Amid all the doom and gloom that the media and some of the major environmental groups promulgated before, during and after Copenhagen last December, some voices pointed out that there were important breakthroughs. One important group, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), noted that “… for the first time, all major economies, including China, India, […]
Today I spent my Fourth of July gathered with some dear family and a few close friends boiling in the heat of our nation’s capital. It was probably the most crowed place I have ever been in my entire life and yet it seemed some how relaxed and uncrowded. While I am not sure I would brave […]
Repression, certainly. The news coming out of Rwanda doesn’t look good. As the country prepares for elections in August (which current president Kagame is almost certain to win) dissident voices and opposition party leaders are feeling the heat. Last week editor-journalist Jean-Léonard Rugambage was shot dead outside his house. He worked for Umuvugizi, a banned […]
The lead-up to the G8 and G20 meetings in Toronto week before last witnessed a slew of commentary, most detailing the demise of the G8 and the rise of its larger sibling, the G20. While this is not a new theme, it is a consistent one (Jeff Sachs asked the question on everyone’s mind in […]
Check out the pocket card on investing in women from the Women Deliver conference, which advocates for a $12 billion increase in funding for family planning and maternal and newborn care, projected to increase social and economic productivity by $15 billion, currently lost to maternal and newborn death.
President Obama announced a major commitment to solar production this morning: loan guarantees to large solar power facilities – a 280 MW concentrated solar power plant (CSP) and two photovoltaic (PV) factories, with a combined output of 840 MW annually. See this fact sheet from the White House. The CSP plant will be built by […]
Last year, in June, a study was released in South Africa which found that more than one in four men in South Africa admitted to raping a woman. During the World Cup, 30,000 women have been given condoms, or tampon-like devices, which have “teeth”, or hooks inside that attach to a man’s penis during penetration. Once […]
For those wanting better insight into the inner-workings of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, I highly recommend the lengthy and meaty transcript from the Council on Foreign Relations conversation with Michael Kazatchkine (the Global Fund’s Executive Director) earlier this month. Of note: …everything that we would fund is evidence-based, so all of […]
I noted in my post earlier this week, The British Are Coming, that in spite of a stubborn, wasteful sticking to its guns on nuclear power and CCS, the new coalition government headed by the Conservatives has got an awful lot to recommend it – certainly on paper. Well, David Cameron has lived up to […]
I’m back. Just in time to go away again for the holiday weekend. Take a moment to re-read the Declaration of Independence, why don’t you? All men are created equal. They are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Good stuff. But even better is Jeremy Bentham’s […]
In October 2008 I attended the International Anti-Corruption Conference. On a bus from the hotel to a reception, I sat next to someone named Julian Assange. At the time, I did not know who he was. He told me he worked for a group called Wikileaks, which was not a wiki but rather a website […]
Much needed relief from eurocratic Brussels was provided over the weekend by the folks at Festival Couleur Cafe. Founded in 1990 to highlight music from Africa and the Caribbean against the diverse background of Brussels, the promoters offer the somewhat confusing description of their carnival as it exists today: ” Couleur Café can no longer be rightfully […]
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