez years,” the Jerusalem Post reports. For the past few years, media and official sources have reported intensified efforts by Iran and Syria […]

With over two-thirds of the world’s hungry found in Asia, the Asia Society and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) formed a task force to examine food security issues in Asia and develop public policy approaches for overcoming hunger. The initial findings of the task force were released last month in a report titled, “Never […]

The United States has found itself in the hot-seat, as human-rights group cast scorn and dismay at the Administration following memorandum issued by President Obama.  The memorandum, related to the 2007-2008 Child Soldiers Prevention Act (which Obama co-sponsored while serving in the Senate), essentially gives a free pass to four countries to continue receiving U.S. […]

The debate about whether or not the United Nations (UN) is biased against Israel is on.  It began when Ben Moscovitch of the FPA Israel blog wrote that the UN is biased against Israel.  I wrote a post arguing the opposite.  And Ben wrote a second post, in which he focused on two things: the […]

An ambitious new Food Security Bill is being drafted in India by the National Advisory Council (NAC).  According to NDTV and The Hindu, about 79,000 crore rupees (just under $17 billion) per year would be spent under the bill to guarantee 75 percent of the Indian population with foodgrains at subsidized prices.  This is up […]