I’ve been off the air for a week because we’ve been on vacation: Vienna for a few days, then down to Istria for some beach, mountains and sight seeing. We visited a wonderful Croatian national park today: Risnjak. Meanwhile, here’s just a quick hitter on an item I saw on “green curtains” from the excellent […]
Anna Lappé is the co-founder, along with her mother Frances Lappé, of the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute, an international network for research and popular education about the root causes of hunger and poverty. They have also founded the Small Planet Fund which has raised more than $500,000 for democratic social movements worldwide. Anna’s first book […]
Today’s commentary from the UK Telegraph: SIR – The parlous state of the public finances in Britain provides the perfect opportunity for British taxpayers to end their half-century-long experiment with “development aid”, which has, since its inception, stunted growth and subsidised bad governance in Africa. As Africans, we urge the generous-spirited British to reconsider an […]
Information about the Obama administration’s Global Health Initiative has been notoriously slow for those of us trying to deliver services and prepare for funding shifts. Secretary Clinton’s recent speech at Johns Hopkins’ SAIS sheds some light on the initiative; Nandini Ooman’s excellent analysis is here.
After weeks of criticizing government flood relief efforts, some Pakistani media have begun to cautiously praise Islamabad’s response while warning that if the public’s “urgent” needs are not met, Pakistan will become a “failed state.” English- and Urdu-language media continue to carry varying amounts of praise for U.S. flood relief efforts. Some media have reported allegations that floodwaters were diverted to […]
The future of the world’s first seed bank, maintained by the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry near St. Petersburg, Russia, is threatened by real estate developers looking to build new homes on the prime real estate owned by the Institute. According to the Washington Post, The station was founded in 1924 by Nikolai Vavilov, a […]
The New Republic offers this interesting response to Secretary Clinton’s speech two weeks ago at my school. Compare and contrast. I don’t necessarily agree with the argument that the new Global Health Initiative is doomed to fail, but it’s certainly true that lined up against the budget for military spending, funding for foreign aid looks […]
Following reports that the editor of Indian magazine Naveena Netrikkan has been arrested and tortured, press freedom organizations are calling for his release. Mr. A.S. Mani was reportedly arrested, imprisoned and tortured after reporting on police corruption in the Indian state of Chennai, in Tamil Nadu. Reporters Without Borders issued the transcript of an interview […]
Daniel Drezner theorizes that the U.S.’s covert operation to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program is going well and has led to U.S.-Israeli agreement on eschewing preventive strikes against Iran. I think he’s right. Drezner was responding to the New York Times article published in the wake of Jeffrey Goldberg’s Atlantic article. Goldberg reported an apparent consensus […]
The United Nations has again made a clear and strong denouncement against the use of rape during conflict. The move follows a 2008 denouncement of the practice by the Security Council, who unanimously adopted a resolution which acknowledged the use of rape as ‘a tactic of war and an impediment to peace’. There for the […]
I’m loving this infographic from GOOD, which juxtaposes life expectancy against cost per capita. Check out the zoomable version.
The question of Iran’s nuclear capabilities continues to dominate the news with discussion of potential US or Israeli hard or soft intervention. Meanwhile human rights abuses continue unabated a year after Ahmadinejad’s aggressive repression of opposition voices around the 2009 presidential elections. The case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old widow and mother of two […]
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